Norah Lofts Message Board
cp posts on 12/28/2008 8:18:55 PM
well try goodreads.com
There's a NL group on there. It's headed by a lady named Alice.
Gabi posts on 12/28/2008 6:09:37 PM
Has anyone noticed? You can't have consecutive posts in this board? I thought I was being censored as it always seemed to happen when I was being critical of the site. Usually, though, I only wanted to say something that made my post more relevant. It just took me ten minutes to find the word 'censored' in the thesaurus. Think of it, I could not! Isn't it dreadful how words simply escape you as you get older. This is why we all need to keep on reading.
Djo posts on 12/28/2008 4:41:16 PM
I sent some feedback t'other day. Cassie, try Sharon Penman. I love her stuff. It depends what you like to read about really. I always favour historical books accurately based on fact. I also love Dennis Wheatley's Roger Brook series - all about the French revolution and Napoleonic wars. Another series I loved was the Poldark series, set in south west England, starting around 1770's. Can't remember who wrote it offhand. And what relevance do they have to NL I hear Tyger demanding? Answer - IMHO they are all good authors writing good historical books.
Cassie posts on 12/28/2008 2:24:58 PM
I wish I could take credit for the idea of giving feedback. Someone else suggested it and I did it.
I liked Mary's, 'we don't read in a vacuum'. That is so true. And if people can recommend other authors that I might like, I think that's great.
Tyger, are you a moderator?
BarbaraH posts on 12/28/2008 2:01:33 AM
Hi everyone, happy Christmas/Hannukah/New Year and all. Actually Mary and Cassie have more or less said everything I meant to , though I would like to underline Mary's point to Tyger about literary criticism and comparison. Tyger dear girl, WE ARE ALLOWED TO DO IT, and in any case you need not lecture us on the proper use of this board. If, for instance, you want to digress in order to talk about your husband's relationships to other famous but non-literary people called Hardy you would probably get a courteous hearing without anyone taking it on themselves to tell you off! Cassie, I took your advice and sent a message to the board's administrator regarding its inadequacies, I agree that we all need to do this if we want a change.
I've just started a re-read of 'Here Was a Man', NL's take on Walter Raleigh. I'd almost forgotten about this one. She writes about him , or at least in his youth , rather caressingly and sensuously , in a way I don't remember from other books. Oh yes, and responding to the suggestion to say where we all are from - I'm from Cheshire in the NW of England originally but have been in Australia many years. I'm in Semaphore , Adelaide now . ( swedes here like the UK) , If anyone is interested I have photos of it (Semaphore , not swedes) on Flickr.com under the name Barbara Hoyland. I do like it that we are all so far-flung and yet connected by NL
Djo posts on 12/28/2008 12:07:53 AM
Cassie and Gabi - Hardy is good, but his books can move at a very slow pace. He is very big on descriptions of settings etc (from memory - haven't read Hardy for at least 10 yrs now).
Tyger - I think a description of the geography of Norfolk/Suffolk might be good for the folks who don't know it. My husband is from Suffolk and on my first visit there I was struck by how incredibly flat the area was. Really flat. The winter winds just whistle through with nothing to break them. I was also struck by the lack of hedges separating field from field and road - there are more (drainage) ditches than hedges. Didn't NL write a book that started in the fens? The real fens, that is, before they were drained and stabilized? Another query for Tyger - I read that NL was born in Shipham, but can't find it on the map. I know the area is riddled with tiny villages and hamlets, but can you pinpoint her birthplace for me. While scouring the map I did notice a place called Saxlingham Nethergate and a Cheveley, but then there were also quite a few other placenames that sounded a little bit familiar, with a few letters changed.
Gabi posts on 12/27/2008 8:24:56 PM
Merry Christmas, all.
Hope all your Christmases were pleasant and not stressful as they can be. Our family had theirs on Sat the 20th, so all could be home, or with in-laws on the day.
Back to the subject. I thought last night I'd re-read some of my NL books. I haven't done it for a while. no luck, Christmas tree squarely in front of the lot.
I have to admit, that I haven't read my NL over and over as I used to do. I was working then and couldn't join a library as I have now. I am busily working my way through everything I can find.
Finally read 'The Claw'. When we first came here, in 1998, the library had very little of NL's books, but there has been a resurgence in interest and they now have a not more. Not all, but much better.
Now. Where am I? New South Wales, Australia, in a suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie which is about 100 miles north of Sydney. The Suburb's name is Blackall's Park. Look it up on your Google maps.
Swedes, over here are generally only found, chopped up, in a soup. Ditto parsnips.
Never read Hardy. I can see I'd better.
Happy new year to all, and write to feedback, so the webmaster might give us some punctuation.
Mary posts on 12/27/2008 7:50:42 PM
Tyger, we got onto thomas Hardy on the Norah Lofts site because one thing people do on a literary site is compare authors and observe the influence of one author on another--and NL clearly shows the influence of TH! Her own semi-imaginary part of England, the recurring charaters who may be protagonists in one story and members of the supporting cast in another, the marvelous descriptions of the countryside--OK? The only other author I know who did this, at least so well, was William Faul;kner, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
DJO, I had your vegetable experience in reverse! I was intrigued by the English vegetable called a swede, only to discover tht it was just a rutabaga! (Incidentally, Carl Sandberg called his book of children's stories about Swedish-Americans Rutabaga Stories. Is it OK to mention Carl Sandberg here?)
To return to Hardy, I was reminded of Jude the Obscure when I recently read Walk into My Parlour for the first time. DJO, if you saw the film Jude, it's pretty faithful to the book except that, believe it or not, the film has a happier ending.
Re baby talk, I wondered about it, too, and decided it must mean text-messaging abbreviations, like 'R u ready 4 this?' (I hope this post doesn't get deleted! : ))
Peace, Tyger! Many of us would probably like to know how your husband was related to both Thomas Hardys! Thomas Masterman Hardy WAS the Hardy whom Lord Nelson asked to kiss him as he was dying, wasn't he? Or to whom he said "Kismet"?
Gabi, what a great idea to use apostrophes for quotation marks! More British, anyway! And thanks for the suggestion about writing to Feedback. I certainly shall!
Merry Third or Fourth Day of Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year!
Tyger posts on 12/27/2008 4:13:28 PM
NOw how did we get onto Thomas Hardy on the Nora Lofts email site? My late husbadn was a distant relative of both Thomas and Thomas Masterman Hardy so I would like to think you would move onto another site for this. I am very happy to expain the family history.
Cassie posts on 12/26/2008 10:12:18 PM
Yes, we have a nasty mess of snow here. We do not usually get this much snow.
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