From Way, Way Back in Your Reading Life

[Extollager]

Hey--remember, everyone, this topic is "From Way, Way Back in YOUR Reading Life"--not "From Way, Way Back in Extollager's Reading Life" alone. So how about it?

But anyway....

I've just began a rereading, after nearly 40 years, of a classic of medieval mysticism, The Fire of Love by Richard Rolle (in Wolters's version for Penguin Classics). He's sometimes called "Richard Rolle of Hampole," although, so far as I know, there isn't any other Richard Rolle of note. Aside from other considerations, I thought I'd reread it because I suspect Arthur Machen's "Mr. Hampole" in two late mystical stories, The Green Round (1933) and a favorite of mine, "N" (1936), is an allusion to Rolle. There was a small flurry of publication of works by Rolle and of writing about Rolle in the 1920s, and he's mentioned in the Mysticism (1911 and subsequent editions) of Evelyn Underhill, with whom Machen may have been personally acquainted--so the chronology is no problem.

Chronology of Machen's writings:

Chronological Bibliography: Arthur Machen

Rolle's Fire:

Fire of Love - Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Underhill's Mysticism:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/underhill/mysticism.pdf

I'm looking forward to getting into a study of the evolution of Machen's thought:

Open Access Dissertation - ProQuest

I want to get my hands on this, by the way:

Welsh Mythology and Folklore in Popular Culture

 

[soulsinging]

Just started Dragon Wing by Margaret Wei's and Tracy Hickman. It's book one of their 7 book Death Gate cycle. This blew me away in high school and has a pretty compelling mystery at its heart, but it was written in that 80s D&D cheese era that produced Shanara, Eddings, and, of course, the Dragonlance Chronicles. Those can be a mixed bag with 30 years' hindsight, so we'll see!

 

[Paul_C]

My most recent re-read that I hadn't read for years was Azimov's Caves Of Steel, I enjoyed it but I was very aware that it felt a lot different reading it at age 52 instead of 12.

 

[svalbard]

Just started Dragon Wing by Margaret Wei's and Tracy Hickman. It's book one of their 7 book Death Gate cycle. This blew me away in high school and has a pretty compelling mystery at its heart, but it was written in that 80s D&D cheese era that produced Shanara, Eddings, and, of course, the Dragonlance Chronicles. Those can be a mixed bag with 30 years' hindsight, so we'll see!

Happy memories and ones I do not want to disrupt by a reread. Hopefully it holds up for you.

 

[nixie]

Been looking through some old threads and realised it is 10 years since I finished Scott R Bakker's Prince of Nothing series. I'm thinking it is a relatively new series but it was completed a decade ago. I still have a very strong dislike for Kelhus, well written character with no regard for anyone.

 

[Theophania Elliott]

There are a few books I read as a kid that I still reread every now and then.

Pretty much anything by Tamora Pierce, and Margaret Mahy's The Changeover are top picks. The latter is convincingly creepy, and with a teen romance that is actually quite accurate (or what I imagine would have been accurate, had I had a teen romance). As in, a bit awkward and experimental, and involving having to avoid being caught by your parents.

 

[Extollager]

By my own criteria, this book doesn't really qualify for discussion here. But: in 1975 I read Arthur Machen's Hieroglyphics, which stirred in me a desire to read Dickens's Pickwick Papers. In 2004 I started Pickwick, but didn't get far. In 2011 I started over, but eventually dropped it. In 2013 I revived it but didn't stick with it. Yesterday I picked it up again and at last it seems to be taking hold.

Dickens is one of my favorite authors. The only one of his novels other than this one that I haven't read is Dombey and Son, and several of his novels I've read several times. I'm hoping this time I will complete Pickwick and I expect I will, at last.

Machen has long been one of my favorite authors. My interest in Dickens was also stirred in the 1970s when I'd see Dickens invoked by people writing about Mervyn Peake, whose Gormenghast books and whose art made such an impression on me. (Peake illustrated Bleak House.)

 

[VKALFIERI]

Not sff related at all, but lately I had some strange cravings to read Dr. Seuss and this book I remember loving as a little tyke, called A Fly Went By.

I wonder if anyone has done a sff version of "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly"? That's essentially what A Fly Went By is a retelling of.

 

[Extollager]

Now rereading Anthony Trollope's The Last Chronicle of Barset, which I first read 27 years ago.

 

[Extollager]

Now rereading Joy Chant's Red Moon and Black Mountain, which I must've read just once before, in about 1971 -- so that is from way, way back in my reading life, all right.

The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series began 48 years ago! Any "charter readers" here? I believe I did buy one of the first releases when it was new, off a rotating wire rack, in 1969. I never tried to collect all of the books in the series. Many of the ones I do have were bought as used copies within a few years or their publication.

I wouldn't say the series was operated on a shoestring budget -- the cover art, at least, doesn't suggest that -- but quite a few of the offerings must have been in the public domain, or the rights must have been held by publishers or authors (or their heirs) who didn't ask much $$ for reprint permission. They did publish a few new things, though. I wonder if anyone here who's read fantasy published since 1974, might suggest things that have been published, or rediscovered, since then, that might have fit nicely in the series.

 

[Extollager]

Does anyone remember this book from 1966?

 

[Extollager]

This is an interlibrary loan copy of the Illya book, which I just picked up. I don't know what happened to my copy, bought, presumably, in 1966 or 1967 when I wasn't yet in my teens, in a drugstore in Coos Bay, Oregon. My copy must have disappeared nearly 50 years ago. But even before my ILL copy arrived, I remembered that the noun "jape" had appeared in the book, and that I didn't know what it meant, and, I suppose, never troubled to look it up. My memory of "jape" is correct, as may be seen here.

Books can leave odd traces in our memories.

 

[Extollager]

This would've been my favorite image from the book, probably, an exciting shot of our heroes in cation & showing the fascinating UNCLE gun. I didn't develop an interest in guns, but one might have thought that I, and other kids captivated by the show, might have done so.

 

[Extollager]

I imagine that the tongue-in-cheek aspect of this THRUSH ID card was pretty much lost on my 11-year-old self.

Thanks to Tess the cat for helping to keep the book open to these selected pages.

A reminder that this thread is intended for everyone's books from way, way back in their reading lives....

 

[thaddeus6th]

I have fond memories of the Man from UNCLE (repeats, I should add, not quite old enough to have seen it the first time round). It was recently being repeated on one of the Freeview channels, maybe 70 or a little lower (not one I watch often, though I did catch a few episodes of Napoleon and Ilya's shenanigans).

 

[Vertigo]

Lord I used to love The Man From UNCLE when I was a kid.

I almost never reread books, hence my very rare appearance on this thread. However I have just started a reread of Banks' Culture books that might well spill over into all his SF books. Beginning with the first, Consider Phlebas, and am loving it!

 

[Vince W]

Lord I used to love The Man From UNCLE when I was a kid.

I almost never reread books, hence my very rare appearance on this thread. However I have just started a reread of Banks' Culture books that might well spill over into all his SF books. Beginning with the first, Consider Phlebas, and am loving it!

I found I enjoyed the Culture even more the second time around. Since you really have a grip on what the Culture is about, you spend less time thinking about the technical details and really get caught up in the story. The Culture is a shock the first time you read it.

As for The Man From UNCLE. I much preferred it to Mission Impossible. I think Amazon/Netflix/Apple should look at that as a series.

 

[Cathbad]

I love the 1984 production of Dune

Ewwwww!!

Then again, I suppose it was because I'd read the novel that I was so disappointedin the movie.

 

[Cathbad]

I have read all of Agatha Christie's and Poe's stuff a least twice. I've reread most of Carolyn Hart's novels.

 

[Vertigo]

I found I enjoyed the Culture even more the second time around. Since you really have a grip on what the Culture is about, you spend less time thinking about the technical details and really get caught up in the story. The Culture is a shock the first time you read it.

I've a feeling that's going to be the case for me. I wasn't really looking forward to Consider Phlebas as it was one of my less favourites first time through. But I'm loving the first third of it so far more so than I remember!