[the_old_crowd] Re: Authors (was Jasper Fforde)

[Catherine Coleman]

I've been meaning to reply to Parker's post for ages, but have had my 
parents here for 10 days and have been playing chauffeur all over the 
place.  Ugh.

Thanks for the suggestions, Parker.  Some aren't new to me - in 
particular the Garth Nix trilogy, which I really enjoyed, and I've 
recently discovered Robin McKinley.  I loved "Spindle's End" (obviously 
Sleeping Beauty), and "Deerskin", but I'm not quite sure why she 
bothered writing 2 versions of Beauty and the Beast - I really prefer 
the first one, apart from the ending - I'm betting everyone can guess 
how the two endings differ.

I've never heard of Lynne Flewelling, but "The Bone Doll's Twin" has a 
really intriguing title.

As for Alexander McCall Smith - I've read the first few in the series. 
I really enjoyed them to start with - as you say, they are very light 
and easy to read - quite whimsical and gentle on the surface (although 
some of the events are really very shocking - just not how they're told) 
  but after a while I started to feel a bit uneasy about them - the main 
reason being that AMS is writing from the perspective of Botswanan (sp?) 
natives.  Their thoughts are on the whole conveyed as being very 
simple-minded and unsophisticated, to match their speech patterns in 
English, which is their second language, and I feel as though he is 
ascribing a naivety and simplicity which I am not sure exists, to the 
extent that I felt that he was being (unwittingly) patronising.  I'd be 
interested to know if anyone else had similar thoughts - it could be me 
being over sensitive.

Catherine