The Reading Joy & Delight Thread

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Don't try this at home, kids.-)

For some reason, I'm reminded of this old joke:

Good friends help you bury a body...Great friends bring their own shovel and don't ask any questions...

[Ayleth]

StoryGraph has been delighting me lately! I wasn't able to recover my old GoodReads account (it's been years since I could last be called a constant reader), which motivated me to look into alternatives now that the platform is owned by Amazon.

StoryGraph has been (almost) everything I've been looking for! The recommendations look far more considered, and I adore the various rating metrics and the little reading habit summaries in user profiles. I'd love if it were a little more intuitively social, but you can't win 'em all.

Sent from my SM-G998B using Tapatalk

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Ayleth

StoryGraph has been delighting me lately

Hmm, I may have to look at this. I've never used GoodReads but I do have CSV dumps from my OverDrive history. I can probably massage the data if I knew the format.

[svenlind]

Just read and enjoyed an article from The Guardian where several authors tell about books that were important for ther coming of age.
I especially liked the description of E. Nesbit's The Railway Children. It is available here at MR. I am tempted to read it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by svenlind

Just read and enjoyed an article from The Guardian where several authors tell about books that were important for ther coming of age.
I especially liked the description of E. Nesbit's The Railway Children. It is available here at MR. I am tempted to read it.

The Railway Children is also a movie and it has a sequel (The Railway Children Return).

[Renate]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The Railway Children is also a movie and it has a sequel (The Railway Children Return).

Was that a cheap day return?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The Railway Children is also a movie and it has a sequel (The Railway Children Return).

AFAIK "The Railway Children Return" isn't E. Nesbit and is a typical attempt to cash in on something famous.
The 1970 film, The Railway Children, was directed by Lionel Jeffries and stars Dinah Sheridan, Jenny Agutter (who had earlier featured in the BBC's 1968 dramatisation of the novel). maybe one of Jenny Agutter's best performances. Not a bad film, but the book is better if you like reading.*

I enjoyed many all her books immensely. She did write some good series.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Nesbit#Works
Virtually all her works are available as free ebooks as they all ought to be PD (d. 1924).

I've not read The House of Arden and only got (and enjoyed) many of her books as an adult.

EDIT
* I did enjoy The Railway Children Film (shown on TV), so eventually got the DVD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ra...m)#Development

Incidentally I think the three short stories of Ian Fleming's "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" are better than James Bond. Of course the Child Catcher part was added for the film and probably by Roald Dahl, who worked on the screenplay for a while (may have been sacked).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

AFAIK "The Railway Children Return" isn't E. Nesbit and is a typical attempt to cash in on something famous.
The 1970 film, The Railway Children, was directed by Lionel Jeffries and stars Dinah Sheridan, Jenny Agutter (who had earlier featured in the BBC's 1968 dramatisation of the novel). maybe one of Jenny Agutter's best performances. Not a bad film, but the book is better if you like reading.*

I enjoyed many all her books immensely. She did write some good series.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Nesbit#Works
Virtually all her works are available as free ebooks as they all ought to be PD (d. 1924).

I've not read The House of Arden and only got (and enjoyed) many of her books as an adult.

EDIT
* I did enjoy The Railway Children Film (shown on TV), so eventually got the DVD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ra...m)#Development

Incidentally I think the three short stories of Ian Fleming's "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" are better than James Bond. Of course the Child Catcher part was added for the film and probably by Roald Dahl, who worked on the screenplay for a while (may have been sacked).

Are you sure you have the correct version of The Railway Children movie? Jenny Agutter was in the 2000 version and in the sequel.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Are you sure you have the correct version of The Railway Children movie? Jenny Agutter was in the 2000 version and in the sequel.

Obviously you know little about the original Railway Children film that only lost out on awards due to Kes (also from a famous book) and Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid music. Seen BC & SK, which was written by same author as Princess Bride (book & Screenplay) and I read Kes many years ago, but didn't ever see the movie.

She was the eldest daughter (Bobbie/Roberta) and the mother in the 2000 version (due to being 30 years older!). The sequel is nothing related to any E Nesbit story and set in 1940s rather than 1906.

I can't see the point of the remake or the sequel other than to try and cash in on nostalgia. Cowardly movie production is to do remakes and fake sequels rather than fresh movies from good screenplays.

They picked Jenny Agutter for the nearly pointless 2000 version and its fake sequel purely because she was so famous in the 1968 BBC TV version and the 1970 movie version.

[Martinoptic]

The 1970 version was great. And she was also good in Walkabout the next year.
I wasn’t so keen on the TV series Call the midwife though….

I can recommend Granny Grump’s version of the the railway children here on mobile read.

[JSWolf]

I'll give the 1970 version of The Railway Children a go. I can get that in HD. The 2000 version seems to only be available in SD.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Martinoptic

The 1970 version was great. And she was also good in Walkabout the next year.

only read the book version of Walkabout.
Read the book before and after the 1970 version. Somehow either I missed the 1968 BBC version or forgot it, though it would have been B&W for us. I do like the Bastables series, the Psammead (sand fairy) series and the Enchanted Castle (standalone like the Railway Children).

Originally Posted by Martinoptic

I wasn’t so keen on the TV series Call the midwife though….

Didn't even consider it.

Originally Posted by Martinoptic

I can recommend Granny Grump’s version of the the railway children here on mobile read.

Probably, though jon has he own ideas on formatting, so any PD version except Standard eBooks would suit

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Quoth

only read the book version of Walkabout.
Read the book before and after the 1970 version. Somehow either I missed the 1968 BBC version or forgot it, though it would have been B&W for us. I do like the Bastables series, the Psammead (sand fairy) series and the Enchanted Castle (standalone like the Railway Children).

The Enchanted Castle is my absolute favorite of Nesbit’s books. I also like the Psammead trilogy and there’s a modern fourth book called Five Children on the Western Front which is a worthy addition, much better than that kind of follow-on tends to be.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The Railway Children is also a movie and it has a sequel (The Railway Children Return).

The Railway Children is also the name of a minor alternative band from the mid-'80's. I remember their album Native Place being pretty popular.

[ownedbycats]

The "This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons blah blah blah entirely coincidental" disclaimer always tickles me, especially in books with more fantastical elements.