Top Ten Tuesday: Author names - Jane who?

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. 

This week theme  Books I Can’t Believe I’ve Never Read but I feel like I did a variation on that not too long ago. I have had this post half written in draft for weeks so I decided to go with this theme instead. I do see myself doing variations on this theme on occasion in the future too!

Have you ever noticed how many authors there are with the same first names. There are a proliferation of books who are written by people named Susan (however it is spelt) or Elizabeth or Jane or Kate or Victoria. Today, I am focussing on the name Jane! So here are ten books written by author's whose first name is Jane.

Jane Austen - Hand's up if this was the first Jane you thought of when I said what my theme was this week!

Jane Harper - I am a long way behind on Jane Harper's books but I do like their Australian setting.

Jane Lovering - A recent favourite author. I have read a number of her books over the last few years.

Jane Tara - I read this book club a couple of years ago.

Jane Harrison - This book tells of the arrival of British settlers from the point of view of the Indigenous people who witnessed, and then suffered because of it

Jane Yolen - A while ago I was reading a lot of fairytale retellings and this was a good one!

Jane Sanderson - I liked this book because it was set in both Adelaide and Sheffield which are both places I have listed 

Jane Harris - I don't know why I haven't read more by this author.

Jane Smiley - I liked this book but I didn't love the abridged audio.

Jane Yang - This is one that is on my Kindle.to read.

Do you have any other authors named Jane that immediately come to mind?

Six Degrees of Separation: The Turn of the Screw to Ready Player One

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best.  The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links.  I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.






This month's starting point is The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. I haven't read Henry James before, so both that fact, that it is short and also that is a spooky read made it a perfectly ideal time to read it. I could also count it for the RIP XV challenge, and that was going to be my theme for Six Degrees of Separation - books that I have read for RIP  (Readers Imbibing Peril) challenges over the years. It was a solid plan right?

You know that there is a but or a however coming though.

In order to read it, I decided to listen to it on audiobook. Just over 4 hours to listen to is doable. And so I began to listen, and was in for a surprising treat when I realise that the first couple of chapters are narrated by Richard Armitage, and then the meat of the story is narrated by Emma Thompson, who I find very soothing to listen to.  So, instead of the more obvious theme of spooky reads, my theme this month is going to be audiobooks with a celebrity narrator.

Sylvester by Georgette Heyer - This morning I spent some time reading posts from 10 years ago which show just how obsessed I was with Richard Armitage. I mean, it's understandable, but still. One of the reasons I do like to gush fangirl, I mean admire him is as as audiobook narrator. He has now done around 40 or so. I have listened to a couple of other books narrated by him, but it really is the Georgette Heyer books he has narrated that I go back to time and again. And every time I do listen to one of these my review is bound to contain the words aural bliss or something similar. The other Heyer books he has narrated are Venetia and The Convenient Marriage. Venetia is great too.

The Further Tales of Peter Rabbit by Emma Thompson -  It would have been remiss of me to have not included an audiobook narrated by Emma Thompson given that she narrates the vast majority of The Turn of the Screw. I was, however, surprised to see that she has written a couple of Peter Rabbit books that she has then narrated.

Mythos by Stephen Fry - Another example of a celebrity who is an author reading their own audiobooks is Stephen Fry who has narrated many of his own books. He also famously narrated the Harry Potter books when they came out. I have listened to the first of series of short stories that were Audible exclusives and really enjoyed those so I do intend to listen to more by him.

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman - If Stephen Fry is an example of a celebrity who is an author, then Neil Gaiman is pretty close to being an author who is a celebrity, and someone else who likes to narrate his own audiobooks, not to mention the mythology link here. When we went to hear him speak back in February, he did a reading of the new childrens book that is about to be released called Pirate Stew. I think one of the reasons I like hearing authors narrate their own books, if they are good at it, is that you can hear the expression and emphasis as they meant for it to be heard.

One Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley - There are occasions when the celebrity narrator (or any narrator really) doesn't work for a book, and for me that was true of this book. It didn't help that the book was abridged and I didn't realise it but the narration wasn't for me either. Given that I listened to this 15 years ago (on cassette tape no less) it is probably time for me to let it go, but it certainly has turned out to be memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - I wanted to finish on a positive not though! This is not one I have listened to, but I have heard so many rave reviews about Will Wheaton as the narrator. He is also going to be the narrator on the sequel, Ready Player Two, when it comes out later this year so I think I might listen to it instead of reading it!

So there you have it! The Six Degrees of Separation celebrity audiobook narrator edition.

Next month the starting point is the book that you finished this month with, so I will be starting with Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Goodness only knows where that chain is going to end up.

MWF: The Glue of Good Fiction

I was lucky enough to attend my first Melbourne Writers Festival event for this year today! I was a little bit cheeky and made the trip up to Fed Square during my lunch break, listened to the session and then rushed back to work afterwards. Then I had to leave early to pick up my car from the mechanics for the second day straight (long story) so it was a good day in terms of numbers of hours actually spent at work!

I haven't been to the Festival at all for a couple of years and the year I did go I just bought a couple of session tickets, but this year I have gone all out and bought a Paperback Pass which entitled me to 5 events and 2 free Friday events. Some time in the next couple of years I am hoping to start volunteering instead of just attending.

Here's the summary blurb of the session I attended:

As Sartre may have put it, drama is other people. Gail Jones, Elizabeth Stead, Jane Smiley and Marion Halligan discuss how relationships lie at the heart of their fiction, and how we cope with others - family, lovers, enemies, colleagues, neighbours, strangers. Chaired by Enza Gandolfo.

Jane Smiley

My main reason for wanting to attend this session was to hear something from Jane Smiley. There are other opportunities to hear her speak during the Festival, but none that suited my timetable and so when I saw her name on the list on a Friday session (that would cost me nothing) it was a no brainer. It's actually a bit weird that I wanted to hear her speak in the first place as I have only really had any exposure to one of her books and that was an abridged audio version of A Thousand Acres which I absolutely loathed. Apparently it was enough though! You will hear a similar tale when I talk about going to see Ann Patchett too. Didn't really like the book of hers that I had read, but still really wanted to see her festival session.


The other three authors on the panel are Australian authors and I haven't read any of them. I walked out of the session wanting to read something from all of them! I can see I am going to have to exercise a lot of restraint when it comes to requesting books from the library and/or buying them as a result of attending the festival. I am especially interested in picking up Marion Halligan's short story collection Shooting the Fox as one of the short stories that she talked about today sounds like a really fun read!

Marian Halligan

Each of the authors started by talking about what it is that they write about in the context of the session. For Marion Halligan this meant birth, death, love and betrayal and just about everything in between which means that she mostly writes domestic details. Jane Smiley indicated that she began by writing about children, and then that kind of grew into human/human relationship, human/animal relationship, political relations! To summarise, she said "Show me a relationship and I will write it".  Gail Jones thought that the focus of her work was time and memory and how relationships reach back into the past, especially how the dead are profoundly present in the lives of people especially during the period of grief. Finally, Elizabeth Stead indicated that she liked to write about people who are a little left of centre, a little disturbed, a little bit different. In effect she writes about loneliness which could well be interpreted as the lack of relationship.

There were a number of other questions asked including about relationships being the vehicle for exploring character and actions, and also about the title of the session itself which prompted Marion Halligan to say that she didn't see relationships as glue as such.

Another aspect of relationship that Jane Smiley touched on was a triangular relationship between the narrator and the reader as well as the author and narrator which was an interesting concept.

There was some discussion about there not only being emotional relationships, but also spatial relationships - almost like if we put this thing next to that thing and see what happens which prompted Gail Jones to comment that there is likely a lot more randomness in stories than the reader suspects.

The last point that was explored before the session was opened up to questions from the floor was that relationship between characters and place with specific examples of Marion's novel Valley of Grace which is set in Paris featuring all French people, but written wholly in English and Gail's books which feature Sydney. Elizabeth Stead also mentioned that there have been times when she started with the place and the characters grew from there whereas the reader may expect the process to be the other way around.

Elizabeth Stead

One of the interesting parts of this discussion for me specifically in the context of the book I finished reading today  was about characters who are living displaced lives and how their lives are very much charged by loss and by memories of the past. The characters also bring other places to where they currently reside through their memories and how the past shapes their current lives.

Questions from the floor touched on the difference between men and women when it comes to reading about relationship and a craft question about showing versus telling in the context of relationships. The answers to this question were quite interesting with Jane Smiley talking about how time has to pass and the question being how which will dictate whether the author shows or tells. I really liked Gail Jones answer as well which was basically she never really liked the writing rule about showing and not telling but rather prefers to look at who the narrator is and deciding what they could reasonably know when it came to deciding how to tell that particular aspect of the story.

Gail Jones

I was really impressed with Gail Jones. I had heard of her work before, especially her book Sorry which made a big splash when it came out not so long ago. She is quietly spoken, but seems to be extremely intelligent and made some really interesting points during the session.

One of the quotes that she shared came from Henry James - Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue.

My next MWF session is on Sunday, and then I will be spending all day there next Saturday! Can't wait.
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