Would anyone like to enthuse/reminisce about Diana Wynne Jones with me?

[SarahAndQuack]

I've just curled up with 'A Tale of Time City' and am remember how much I loved all her books when I was little. I really enjoy how as an adult they still 'work'. I especially like all the little in-jokes that you don't necessarily pick up on as a child.

Anyone else? Do you have a favourite?

I agree the Polly/Tom relationship isn’t especially creepy. He is only early twenties at the start and she is ten, so there is a 10-15 year age gap. There is no hint of romance until she’s grown up. I want to read it again now! It’s one of those books that you get something new from no matter how many times you go back to it.

For those interested in the Tam Lin legend more generally, Tam Lin by Pamela Dean gives a very different, but still interesting, take on the story.

For me it's not the age gap. It's the fact he knows he's bound into something awful, but he still hopes she will save him.

The Homeward Bounders is my absolute favourite, read it decades ago and it's really stayed with me.

Also loved the dark lord of derkholm. Am going to reread a couple now I think.

There is that, Sarah - you could argue he uses her.

I will read it again and see what I think this time!

Hi there bookworm14 ! think you could argue that Polly is always going to get involved with Laurel and her entourage because she lives so near the House and there is family history ( grandmother). Tom sees this and helps her to build her hero-fighting skills, but he keeps his distance because the choice to stick with him has to be hers.He tries to get Mary Field onside but she is not interested longterm. If she was writing now I suspect she would have made the age gap narrower.

Hello Polly - fancy seeing you here!

I think Howl was the first character in a book, film or TV show, I fell absolutely head over heels in love with. swoon

“For me it's not the age gap. It's the fact he knows he's bound into something awful, but he still hopes she will save him.”

I think Tom’s conflict is the heart of the book. He genuinely loves Polly, first as a friend and then romantically. He’s conflicted about putting her at risk - because he’s not a perfect human being. Even as a child, Polly recognises Tom’s uncertainty.

Both of them are flawed and struggling to be themselves; both of them help each to find that self in the face of great danger.

My English teacher at school was Diana Wynne Jones' son.

(waves at any MNers who also went to my school)

Have to say Susan Cooper is my favourite though. Love the Dark is Rising sequence.

Now that's a good claim to fame new :)

I loved DWJ as a child, though a lot I've only read as an adult as I was a bit too old (and not old enough) when they first came out. The Power of Three is one of my favourites, as well as The Homeward Bounders.

Anyone else read her Tough Guide to Fantasyland - very funny

Somebody on MN was the model for the cover of 'The Time of the Ghost'. I was a little bit jealous.

My mum was taught English by Alan Garner's wife new. I suppose it's not surprising that there are family links to a subject.

I didn't find DWJ until I was an adult - I wandered into the children's library at my then work after she died and asked our incredible librarian for some of them. She went and found me loads from the basement! I love Howl and Chrestomanci, although I think Fire and Hemlock is probably my favourite. I read the Dalemark Quartet for the first time last year and really liked it, seeing how it all came together was so clever! I've re-read most of them at some point, apart from the one about Sirius because it made me cry so much at the end the first time that I can't re-visit it. The fantasy convention in Deep Secret is one of my favourite bits though, the idea that no-one notices the weird stuff because they're all in costume anyway is great!

A friend is currently staying with us medium term and is working his way through my DWJ books. He seems very happy with this

I love the Dalemark books too, especially Spellcoats. One of my DDs (aged about 12 at the time) wrote to DWJ to ask about becoming an author and to say how much she loved her books. She got such a wonderful encouraging letter back! We’ve still got it somewhere.

DWJ has been one of my favourite authors sine I was 8 and read the Ogre Downstairs. Howl and Archers Goon probably favourite though when I found her adult stuff Deep Secret And Year of the Griffin are also great. Always felt I never quite understood the ending of Fire & Hemly

This is a bit of a swerve, but it’s talking about Fire and Hemlock reminded me of another YA book based on Tam Lin. It’s old now, and not in print I don’t think, but worth keeping an eye out for secondhand.

It’s called The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Pope - it’s set in the Tudor period. It’s a lovely book.

DWJ is one of those lucky writers who write for children, but have such a deep vein of meaning that adults are satisfied as well.

Ooh! I don't know Elizabeth Pope but I love children's lit and the Tudor period, so that'll be perfect for me. Will keep it in mind.

@pollyhemlock, that's so lovely about DWJ and your daughter.

While we're doing tenuous links, I went to lectures by one of DWJ's sons when I was an undergrad and I've heard her late husband speak when he was a very elderly and respected retired medievalist. I have retired colleagues who worked with him and it took me a little while to work out that when they were talking about his wife, it was her!

Btw, my lasting memory of her son's lectures was him telling us about sixteenth-century students disobeying dress-code rules and flouncing around with banned flashy clothes under their sober gowns. He acted out the flouncing motions.

I adore dwj's books. Surprised noone has yet mentioned "a sudden wild magic". Read it first as a mother, and bits of it really hit home from that perspective.

Hi ommmward. Yes, I do like that one - but must re-read now I'm a mother as I've not since before that!

Still to read the thread but was excited to see OP's post.

I love Diana Wynne Jones and I know quite a lot of other adults who enjoy her books. I was thrilled when I finally got DS1 into reading her books. Even DS2, who enjoys reading when he has no other activities to choose from (ie he only reads at times when he's not allowed to play games online, mostly in bed and occasionally a bit on school mornings) quite liked Charmed Life and started reading Mixed Magic.

I discovered Diana Wynne Jones when I was 8 or 9, with Charmed Life, and I think I read about 8 of her books, mostly ones published in the 1970s and ones published by Puffin Books. Charmed Life and The Ogre Downstairs were my favourites and I think I read them more than once. I acquired ex library and secondhand copies of some of her later books, and I think I read Howl's Moving Castle and Hexwood in my early 20s. I didn't discover that there were more Chrestomanci books until my late 20s.

In my 30s and 40s I've reread and read for the first time quite a few of her books, but still have quite a few to reread and some to read for the first time.

It took me ages to get round to Dark Lord of Derkholm which I think is a lovely portrait of family life with teenagers, and Year of the Griffin is a really fun campus novel. I like the ones which mix quite ordinary details of family life in with all the magic.

DS1 has read all the Chrestomanci books - I still have to get to the last two to be published. He's read Howl's Moving Castle and the two sequels, plus The Ogre Downstairs and Archer's Goon. I need to dig out my copy of Dogsbody for him, or find him another copy if I see a secondhand one (as he really likes stories with canine characters and I think this is a lovely one).

On J K Rowling, I think DWJ is a much better writer and I'm sure she was inspired by DWJ and Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch (she's a few years older than me and may not have read all the Worst Witch sequels as a kid - I have most of them but still haven't got there). As well as possibly by other boarding school stories.

I want to read the whole thread, but worried I'll just start re-reading my collection and the forget to feed the children. DWJ was brilliant.

You can come back to it later now, as you've posted on it.

Oh, and I meant to say I love Joan Aiken, especially Dido Twite and her recurring short story characters Harriet and Mark (?) Armitage.

I've found my people!

I didn't read DWJ as a child (I'm too old) - but my children, my sister's children, my sister and I all discovered them together. We all went on holiday together one year and all read the Dalemark Quartet, passing them round and getting impatient when the previous reader wasn't quick enough.

She is so good at family relationships, and at characterisation, especially of flawed characters.

And I totally get the Chrestomanci and Howl love!

My favourites are Fire and Hemlock (read the Golden Bough as a consequence of reading this), the Power of Three, the Time of the Ghost (so disturbing), the Year of the Griffin, the Merlin Conspiracy and Deep Secret (bonkers!). Possibly my ultimate comfort read, though, is the Pinhoe Egg. I want to live in Woods House when Irene has titivated it.

When DS and I read a new (to us)one we would always discuss the level of DWS endgame mayhem. They generally get completely bonkers towards the end and you think it is all going to fall apart and become incomprehensible. But it never does. The complexity is part of the joy.