Please read the PS, but in the meantime: Some of you may remember that my favourite Diana Wynne Jones quote is: "All power corrupts, but we need electricity." It's very true. Some months ago, I wrote the following, intending to use it in a blog: Recently our central...
It's interesting that the guest posts of Stephen Hall and Judith Renton (both of whom to my knowledge read fantasy as adults) chose practical children's adventure stories. I don't want to denigrate the wonderful authors they chose, but maybe in the days when we were growing...
(This is not a review, but it does contain a few spoilers for the film. The spoilers are significant, but are also entirely predictable, which is part of the point.) The film “Avengers: Endgame”, the 22nd in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise/storyline, does not in fact...
I promised to come back to the theme of servants in literature. (The patchiness of my reading will doubtless be very obvious.) This is my investigation on whether a servant can be a hero. Let’s make a list of types. Traditional servants. These, going back (I believe)...
I think Ursula Le Guin was the first author who I noticed wrote both for children and adults. Long before JK Rowling was writing children’s fantasy, and schools of magic, there was the wonderful and prolific Diana Wynne Jones. Her first book, “Wilkins’ Tooth”, was published...