Warning - long post ahead!!
Deb, its funny that I can see this now wrt Bradley, but as a teenager I really didn't. I had read Stewart, White, and most of Malory before I picked up the Mists of Avalon, but somehow it just sang to me. I loved the portrayal of Morgaine so much. It was really what launched me into getting a degree in religion, MA in religion and lit, and a certificate in Welsh Language and Literature. Mists was oddly the catalyst for all of that. Maybe I just read it at a very impressionable time in my life....
And I have been meaning to thank you for a lovely Saturday evening (at this point you may be wondering what you forgot about your Saturday, since you have never met me!). I was house/dog sitting for a friend and brought along Weaver. It was a perfect evening. I sat in the afternoon sun and started the book, read till the sun went down, ate a nice dinner, then took a bath and finished it! I didn't necessarily intend to read it all the way through, but I got to the point where I was kind of freaked out since we were at my friend's house in the country, and I couldn't put it down till I knew what happened to Will and Betsy. It was the most enjoyable evening I have had in a long time! And it definitely transported me back to the year I studied in Wales and traveled around. Having been to Glastonbury (on a day of wild storm clouds alternating with golden sun) really helped me to place it visually in my mind - but I think I could have done so just from your descriptions. I need to get my pre-order in for the next one!
Catching up on supernatural type YA stuff - I loved "The Girl With the Silver Eyes", now I am thinking I need to track that down and re read it.
Did anyone ever read The Changeover by Margaret Mahy? I loved that one. 'Sensitive' sister realizes her little brother is possessed, through the course of the book she comes into her own as far as powers. I wanted to be in that book so much when I first read it. The cover that is on Amazon is really freaky looking though, I am glad I still have my old copy.
A couple of weird ones that I can't remember the names of now, but for some reason have been surfacing in my thoughts lately:
The first was about a group of kids that were isolated in this weird labyrinth thing. I seem to remember all the walls being white. They were conditioned - I feel like it was a Pavlov type experiment or something. They were forced to eat these synthetic food pellets, they did odd movements when they saw red or green lights. The only reason I remember that is because at the end they somehow escaped, but when they were on the street they saw a traffic light and they all started doing the movement....creeeeepy.
The other one I dimly remember being made into a movie. It was about cloning. I think the clones were called Anna. The woman they were cloned from lived during the holocaust, I think she died then. The clones start off in separate families, but a few of them get to know each other. One of the shared memories they all have is a piece of music the woman used to play on the piano all the time. While I can't remember the name, or even many of the details, for some reason the feeling of that book has stuck with me.
Final question for the hive-mind and then I will finally stop! I am thinking of using The Da Vinci Code in my class next semester (First year seminar class, focusing on how religion is seen and used in modern America in different ways ie film, books, politics). Part of the point of the class is to teach critical reading skills so I thought it would be fun to look at the Da Vinci Code, let them get the feeling that this is all true (since presumably they do not know much about art history, religion etc) and then look at the criticisms of it and talk about why we need to be cynical and criticize things that we read rather than taking them for face value. Has anyone seen any good criticism come out yet? I am looking for something that is not completely based in the Catholic church, but is reasonably academic. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!