(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

I got this from svmadelyn too.

1. What's your favorite book of all time? Why?

"The Game of Kings" by Dorothy Dunnett.

Because it's exciting, suspenseful, funny, smart, full of brilliant allusions and delightful writing, and it has the sexiest and most interesting fictional hero of all time, Francis Crawford of Lymond. Because the history in it is fun and it's excruciatingly original.

I say "The Game of Kings" as if it were unique, and it is, but it's the first of a series of six books about Lymond and they are all wonderful, each in a different way. But I'm not going to fill up my first ten choices with those six books.

I've written web pages on these books - a sort of work in progress. If you want to see it, have a look at The Dunnett Novels


Top ten favorites?

1. The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
3. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
4. The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox
5. Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold.
6. Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman
7. Power of Three by Diana Wynne Jones
8. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
9. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
10. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

I have a list of my 100 favourite books on my web page at The 100 Best Books, if you want to see the other ninety I didn't list here. I have brief commentaries on each if you click on the title.

2. Is there any author who's been so consistently wonderful that you've devoured all of his or her work and actually enjoyed *all or most* of it?

Many. Dorothy Dunnett would be first and foremost, but also in this category would be J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Dickens, John Wynham, Diana Wynne Jones, Sue Grafton, Linda Barnes, Robert B. Parker, Ursula K. LeGuin (whose "Tehanu" almost made the list above), Georgette Heyer, Nora Lofts, Lois McMaster Bujold and Stephen Pinker. To name a few. There are many others.

3. What book do you most often recommend to other people?

I don't generally go around recommending books. I suppose I have been known to recommend Dunnett - it's more that my enthusiam for her books makes people curious. Lately when slash fans ask for a recommendation I say The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox.

4. What book should be turned into a movie?

Again, "only one" would be difficult to pick, but I'd say The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold.

Should they even *do* that? Does it kill the book?

It would only kill the book if the producers, director and actors were inept. I think Peter Jackson has proved that books can be brough to the screen successfully. Two other of my favourite books above have been made into movies - "Jane Eyre" (I am thinking of the version with Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clark) and "Our Mutual Friend" (with Paul McGann).

5. What's your favorite biography? Am I the only one who likes those?

No, I love biographies, especially those of my favourite people. Again it's difficult to choose - I will reluctantly pass over all the excellent bios of Shelley and Byron that I have read and I will choose the last biography I read of Julius Caesar - but I forget the author's name.

Comments

[acampbell.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear, I want to do this!

But not enough time right now!

Great work, though. This was fun to read!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you enjoyed it. It was fun to do, though I wasted some time trying to find that book I'd read on Caesar - or only just the title and author - and I failed. The world is just too full of biographies of Julius Caesar! And that's a good commentary on our historical biographers, in my opinion. They know a good subject.