tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post1973737646641390619..comments2024-02-29T02:37:34.896-06:00Comments on Ivebeenreadinglately: Alice Thomas EllisLevi Stahlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11094919454842047688noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-9208393319982589742012-07-06T11:37:32.140-05:002012-07-06T11:37:32.140-05:00Alice Thomas Ellis deserves a revival and it's...Alice Thomas Ellis deserves a revival and it's high time she was back in print. If you liked 'The 27th Kingdom' I would reccommend 'The Sin Eater' and 'Unexplained Laughter' both short, dark, punchy comic novels.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-54836701262701995782012-06-25T02:01:57.778-05:002012-06-25T02:01:57.778-05:00re Bainbridge, I started with An Awfully Big Adven...re Bainbridge, I started with An Awfully Big Adventure, which I think is full of insight. I also liked her one about Dr Johnson, but I've forgotten what it is called. Her work is possibly a bit patchy.zmkchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-39644920454063465232012-06-21T23:12:00.180-05:002012-06-21T23:12:00.180-05:00Bainbridge's work (like Fitzgerald's) divi...Bainbridge's work (like Fitzgerald's) divides neatly into two categories: the first partof her career consists mostly of fictions spun from personal experience, while the second part consists of anti-epic historical novels. From the first lot, a good start would be 'An Awfully Big Adventure' or 'The Bottle Factory Outing'; from the second, 'Young Adolf' or 'The Birthday Boys'. Don't start with her short stories--she herself said she wasn't a big fan of short stories, and it does show a bit.JRSMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04430775461763521797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-28178395052528150982012-06-21T22:01:35.996-05:002012-06-21T22:01:35.996-05:00I love that Ellis had a cat named Bainbridge! And ...I love that Ellis had a cat named Bainbridge! And thanks, zkmc, for the connection to Fitzgerald (another suitable comparable author for Ellis--they seem to share a preference for the oblique and ambiguous) and Bainbridge. I am really looking forward to reading the rest of her books: I have that feeling you get when you meet someone that you realize is going to be a great friend--a feeling that, with both books and people, seems to come less and less often the farther you get from age 18.<br /><br />(Bainbridge is another I've mostly neglected. I finally read recently, and enjoyed but wasn't wholly taken by, <i>Every Man for Himself</i>, which I first knew when it was a Booker Prize finalist in my earliest days working at a London bookstore in 1996 but hadn't read. Where should I go after that with her work? Everything I hear about her suggests that should fit in my stable of favorites.)Levi Stahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11094919454842047688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-1107784059140032352012-06-21T15:48:39.893-05:002012-06-21T15:48:39.893-05:00I love Alice Thomas Ellis, who I came to originall...I love Alice Thomas Ellis, who I came to originally by way of her column in The Spectator. She wrote funny books but also, with her husband, ensured that Penelope Fitzgerald and Beryl Bainbridge found their ways into print. You can read more about that here - like you, I couldn't resist the temptation to quote a big chunk of Ellis: http://zmkc.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/colin-haycraft_10.html<br />As well as the novels, I enjoyed the collection Ellis called "Fish, Flesh and Good Red Herring - a Gallimaufry"<br />For religious fiction, I suppose you've already read the wonderful Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay? It is one of my favourite books.zmkchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-79456004021827574272012-06-20T18:33:20.911-05:002012-06-20T18:33:20.911-05:00Oh, wow, you're in for a treat! I came to Elli...Oh, wow, you're in for a treat! I came to Ellis via a book which told me that if I liked Penelope Fitzgerald and Beryl Bainbridge then I'd like her--and I did.<br /><br />Ellis had a cat named after Bainbridge, I believe. Her collected newspaper columns (which are nowhere near as good as her novels) make much of the the confusion caused by yelling at Beryl for peeing on the carpet, etc.JRSMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04430775461763521797noreply@blogger.com