Rivka-pretends-she's-well-rounded meme Part I.

[rivka]

You guys know it's going to take me a while to get to all of these, right? Here are the book questions, grouped together.

kate_nepveu: Of the Aubrey-Maturin books you've read so far, which is your favorite and least favorite? Or, if that's too difficult, most memorable/lingering and least?

The Aubrey-Maturin books are so clearly chapters in the same long novel, rather than separate books, that I have great difficulty keeping track of what happens in which book. If I had to choose by whole novels, I think I'd say that Master and Commander might be my favorite. I love the beginning of Jack and Stephen's relationship, and Jack's first experiences of command. Least favorite: the last two books. I think O'Brian started to lose his touch about when to show and when to tell, and also in many ways he was just rewriting earlier bits; did Stephen really need another pair of orphaned small children as proteges?

To a greater extent than favorite/least favorite books, I have favorite/least favorite parts. Some favorite parts: Jack and Stephen meeting and getting to know one another; Jack organizing the merchant ships of the East India Company in their own defense against the French; the end of The Reverse of the Medal<, where Jack is put in the stocks. Least favorite parts: all the interminable bits about various men wooing Diana, whom I can't stand.

Sumana: Are you missing any Cherry Ames books you wish people would send you?

It turns out that there's a sharp drop-off in quality after the first few books. The first four take you through Cherry's training, her efforts to decide between military service and civilian nursing, and her military career. Cherry Ames, Chief Nurse takes place in jungle hospitals on Pacific islands and is quite harrowing. I'm interested in the next one after that, Cherry Ames, Flight Nurse, because it continues the wartime setting, but judging from the poor quality of the later Cherry Ameses I've read, I have no interest in seeking out titles like Cherry Ames, Department Store Nurse.

marydell: What's your all-time favorite book, and why?

I can't do a singular favorite book! Hmm... it's totally cliche to say Pride and Prejudice, isn't it, but Jane Austen's books are ones that I never get sick of rereading, and P&P is my favorite of them. But yeah, total cliche. Jeez. Okay, the other book that comes to mind is Lois McMaster Bujold, either Barrayar or Memory. I'd say that Barrayar stands better on its own. I love the way it examines womanhood and motherhood from so many different angles, through so many different characters, and I love Cordelia. Memory is an even better book in some ways, but it needs the rest of the series to give it full resonance.

moobabe: What's your favorite nonfiction book?

If I had to pick one nonfiction book to have on a desert island, it would be the Norton Anthology of Women's Lives, which is a huge collection of excerpts from women's autobiographies.

ororo: What's the last book you read for your own pleasure? What did you like best about it?

It was Georgette Heyer's Cotillion. No, wait, it was Jennifer Crusie's Fast Women. That's not the best Crusie by any means, but I like that, like all her books, it has strong secondary characters who are important in their own rights - not just as appendages to the protagonists - and because there is much more going on than just the romance. Cotillion is the book I read just before Fast Women. It's my very favorite Heyer. The first time I read it, I misinterpreted the signals and thought the hero was gay. Not in a slash sense - I thought I was supposed to read the hero as gay. Boy, did the ending surprise me.

Comments

Cherry

[hazelchaz]

Have you read the Cherry Aimless/Nancy Clue books?

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

I *love* Austen, but I think Persuasion is my favorite, followed closely by Pride and Prejudice.

I *love* the character of Cordelia. I love the entire Vorkosigan series, but I wish Cordelia had been more featured.

That said, I am really loving The Sharing Knife series, and the Chalion series.

I guess what I'm saying is that I *love* Bujold's books, period. I want *more*!

Bujold

[hazelchaz]

Amen to that.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Yay, P&P is my second-favorite book! The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault is my first favorite.

I'm just starting to read Bujold, and I'm pleased that I have so much goodness ahead of me :)

[selki.livejournal.com]

If you like Mary Renault, I recommend Jo Graham. Very good personal-angle-on-ancient-history. I loved her *Black Ships* (Trojan refugees), and *Hand of Isis* (Charmian, Cleopatra's handmaid) was good too.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think it's a perfectly valid reading that Freddy ("not in the petticoat line") is bi with a strong preference for men but who happens to end up in a monogamous relationship with a woman. You know, a lot like Aral Vorkosigan. And I am also very fond of Cotillion.

[selki.livejournal.com]

I agree with that being a valid reading. There are a few other Heyers where I wondered if various bits had such possible implications.

My favorite part of Cotillion is when Freddy gets so indignant over the Elgin Marbles.

[txobserver.livejournal.com]

"Cherry Ames Flight Nurse" was a favorite of mine as a kid. Of course, I was an Air Force brat living on a military base abroad, with a WWII pilot father.

I like "Cotillion" also, but my favorite has to be "The Grand Sophy". My favorite parts of the Aubrey/Maturin books have to include the part where Aubrey "debauches my sloth" by feeding it rum! Hilarious scene.

In the interest of spreading memes, for those of you who like e-books but don't have a kindle or other e-reader, check out Calibre, which is an open source Itunes for books. I have all my favorite Baen books and Gutenberg Australia mysteries stored in it now, and it is really nice. http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/

[(Anonymous)]

After your post sent me on a Google-wander about Georgette Heyer, I found that "The Black Moth" is online at the UPenn celebration of women writers, which led me to their collection of Newberry Medal winning children books. You might enjoy them:

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/_collections/newbery/newbery.html

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Thanks! In return, allow me to warn you that The Black Moth is really awful.

[txobserver.livejournal.com]

Yup, I really don't care for the subset of Heyers books with mustache-twirling dukes.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

She wrote it when she was 17, and it shows.

[selki.livejournal.com]

I look on it as a kind of prequel to *These Old Shades*, with some characters/named tweaked.

[kate_nepveu]

I am one chapter from the end of book 19, _The Hundred Days_.

I think my least favorite books so far as the flatter, drearier ones, like, umm, anything with extended blockade duty. Though it's true that this book is feeling a bit repetitive. I also have major issues with the way it started (talking around spoilers, here), the content and the method, but you may not.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

And there isn't physically time, between the end of The Yellow Admiral for Stephen to have gone to England and come back.

(Well, not without my invoking the "Padeen is a Sidhe and screws up time" clause.)