My Favourite Books

I thought I'd add some mini-reviews of my favourite books of the moment. They tend to change fairly often, but these are my favourites of 7th July 2002.

The Lord of the Rings

By J R R Tolkien (of course!)

This book has become more popular over the past few years, it was named Book of the Century in a poll a few years back, and, of course, the film version has just started coming out. Its always been pretty popular, though!

The reason I like LOTR so much is the language. Tolkien was a Professor of English at Oxford, I think, either Oxford of Cambridge, certainly, and so he knew about language. The language of LOTR is slightly archaic, in the sense that he wrote using ways of speaking you don't often find in modern novels. I've always liked slightly old-fashioned language, particularly the sort of "high English" to be found in LOTR and a few other books. Some of the poetry in it is excellent, paricularly this one (I don't think its actually one poem, but it should be):

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet
And whither then? I cannot say.

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

I like fantasy books, and so I like the elements of magic and adventure in LOTR, and the characters - who could forget Tom Bombadil or Farmer Maggot? This is my favourite book.

Books by David Eddings

I've read The Belgariad and The Tamuli series, as well as The Redemption of Althalus. David Eddings (or, I should say, he and his wife) is a talented writer. The characters were believable and real - a sign of a good book is that you care what happens to the people in them! Its also quite unusual to find a writer of a great many books whose different books are actually different - too many seem to repeat what happened in their other books in a sort of formula. Eddings doesn't do that.

The Belgariad deals with a boy called Garion, with his Aunt Polgara and his grandfather Belgarath, as they wander through the country with an assorted pack of followers in search of the Orb. I liked the characters in this one! Some of the kings - Rhodar and Anheg in particular were great! Garion himself is very much a real character - he makes mistakes, makes an idiot of himself, occassionally gets irritating, in short, behaves as the typical adolescent he is. There are also a cast of gods who appear every so often, high-up gods and more down-to-earth ones included. The only trouble I ever found with it was that I ended up spending all my money so I could buy one book after another!

The Tamuli is my favourite. I've read a bit of the earlier series, but not much, but I still think the Tamuli is better. It deals with Sparhawk and his queen Ehlana, as they travel to Tamul, a far off country, in order to stop someone who is raising ancient legends. The reason I liked the Tamuli so much is that its political - there is always lots of intrigue going on, explanations of political manouevers and things like that. I find thats quite unusual in a fantasy book, or indeed in any book, for that matter. The characters were great - and it made me laugh a lot, with the little witty comments sometimes made by the characters. There were laughs, but not enough to turn this into a comedy book, its still a serious book. Its possible to see Eddings making use of our own history in it - the Church of Sparhawk looks remarkably like Christianity with its one God, the Styrics, the persecuted minority by this Church, look like Jews in history, things like that. I found that interesting, anyway. It had a nice twist in that the daughter of Sparhawk, Danae, is the secret incarnation of a Goddess, and so much amusement when she pops up to tell the gods this that and the other, and tries to hide her divinity. A most entertaining read :)

The Redemption of Althalus is a recent book, or recently published in the UK, anyway, and is an epic in one book, as I think the blurb says. Its not kidding! It starts off with a thief called Althalus being commissioned to steal a book in a tower, and then getting stuck in there with a cat for quite some time. After he gets out (things having happened in the meantime) he collects followers and goes off on a travel. Its interesting, and its on the favourite books list because its by Eddings, but I need to read it again!

Lark Rise to Candleford

by Flora Thompson

Not a fantasy book this time, but a description of life in the countryside of the South of England in about the 1880-1900 time period, when the old customs were still present. I don't know how well known this book is, but I've always liked it.

Its very gentle - like Cider With Rosie without the sex - just going through various things like country rhymes, the history of the little village she lived in, that sort of thing. Lark Rise to Candleford is actually two books - Lark Rise, and Over to Candleford - the first deals with Laura (the main character) and her childhood, and the second with her apprenticship in the post office of a nearby town. Its an interesting and insightful read you really shouldn't miss. Its also handy in that you can literally open it anywhere and begin reading - its not a very linear book.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

By Robert Tressell

This book is famed as the book which started the Labour (socialist) movement in the UK. Its a fictional story about a group of workmen and their bosses Mr Sweater, and Mr Grinder etc. Among the workmen is a guy called Owen, he's an atheist and a socialist, and much of the book deals with his descriptions of why both are true.

Its highly political, and rather unpleasant toward Christianity, as seen from the perspective of 19th Century Christianity, which used to tell working-men that God wanted them to be inferior and earn less money than people who owned factories and whatnot. Its very definitely worth a read, and, whats more, you can read it online at Project Gutenberg. Its quite long, though!

This list will be added to as time goes by!

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