A little while back, I decided to read everything Lisa Jewell had every written, in the order in which she'd written it. It was quite an interesting experience, and most of it was chronicled on this blog. You can find it through the "Chronological Reading Challenge" tag, which is also on this post. Scroll on down a bit and you'll see it.
Although I had read most of the books before, reading them in this way did give me further insights into them, and into the author. The main thing I noticed was her growing...obsession? Focus?...something - with children. More and more, children became the driving force in her character's lives. Not necessarily the fact of having them, more the consequences of various things connected with them, if that makes sense. For instance; one character's life changes utterly when she becomes pregnant and proceeds to give the child up for adoption. Another has her life change when she accidentally orphans and paralyses a child in a single accident. Yet another has her relationship go off the walls when she accidentally becomes pregnant.
Those events and the novels they appear in aren't in chronological order, as listed above. Generally speaking, things which happen to children get worse and worse as Jewell grows older, and writes more novels. And, of course, as she has her own children, and presumably, worries and obsesses over all the horrible things that could happen.
However, moving away from Jewell, I am inclined to repeat the experiment. I'm considering doing it with Sheri Tepper, but her bibliography is long, complex, split over many different names, and occasionally out of print.
Excuse me, I must shriek like a fangirl.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Tepper's writing a sequel to Plague of Angels, set to be released this year! Ah!
Ahem.
I just googled Tepper's bibliography, looking for a complete list in chronological order, including those books published under pseudonyms, and spotted that. Now I am happy.
Anyway, her wiki page is probably the most thorough list, and you can see that that would be quite a project. Especially considering that I probably own less than half of them right now, and the library almost definitely doesn't stock many of them. So Tepper wouldn't be a great choice for this project, not until I have lots more money and free time (sadly, the two do not come together).
I do have a fair amount of books to get through at the minute too. I've just started the Mavin Manyshaped trilogy, of the True Game series, and I still haven't read most of my current library books. I need to get through those quick, before my reservations come in. So another CRC would take a while to get off the ground.
At the minute, authors I'm considering include Ben Elton (although I recently gorged myself on his work, so maybe not), Jenny Colgan (I already own most of them, and I know the library has the rest, so that would be easy), Nick Hornby (ditto), Trudi Canavan (a relatively new author, so less of a back catalogue), and Matt Beaumont (would have to buy, since the library is missing a few of them). Maybe Alice Hoffman or Kjartan Poskitt (I'm just looking at my shelves for random inspiration here - those aren't authors I've really considered before, which may actually be a point in their favour). Stephen King would represent many of the same problems as Tepper. Dahl, maybe? I don't know.
Any suggestions, comment. It should be open to those people without accounts now.
Although I had read most of the books before, reading them in this way did give me further insights into them, and into the author. The main thing I noticed was her growing...obsession? Focus?...something - with children. More and more, children became the driving force in her character's lives. Not necessarily the fact of having them, more the consequences of various things connected with them, if that makes sense. For instance; one character's life changes utterly when she becomes pregnant and proceeds to give the child up for adoption. Another has her life change when she accidentally orphans and paralyses a child in a single accident. Yet another has her relationship go off the walls when she accidentally becomes pregnant.
Those events and the novels they appear in aren't in chronological order, as listed above. Generally speaking, things which happen to children get worse and worse as Jewell grows older, and writes more novels. And, of course, as she has her own children, and presumably, worries and obsesses over all the horrible things that could happen.
However, moving away from Jewell, I am inclined to repeat the experiment. I'm considering doing it with Sheri Tepper, but her bibliography is long, complex, split over many different names, and occasionally out of print.
Excuse me, I must shriek like a fangirl.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Tepper's writing a sequel to Plague of Angels, set to be released this year! Ah!
Ahem.
I just googled Tepper's bibliography, looking for a complete list in chronological order, including those books published under pseudonyms, and spotted that. Now I am happy.
Anyway, her wiki page is probably the most thorough list, and you can see that that would be quite a project. Especially considering that I probably own less than half of them right now, and the library almost definitely doesn't stock many of them. So Tepper wouldn't be a great choice for this project, not until I have lots more money and free time (sadly, the two do not come together).
I do have a fair amount of books to get through at the minute too. I've just started the Mavin Manyshaped trilogy, of the True Game series, and I still haven't read most of my current library books. I need to get through those quick, before my reservations come in. So another CRC would take a while to get off the ground.
At the minute, authors I'm considering include Ben Elton (although I recently gorged myself on his work, so maybe not), Jenny Colgan (I already own most of them, and I know the library has the rest, so that would be easy), Nick Hornby (ditto), Trudi Canavan (a relatively new author, so less of a back catalogue), and Matt Beaumont (would have to buy, since the library is missing a few of them). Maybe Alice Hoffman or Kjartan Poskitt (I'm just looking at my shelves for random inspiration here - those aren't authors I've really considered before, which may actually be a point in their favour). Stephen King would represent many of the same problems as Tepper. Dahl, maybe? I don't know.
Any suggestions, comment. It should be open to those people without accounts now.
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