Books, Books, Books

Hello, author time for World Book Day tomorrow, 4 writers I love and one including my favourite book of all time, something I must have read more times then I can remember.

F.Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby When I first picked up this book, I didn't get past the second chapter, I didn't like it one bit and funnily enough a friend of mine has had the same trouble. But I'm very glad that I gave it a second chance. The jazz age of America in an Art Deco life, fantastic writing, fantastic characters, especially Gatsby himeself, a typical American gangster, on his home on Long Island hosting these amazing parties, fabulous hospitality 'yet few people could recognise their host'. It's a story of love, lust, irony and loss and has become, undoubtely, my favourite book. Through this book I've read every other Fitzgerald book and biography. It really opens up a whole new world. Books worth reading are: Tender is the Night Beautiful and the Damned This Side of Paradise

Daphne Du Maurier

Born into a world of big houses, an actor of a father Gerald Du Maurier and a childhood spent in Fowey, Cornwall, she began writing at an early age and went on to write around 30 books. She was a fantasist and a brilliant inventor of character. Books worth reading are: Rebecca, The Scapegoat, Jamaica Inn, The House of the Strand and The King's General. Enjoy. Note, she also wrote 'The Birds'

James Thurber

Another American. I have an old penguin book, pub 1959 and the blurb about him is far better then anything I would write " James Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio, where so many awful things happened to him, on 8th December, 1894. He was unable to keep anything on his stomach until he was 8 years old, but grew to 6 feet 1 & a half inches tall and th weigh a hundred and fifty-four pounds. fully dressed for winter. He began to write when he was ten years old and to draw when he was fourteen. He has not worked as a cow-puncher, short-order book, lumberjack, or preliminary prize-fighter. Quick to arouse, he is very hard to queit and people often just go away. Fond of rifle shooting but unable to concentrate, he usually fires the gun off into the air when handing it to the next marksman.....he never listens when anybody else is talking, preferring to keep his mind blank until they get through so he can talk. His favourite book is The Great gatsby. His favourite author is Henry James. He wears excellent clothes very badly and can never find his hat. Two overcoats which he left in the New Yorker office were stolen, or else he left them some place else. He is Sagittarius with the moon in Aries and gets along fine with persons born between the 20th and the 24th of August.' Why can't they write blurbs like that anymore????!!!!!!!

Evelyn Waugh

Oh where to start with Waugh. 'Brideshead Revisited' was my first book I picked up to read through my English A level (and it wasn't even on the list!), the first proper, serious book I ever read at the age of 17. I loved it and equally loved the television series they made of Brideshead with Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons. Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead, educated at Oxford and went onto write such classics as Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, A Handful of Dust and Scoop. But it was Brideshead that made his name and how he is remembered today.

Mmmmm, looking back at these authors, I'm sorry to say, they're all dead. I will include 'living' ones next but that will have to be some other day. Yes, that's the problem, once you've read ALL their backlists, that's it, no more books. I have five Daphne Du Maurier's left and I'm letting them last.

While flipping through London's newspaper, The Evening Standard I found a great website for beer fans and if you are ever visiting the Capital and want a good pint, this site tells you where the best ones are and even gives you a map. Perfect. Though not for me as I don't like beer!

On the road tomorrow, 220 miles of hair rasing roads to cover, M25, M3, A303, M5 to name but a few and FINALLY some decent photographs to show you of my beloved Devon. So advanced warning now, I will probably be too tired to blog tomoorow.

Lots of love and enjoy the books, more soon!

Emy x