I've got the full set of James Herriot books AND a full set of Derek Tangye's 'Minack Chronicles'. So I like books about animals and salt-of-the-earth country folk? So what? I'm not ashamed, but I'll admit that I've moved them to the bottom shelf, and that my favourite novelists - Iain Banks, Rose Tremain, Armistead Maupin - are all at eye-level. Fact is, I do have sniffy friends who'd try to raise their own profile by publicly mocking the contents of my bookshelf. I'd just rather not have that conversation... And changing one's friends isn't an option. Or shouldn't be. Lots of people have snobberies that get up their friends' noses, but it doesn't make them bad friends. Infuriating, perhaps, but not bad...

Julie

I'm another Georgette Heyer regency romance lover. She's very funny, I like the way she writes. I would never have read her but my daughter, then 13, insisted. I've got most of them in paperbacks. I like mysteries, but I don't like hers.

I agree, Vixen - her mysteries are no good, nor her medieval stuff, but I've been a fan of her regency romances since my teens. Especially These Old Shades and Devil's Cub. My dad was very keen on her books, too.

Frances

Yes, I'm a Georgette Heyer fan, and admit it with an air of defiance, and an acknowledgement that the medievals don't work, and the detectives are just plain dull. At her best, she's the kind of writer (I've said this elsewhere on WW) who works in a very limited field, but is absolutely peerless at what she does. The snobbery seems increasingly a function of her date. Plaidy/Holt's not in the same league, to my mind. She's very pedestrian, whereas Heyer's prose is extremely stylish, her plotting exemplary, her characterisation terrific. She could teach many of us a thing or ten, and she's my exemplar of how to wear heavy research amazingly lightly. She's also tough-minded, unsentimental, humane, and often very funny. There's quite a lot of her influence in the story I've uploaded recently, 'Respectability'.

Anyone who likes GH might be interested in Jane Aiken Hodge's biography of her, 'The Private World of Georgette Heyer'. Hodge is a novelist herself (Joan Aiken's sister) and it's one of the best biogs of a writer I've read, because Hodge really knows how life, work and the writing-business pull on each other, and explores how it did for Heyer.

Emma

I am slightly embarrassed by my love of Nic Kelman's Girls because it's so filthy, but I think it's brilliant. Harry Potters, I'm actually getting quite intriqued now by the way the whole series is plotted and I read two on holiday and couldn't stop. And Mary Renault's rather purple ancient world novels. Sharon

Thanks for a great post on Georgette Heyer, Emma. I have the biography you mention and yes, it's really, really good. One thing I always think is sad, though, is how she herself tended to denigrate her own achievements - referring scathingly to Heyer Hero Mark 1 or Mark 2, for instance.

For me, no one can do subtle erotic play like Heyer - and as Jane Aiken Hodge remarks, by the time she abandoned the plot of girl dressing up as a boy and being mistaken for a boy (or not) by the hero, she may well have felt she'd taken the implications of this as far as they could go.

Frances

<Added>

At the age of 15, I found the ending of The Corinthian - where the hero recaptures his 'nephew' and embraces him/her in full view of a coachload of people - quite shockingly erotic, and still do.

Frances

fashion dictates the popularity of writers

what a sad world we live in in other words some no nothing critic or some so called TV celebrity says this is a great book and I didn't like this one and the public like sheep buy or don't buy regardless of the merits of the book or not.

I am happy to say I have never read Harry Potter , Brigitte Jones Diary or any Jeffery Archer.

I have read most of Dickens, all of Conan Doyle, Homer's 'Illiad', Some of Shakespeare, including Richard II , and Hamlet, I also read Ian Rankin, Clive Cutler, Nell Grey , Glennis Clarke, Maggie Clutterbuck, M.C.Beaton and anything else that takes my fancy a list to long to mention

I am not embarrassed by any of them and if people say 'OH you shouldn't be reading that or their not very fashionable' I pity them for they are truly sad people and have no imagination. In addition to enjoying the books I read I hope that I also learn from them, learn the writers craft.

Whne I have some spare cash I intend to buy some of Andrew Taylor's books, why because he is a nice guy lives locally and recently when i interviewed him for FoD radio spoke a lot of sense about the publishing industry and the life of a writer. I may or may not like his books I have no idea but I will no doubt learn form the experience and who knows I may find yet another author whose books I read on merit.

Fashnable who cares I don't

Embarrassed certainly not

I'm sure we all have very varied book shelves, Olebut, there's nothing unusual about that.

By saying 'I am happy to say I have never read Harry Potter , Brigitte Jones Diary or any Jeffery Archer', you are making judgements on these books based on media attention, just as much as those who may have chosen to read them because they've been 'fashionable'. So that's hypocrisy in my book. You have to be aware of 'fashion' to consciously be anti it. Even you can't escape the sheep factor (evil laugh).....

Besides, choosing to read something because it's had media attention is not a bad thing - it's just finding out what all the fuss is about. It does not necessarily mean the reader will then choose to like what they've read.

Anyway, as I said, this is supposed to be light-hearted. I have never in my life met someone who actually said the words you quote: 'OH you shouldn't be reading that or their not very fashionable'.

Cath

I have never in my life met someone who actually said the words you quote: 'OH you shouldn't be reading that or their not very fashionable'.

There is sometimes pressure from one's peers to read only certain types of book, though - I was once reading Boethius' The Consolations of Philosophy and a friend told me "You are SO eccentric" - not in a supportive and friendly way.

F

Well in that instance, if it's not said jokily, then I might well agree with David and question the friendship! Loads of my friends think I'm eccentric, but it's in totally in an affectionate way!

Cath

Cath not making judgements other than my own I picked the books up in the bookshop and decided they were not for me in the same way as I pick up others and decide they are.

I am never actually aware of what is 'fashinable ' or not as I don't watch TV much nor do I read the type of journal that may dictate what is and is not 'in'

I invariably find people saying oh you must read this or that because it is in the best sellers.

I make my own choices based on my assessment of a book and not because somebody elses says I should or should not read it.

as for my quote then sadly i must know some very sad people

"Well in that instance, if it's not said jokily, then I might well agree with David and question the friendship!"

Yes, actually I have lost touch with her. Maybe it was just me being touchy, though. It's only recently that I've learned to value being described (or my writing being described) as eccentric or strange.

f

But then so why are you proud not to have read them? That's still making some kind of judgement related to their media status (even if it is after you may have picked up the books in the shop)! I don't want much TV or keep up with this kind of stuff either - but the success of Harry Potter or Bridget Jones has been impossible to miss.

Cath

Elbowsnitch,

I was going to add that, actually. Friendships can be complex things and yeah, there can often be a difference between how statements are meant and recieved!

Cath

I have fifty or so Star Trek novels, particularly the Kirk era ones.

I suppose that’s quite an embarrassing thing to admit, but perhaps what’s worse is that I’d love to write one myself.
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