Vanity Fair and Don Juan in the Same Week
ewis, laid up for one week in his twenties (in the 1920s) with chicken pox, read:three volumes of Gibbon
Vanity Fair
Don Juan
The Faerie Queene
Fool Errant (by Maurice Ewlett)
Lady Rose's Daughter (by Mrs Humphrey Ward)
and rewrote the sixth canto of his own poem, Dymer.
I've been reading All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C. S. Lewis, 1922-1927 for over ten years now, I think. It's the book that's taken me the longest to read, but not for any definite reason. Actually, it's almost more enjoyable to leave it for a few months, return and reenter that glorious world of between the wars.
Oh, to dream of all the books I would read if I had a week off... Some of my research books (medieval travels, anyone?), some of the 180 books I still have four years to get through (see bottom of the blog), and some of the new (shh! it's a secret!) books I ordered off Amazon.
What books would you reach for?
Comments
I stumbled upon your blog and loved it! I write YA as well. I'm interested in your book that you are querying. What is it about?
THE FACE OF A LION is historical YA. 12 year old Austin is on vacation with his parents in Kusadasi, Turkey, and bored. He rescues a cat from danger, and the cat starts talking to him! Kedi the cat leads him back in time to Ephesus, AD 43, where another time traveller, in the guise of a lady of that time, is attempting to stop the Roman invasion of Britain. Kedi needs Austin's help to make sure the invasion takes place and history doesn't change.
That's the description off the top of my head. Here's the current query version:
His parents rent a villa in Turkey for the entire summer and Austin gets set for the most boring vacation of his life, away from all his friends in England. But that's before he rescues a talking cat, witnesses a bloody ritual that causes two people to disappear, and suddenly finds himself whisked back in time. In Ephesus, nearly 2000 years in the past, he makes a new friend, falls in love – and finds an enemy. Evil forces are at work, doing their best to prevent Claudius the Emperor's invasion of Britain, and Austin has to act fast to figure out how to influence the Emperor and ensure that the invasion does take place. It's either that, or time and civilization as he knows it will never be the same.
I can't seem to find a way to keep the tone of the off-the-cuff version and the detail of the query version...