Well Judy's book was about 12 year old girls. She was also pretty much the only author in the 70s and 80s to talk about periods and sex in books kids and young teenagers could read. That's why she annoyed so many book burnin' types in America.
What are you reading right now? Page 223
The Carrie's mum kind.
Ha! Yep. Terrifying.
Quote: zooo @ 15th July 2017, 7:56 PMIf you're talking about the Judy Blume post that was very much not an excerpt from her. That was an excerpt from Michael's brain.
Judy Blume's f**king brilliant.
Ha! I see.
I refuse to talk about menstruation. Period.
Have you read that Robert Cormier novel where the boy doesn't jerk off?
It must be hard to wrote quality young adult books - Catcher is the exception - because adolescence is not a very inspiring age. All I did as a teen was produce pus and sperm. I'm joking! Just sperm. This doesn't make for profound literature: Faust signs a contract with the Devil and jerks off with his free hand.
The first 'proper' book I read was Danny the Champion of the World. Awesome. I had a great teacher and she realised the school books were tedious - Wide Range Readers? Hardly - so she'd lend me her son's books. I was 37.
Did anyone else read Jennings? Up there with William IMO.
Quote: Michael Monkhouse @ 16th July 2017, 9:13 AMDid anyone else read Jennings? Up there with William IMO.
I preferred Jennings to William. But of course those stories emanating from Greyfriars School (and the lesser known St Jim's & Rookwood) were far superior with much weightier storylines.
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The Oxford English dictionary. Don't spoil the end for me.
'Small Great Things' - Jodi Piccoult. Brilliant writer. This one shows how it really feels to be black in the US. Don't know if I can take the strain.
Quote: keewik @ 4th August 2017, 10:33 PM'Small Great Things' - Jodi Piccoult. Brilliant writer. This one shows how it really feels to be black in the US.
A fictional book written by a privileged white woman shows how it feels to be black in America? Surely a non-fictional book written by a black person would be better suited?
The Invisible Man but it confuses me when he masturbates. I just don't see where he's coming from.
Extract from 'Micky and Bertie', J D Salinger's great lost 1960's masterpiece:
'Micky opened the fridge and her look looked slowly inside quickly. There were two cartons of skimmed milk, a box of hummus with carrots, five chickpeas, some plain low-fat yogurt, fresh mango and pear juice, water, seltzer, bagged salad, baby spinach, four portions of multicolored lettuce, a slice of turkey, a crab cake sandwich, a kummewlweck roll with ham and horseradish, a Dagwood sandwich, a Scooby snack, some lean roast beef, eight tortillas, a loaf of supermarket bread, precut broccoli, some more carrots, a cauliflower, snow peas, celery, tossed salads, goat's milk cheese, a piece of two percent milk cheese, reduced-fat string cheese, Laughing Cow minis, part-skim shredded cheese, a chopped Cudighi sausage, mozzarella cheese, saucebell peppers, kale, cilantro, parsley, thyme, sage, dill, and rosemary, dates, raisins, dried figs, dried apricots, currants, cranberries, premium almonds, peanuts, pistachios, cashews, bulk nuts, raw cashew butter, almond milk, soy milk, rice milk, cashew milk, hemp milk, rice milk, brown mustard, miso paste, tomato purée, bananas, a bottle of iced milk and lemon tea, beer, red wine, sparkling wine, vin rosé, hash browns, cherry juice cider without the sparkle, chilled hard soda, a barley-based ale substitute with added yeast extract, Johnstone River almonds, Kola nuts, orangeade, lemonade, limeade, Kurrajong nut seeds, Malabar chestnuts, planted karuka nuts, wild karuka nuts, red bopple nuts and a yellow walnut... Ah, Micky. It's Zen. Zen itself.'
The Tommy and Tuppence books by Agatha Christie. The first two were a bit on the flippant side, being among her early output.
I like Agatha Christie but T and T are her weakest IMO (this is English for I'm right).
Don't you think that if you killed someone and Miss Marple was around, you'd kill her too, just to be on the safe side? Kill any other poor sod the minute (s)he gets the slightest inkling who you are, Miss Marple's bound to get there in the end.
When will she finish knitting that jumper?
Quote: DaButt @ 5th August 2017, 1:07 AMA fictional book written by a privileged white woman shows how it feels to be black in America?
Well, it is fiction...
Quote: Billy Bunter @ 16th July 2017, 1:39 PMI preferred Jennings to William. But of course those stories emanating from Greyfriars School (and the lesser known St Jim's & Rookwood) were far superior with much weightier storylines.
I read the first Billy Bunter book and I really didn't like it - padded, unfunny and a tad malicious. There's a very interesting George Orwell article but you probably knew that already (http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/boys/english/e_boys). Give me William or Jennings any day.
The Humans by Matt Haig. Brilliant. Funny and heartbreaking.