Rare interview with Madeleine L'Engle. She says of the movie of A Wrinkle in Time to be shown Monday, "I expected it to be bad, and it is."
'Dirty Girls'
We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
I liked the interview with L'Engle. I loved all the wrinkle in time books. I also read "Severed Wasp" by her and really enjoyed it. You know a writer is good when a twenty-something reader fully identifies with a senior citizen character who is looking back on her life, and reflecting on all the painful memories as well as the good.
I love L'Engle. She's (I think) unfairly classified as a children's writer, but a lot of her stuff speaks to people of all ages.
Madeleine L'Engle is one of my top 5 (possibly top 3) favorite authors. I've read almost everything she's written, from children's books to adult fiction to autobiography to devotional works. She blows me away.
I unfortunately read the New Yorker's recent profile of L'Engle and wish I hadn't. I loved and love her writing - though not so much that I am completely uncritical of it. But I have this thing, such that knowing stuff about writers (or any artists) that is unflattering makes enjoying their work forever after difficult. I should really just make a point of knowing NO biographical information about artists whose work I like.
I was already worried about the movie from the description, but I'm going to watch it anyway :)
I knew all about it. Mind you, I didn't believe a word of it
My father is 6'6", and my mother is 5"5". When someone told me about sex when I was a kid, I didn't believe it because my parents wouldn't "fit".
Here's a list of "the greatest literature ever written" put together for Canadian book week. Perhaps they should have named it "the greatest *western* lit. ever written" since most is from North America or Western Europe (with a few exceptions).
Funny story- my book club picked Dr. Zhivago to read this year, I guess trying to balance out the fluffy stuff. We gave ourselves 2 months to read it (instead of the usual 1 mo.). Yeah. We ended up watching the movie.
Oh yeah- regarding "The Talk" I had a friend who's dad told her and her sisters that he and her mom didn't believe in sex before marriage. She was 17 and her sisters were older. They were like, "um, too late".
I've been rereading the Wrinkle in Time books lately, and I'm on the third one now, A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Damn, I forgot how cheesy this one is. Unicorns dancing with the wind? I mean, I'm enjoying it, but there are definitely some cringeworthy moments.
A Swiftly Tilting Planet was my favorite. Cheesy, yes, but also... I dunno, it had something going for it that I liked. It was a long long time ago.
But then, I actually preferred the somewhat less fantastic Madeliene L'Engle books, like the Austins series (and those were crazy cheesy). And I loved how, eventually, I realized that all of her young adult books, including the Wrinkle in Time series, were all connected somehow, through characters that knew each other and other, similar, connections. But that's about all I remember.