As in life, so in that truer fictional world found in books—some have to toil for a living, others get to do as they please… This week's Five For Friday blog post took in books by #AlanBradley, #ArthurRansome, @Eve_Mc_Donnell (#DiscoverIrishKidsBooks!), #JoseSaramago, & #NoelStreatfeild. The characters keep themselves busy in various ways; I'm busy trying to haul a recalcitrant WIP over the line. It's just having a laugh at this stage🙄
#Books #Reading #Writing

https://bibref.blogspot.com/2023/09/five-for-friday-10-occupations-and.html

#WritingWonders 12/6. MC POV (not): How do you feel about marriage?
A personal story. When I was about 9 I was taken along to a wedding. To stop me dying of boredom during the speeches and dancing my Mum handed me a copy of #SwallowsandAmazons. I don’t remember a single other thing about that wedding but it’s still one of the best I’ve ever attended. #reading #books
And #arthurransome would later give me quite a lot of material in my own nonfiction writing.
#writingCommunity #ThreeKindsofNorth

#WritingWonders 2/6
The intersection of real and fictional landscapes is a subject I’ve written about several times, with reference to authors including #Tolkien and #ArthurRansome. Ransome’s ‘lake country’ is closely based on the real Lake District but with much rearranging and renaming. The lake, for instance, is a hybrid of Windermere and Coniston Water. Lots more at https://ransomeslakedistrict.com if you’re interested.
#Writingcommunity

@sawauthor @bookstodon @SteveClough True, although there were always authors who went beyond the conventions. #ArthurRansome, who actually exchanged letters with Tolkien, had a majority female cast in all his Lake District novels. And they weren’t all there to make the tea either.

I’m pretty sure my fondness for 3rd person limited with multiple POVs shows the early influence of #ArthurRansome, who still strikes me as pretty darn good at it. Especially in his finest books, ‘Winter Holiday’ & ‘Pigeon Post’, which were also my masterclasses in handling a large cast (8 main characters, all given significant roles to play, esp. in PP).
#writingwonders #writingcommuity

What did the second hand bookshop expect if they offer me 20% off already next-to-nothing prices? Some of these front covers bring back so many school memories! I'm still up Kanchenjunga hoping the great aunt clears off soon, but will soon be ready to get in to this lot. Really enjoying re-reading them over 30 years later! #ArthurRansome #SwallowsAndAmazons #iamreading #kidlit

Watching #Wonderland on Sky Arts. Good series on classic children’s literature , and the dark background of many of the stories and their authors.
I don’t think it did full justice to my guy #ArthurRansome but bloody hell, the segment on #Tolkien was powerful.

Really getting in to #ArthurRansome again and couldn't wait for the library to get number 2 in so ordered this bargain from Awesome Books - pretty sure that's the same cover I remember reading from the 1980s. #kidlit #iamreading #SwallowsAndAmazons

I'm rediscovering #arthurransome from my youth - loved the first one and a bit devastated to have finished already. Any other Wild Cat Island fans out there? #notduffers #kidlit

Well, I can see I'll have to tell you ... 😆 !

It's 'Secret Water' by Arthur Ransome, the eighth book in the Swallows and Amazons series

It's full of Mastodons

I only know because we gave a set of the books to our grandson for Christmas and I started to read this one (!) because I'd never heard of it

It follows on from 'We Didn't Mean to go to Sea', which is one of my favourites in the series

(I'm now reading the rest of this book on Kindle)

#ArthurRansome #SwallowsAndAmazons
#Mastodons

@brinstar

Erm ... not quite!

Clue: #ArthurRansome
But which book?

Here are some extra clues (as hashtags):

#amreading
[Secret Water by #ArthurRansome]
#amListening
[#BBCRadio3]
#Walking and #birding
[by the #RiverTrent]

I reposted an enthusing about Arthur Ransome from my newsletter over on my Tumblr thingummy. Decided that I'm going to use that as a place to talk about books that matter lifelong to me, or about ones I've liked recently, so if you're there, too, you can come find me. Influence of Ransome on all the sailing bits of The Last Road (and actually, on Torrie and the Pirate-Queen and T & the Firebird, come to that) is great. #writing #reading #ArthurRansome

Thread.
If asked to name the two books that have been most influential on me, as a person and as a #writer, I'd say The Left Hand of Darkness and Swallows and Amazons. LHOD is probably not a surprising choice for an aspiring #SFF writer: S&A might be. So here's a short thread to try and explain.
#ArthurRansome is best known for his twelve novels for young people, often referred to by the title of the first, #Swallows&Amazons (published 1930).

"What's a mastodon," said Bridget. "A sort of savage?"
"No. A sort of elephant."
"With a trunk?"
"Yes. Hairy all over."

Re-reading #ArthurRansome's Secret Water this summer, I didn't expect to be coming across so many mastodon mentions so soon after.

There's a lovely map here with Mastodon Island marked in: https://arthur-ransome.fandom.com/wiki/Secret_Archipelago

Following previous boost's suggestion ... some of my favourite authors (leaving out contemporaries):

#JRRTolkien
#CJCherryh
#RosemarySutcliff
#GlenCook
#ArthurRansome
#EllisPeters
#PatriciaAMcKillip
#LouiseCooper

#bookstodon #reading #WritersOfMastodon

@AnnieKenyon2 Great idea.

#UrsulaKLeGuin
#Jane Austen
#IainBanks (with or w/o the ‘M’)
#DorothyLSayers
#BeckyChambers
#ArthurRansome

(I've written quite a lot about Ransome: see https://ransomeslakedistrict.com)

Can't quite call #ArthurConanDoyle a favourite in the same way but current WIP features Holmes and Watson (in the 23rd century).