6 Degrees from a Dickens Christmas to a home in Toyland

It’s #6 degrees time (well its Sunday not Saturday but yesterday was otherwise engaged). Time to link six books in a chain starting with:

Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, surely one of the most often retold stories. Also, Wikipedia tells me, responsible for popularising the phrase Merry Christmas. So, there you go. Merry Christmas.

One year a Pocket Book Club member thought we should celebrate with a Christmas themed book and chose Augusten Burrough’s, You Better Not Cry It’s a bittersweet and graphic book. Sex and Santa. Not many books can boast that.

Speaking of sex, I have not managed to see the movie adaptation of Ian McEwan’s On Chisel Beach.  It did love the book and hope the movie does it justice. Who has seen it? Was it good?

I do think a movie can be as good as the book. I caught the last hour of the Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi this morningI feel like I would die for that book and the movie is a wonder.

I heard Yann speak in Brisbane a few years ago and he is articulate and entertaining. It was perhaps the best author talk I have been too.  Just last week I heard Markus Zusak talk about The Bridge of Clay.  That is one fat book. You could kill someone with that book.

Another fat book I read (listened to) this year was Susanna Clarke’s Jonathon Strange and Mr Norell. It had me totally enthralled. I could not take the earbuds out of my ears.

Does anyone remember Big Ears? He was the father figure of Enid Blyton’s character Noddy as in Noddy goes to Toyland. Enid Blyton was my first favourite author. I was oblivious to the controversy. I read the books and wanted to be in one of her adventures. I wanted to be one of the Famous Five.

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7 thoughts on “6 Degrees from a Dickens Christmas to a home in Toyland

  1. Haha, this is a bit of a hoot Kathryn.

    Yes, I did see On Chesil Beach, and although it had been some time since I’d read the book, I thought it did a reasonable job though I was surprised that my feelings about “culpability” had changed a little. I’m not sure whether that’s because of the angel the film took or because I saw something different in this presentation. I was tempted to read the book again but time got the better of me.

    1. I like to read a book again before I see an adaptation but time is not always my friend. I remember On Chesil Beach as being so much in the head of the characters I can’t imagine it turned into a film. I will catch up with it one day.

    1. Did you like Running with Scissors too? He has such an entertaining way of doing memoir and he is totally outrageous.

      1. Running with Scissors is great! I’ve read quite a lot of his work now, I think he’s brilliant. I was just saying to someone the other day that I always think I’m not that keen on autobiography but then I remember Augusten and think I should read more of it.

        1. That is exactly what I say – I don’t love autobiography – but then I remember Augusten and make an exception

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