HordHolm
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- May 23, 2020
- Posts
- 1,376
There's a podcast and youtube channel I quite often listen to/watch (The Rest is History), and they asked a question recently which I thought might be interesting here: which three books would you love to re-read again for the first time?
I'll go first...
1. I, Claudius, by Robert Graves. I read it in my early teens, and whilst I was already historically inclined, this one hit the precise spot necessary to give human interest, humour, drama and plausible detail. Yes, it's historical fiction, not straight history, and though I know a lot more now about the period in question and I can see the liberties Graves took, I still regard it as a masterpiece of the genre.
2. Clochemerle, by Gabriel Chevallier. Not well known in the English-speaking world, this is a French satirical novel (and no, I didn't read it in the original. Sadly my French is at the "Ou est la poste?" level). It is set in a 1920s village, in which a wily mayor puts forward a plan to erect a urinal in front of the village church, and follows the chaos that ensues. Again, a book I read in my mid-teens, and one which made me realise that, yes, you can really write that if you want.
3. Flashman at the Charge, by George Macdonald Fraser. I came relatively late to Flashman (I was in my late twenties), when a friend handed it to me and said, simply, "you NEED to read this." This is volume 4 of the series, which is the fake autobiography of a Victorian hero, who is in fact a philandering coward with all the morals of an alley cat (though he is occasionally braver than he knows), and it follows Flashman as a cavalry officer in the Crimean War. This book made me feel dizzy with its brilliant depiction of historical events (Fraser did his homework), surrounding a fictional character. Up there with Graves when it comes to historical fiction.
I'll go first...
1. I, Claudius, by Robert Graves. I read it in my early teens, and whilst I was already historically inclined, this one hit the precise spot necessary to give human interest, humour, drama and plausible detail. Yes, it's historical fiction, not straight history, and though I know a lot more now about the period in question and I can see the liberties Graves took, I still regard it as a masterpiece of the genre.
2. Clochemerle, by Gabriel Chevallier. Not well known in the English-speaking world, this is a French satirical novel (and no, I didn't read it in the original. Sadly my French is at the "Ou est la poste?" level). It is set in a 1920s village, in which a wily mayor puts forward a plan to erect a urinal in front of the village church, and follows the chaos that ensues. Again, a book I read in my mid-teens, and one which made me realise that, yes, you can really write that if you want.
3. Flashman at the Charge, by George Macdonald Fraser. I came relatively late to Flashman (I was in my late twenties), when a friend handed it to me and said, simply, "you NEED to read this." This is volume 4 of the series, which is the fake autobiography of a Victorian hero, who is in fact a philandering coward with all the morals of an alley cat (though he is occasionally braver than he knows), and it follows Flashman as a cavalry officer in the Crimean War. This book made me feel dizzy with its brilliant depiction of historical events (Fraser did his homework), surrounding a fictional character. Up there with Graves when it comes to historical fiction.
Sorry, I was excited by the prospect of memory wiping Pratchett's oeuvre and the pure joy of rereading it all.
I refuse to let even my family have my current copy.
