Friday Post with Angela Carter



It's the Friday before France, which means everything today is slightly paling in comparison to what I'm expecting from tomorrow! I love roadtrips! Well, tonight's Germany vs France game should be exciting, especially since if Germany doesn't win I'll have to hold back my tears of resentment when we do get to France. But let's move on to books and memes. Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Billy over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. This week's question was submitted by RAnn from This That and the Other Thing and is:

Do you cull your list often or do people stay on it once they get on?

I'm assuming that by the people on this list you mean followers or blogs I follow? I'd never cut followers off. If you decide this blog is somehow what you want to read then I'm eternally grateful and will never say a word against you (unless you're very wrong, in which case I'll respectfully tell you so). Do I trim the list of blogs I follow? Not really. Sometimes I unfollow a blog when I don't enjoy any of the posts, but that doesn't really happen, so I guess the answer is actually no as well.

GFCFollow Friday is hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee. This week's question is:

What are some of your favourite picture books - either current ones or ones from your childhood?

I'm going to go with childhood picture books, because I don't really read a lot of picture books anymore. Comics don't count, do they? As a kid I absolutely loved picture books, even if the words were my favourite part about them. Some of my favourites were The Gruffalo, which I seriously made people (i.e. my poor dad) read to me over and over again. I just loved the mouse, it was so spunky. I also really liked Where the Wild Things Are, which I actually preferred over its drawings. They are absolutely stunning and I actually would read it now. I'm kind of struggling to come up with more because I switched to being read "proper" books pretty quickly. Although, how could I forget The Very Hungry Caterpillar! My future child will have to suffer through having to see this a lot, because I absolutely love it.

  

Book Beginnings is hosted by Gilion over at Rose City Reader and Friday 56 is hosted by Freda from Freda's Voice. This week I'm using a collection of short stories by Angela Carter, Burning Your Boats, which is really more of a greatest hits kind of collection, spanning across all of her previous collections. I have developed a new love for Angela Carter, so I'm taking this one on holiday with me to sink in to!

BB:
'All artists, they say, are a little mad. This madness is, to a certain extent, a self-created myth designed to keep the generality away from the phenomenally close-knit creative community. Yet, in the world of the artists, the consciously eccentric are always respectful and admiring of those who have the courage to be genuinely a little mad.' p.1
I love this opening! It is for the short story The Man Who Loved a Double Bass, which is absolutely heart-breaking.

F56:
'Sometimes the lights of the midnight riders scrawl brilliant hieroglyphs across the panes, especially on moonless nights, when I am alone in a landscape of extraordinary darkness, and I am a little frightened when I see their headlamps and hear their rasping engines for then they seem the spawn of the negated light and to have driven straight out of the sea, which is just as mysterious as the night, even, and also its perfect image, for the sea is an inversion of the known and occupies half, or more, of the world, just as night does; whilst different peoples also live in the countries of the night.' p.56
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is all one sentence. Some people don't like how loquacious Carter's prose is, but I love how she plays with language and keeps going and going. It reminds me of me sometimes.

Is Angela Carter your kind of author or not really? I can't wait to see Your BBH answers and what you've chosen for your other memes!

Comments

  1. I'm the same, love having all my followers without them it would be a sad blogging experience xx Sharon @ Beck Valley Books

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't cull my followers too, both in my Blogger and Tumblr. I love my followers. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I get lost in a sentence like that and want to keep rereading it. ^_^
    sherry @ My Friday 56

    ReplyDelete
  4. I loved The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Great book. I can't wait to get my niece into all of my favorite kid books. :) Thanks for dropping by! Old follower~
    Jazmen@ThisGirlReadsAlot

    ReplyDelete
  5. LOL I lost my breath reading that sentence. Kept wanting there to be a period!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great picture books and Carter's collection sounds like deep reading. I love my followers and am always looking for new blogging and reading friends. I'm a new follower!
    Here's my 56 - http://fuonlyknew.com/2014/07/04/the-friday-56-26-wherewolves-no-i-didnt-spell-it-wrong/

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great snippets! I love the narrator's take on artistic madness. Thanks for sharing...and for visiting my blog. Happy Fourth!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love The Hungry Caterpillar. My 4 year old can recite it which is pretty cute so I have an extra soft spot for it. I'll have to look for The Gruffalo! It looks really cute. I'm not sure I could handle the long sentences! I hope you enjoy it!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I don't cull my list of bloggers either. If I found out I liked them to begin with, why would I remove them? :)

    Heartbreaking? I don't think I am in the mood for a heartbreaking book at this time, but the beginning does sound good.

    THANKS for sharing, Julie.

    Elizabeth
    Silver's Reviews
    My Book Beginnings

    ReplyDelete
  10. Where the Wild Things Are is on my list too! Thanks for stopping by my blog earlier! Old follower :)

    Here's my F&F!

    ReplyDelete
  11. My granddaughter loves Where the Wild Things Are, but maybe that's because her dad is named Max! Like you, I'd never remove a follower from my blog list -- I treasure each and every one. THANK YOU for stopping by today and leaving a comment. By the way, I'm one of those people who are bothered by long sentences, but the writing is lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I had to read her sentence twice. Usually, I think, only those really good authors would attempt writing in this way. Angela Carter must be special. I haven't read her books. I enjoyed the sentence.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Loved The Very Hungry Caterpillar! I still have never read Where the Wild Things Are. I think I'm gonna buy it for me kids, just to have an excuse to read it, lol.
    Thanks for stopping by my blog . Following via GFC & Bloglovin
    -Amanda @ Within Pages

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hi Juli,

    Wow! You certainly packed a lot into the one post this week, I am not sure where to start first!

    I have never come across Angela Carter before and I am not sure if this short story book is something I would enjoy or not, despite its excellent ratings and reviews.

    I was rather mesmerised by the length of that sentence, which has to be near some kind of record surely! Since my school days, I have always been accused of making a story much more flowery and wordy than need be and the length of my reviews to this date, will surely bear that out! Personally, the more descriptive the writing in a story, the more I am hooked and one very happy reader.

    Thanks for such an interesting few minutes spent, oh! and by the way, I will seldom, if ever, unfollow people, unless I fundamentally disagree with just about everything they write. Sometimes on Twitter, I may choose not to follow someone who has decided to follow me, but to me that isn't quite the same thing! I have recently discovered the delights of Goodreads and I am really enjoying myself, with my new friends.

    Have a good weekend,

    Yvonne

    ReplyDelete
  15. Germany won!! WOOHOO!!!!! No tears!
    My favorite picture books are all The Little Golden books I had as a child. :-)

    Like the sounds of the short-stories collection too. I am a fan of shorts!

    Happy weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I don't cull my blog followers either!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I don't understand why people put up a fuss about fans, being unfollowed etc. People will come if they want, right? And people will leave if they want. Anyway, that being said, I had to go through my blog roll and delete inactive accounts - I felt kind of sad that there were so many ...

    ReplyDelete
  18. Those books sound wonderful. I had my mother read me my picture books over and over, too when I was a child until she became exasperated and told me that I was a big girl already and I could read them by myself. I guess there's nothing like sharing the story with your mom.

    Thanks for stopping by. Old follower, too.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts