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Mar. 28th, 2011 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aliseadaeI do not know when I first read something by Diana Wynne Jones. I might have been 9 or so when I first read Witch Week, in a edition that was not a part of an omnibus. I think I thought of it as its own thing. I think I also may have mixed it up with Eva Ibbotson's books.
I know that I read In the Time of the Ghost young as well and, when I came back to it later, I was surprised that a) I'd read it already and b) that it was by Diana Wynne Jones.
Fire and Hemlock was always my favorite. I first read it when I was young, probably still in elementary school but older than my first read of Witch Week. I remember being very puzzled as to how the ending worked. I remember not owning it for years and checking it out of the library multiple times until I finally bought a paper back in junior high. I loved how every time I re-read it something would shift and I would see yet another layer, further and deeper into the book than all the ones before.
I'd read the rest of the Chrestomanci books by then (the ones in the first two omnibus volumes as neither Conrad's Fate nor the Pinhoe Egg were released yet). My favorites were Charmed Life and The Lives of Christopher Chant. I quite like Christopher Chant.
I did not like The Magicians of Caprona and I don't believe I've re-read them.
Howl's Moving Castle was read during early high school or junior high at some point as well and Castle in the Sky immediately after it.
I realized in spring 2007 that I hadn't read quite a few Diana Wynne Jones books. That was the spring break of reading all of the ones I hadn't read yet. I remember deeply enjoying Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet. I don't think I was as fond of Spellcoats and Crown of Dalemark confused me in the same twisted way as Fire and Hemlock though now it is falling into place.
I remember eagerly awaiting the release of The Pinhoe Egg, The Game, and Conrad's Fate. I remember being extraordinarily pleased when I was able to receive an ARC of House of Many Ways via my mother from ALA (or perhaps it was PLA) that year.
This summer I worked as a counselor at a summer camp. It was in the middle of the rural area of another state and at the beginning of camp I was feeling rather lonely and homesick. Reading Hexwood for the first time helped me to start enjoying those first few days. Having a Diana Wynne Jones book around was having something familiar in that strange place. I re-read Conrad's Fate that summer too.
I've been re-reading Crown of Dalemark on and off since winter break this year and it is shifting, too. So many details jump out at me now.
These books have remained with me for so long and now I lend them out to my cousin, in hopes that he enjoys them just as much. I will keep these stories with me for the rest of my life. I wish I could have met the person who wrote them.
RIP, Diana Wynne Jones.
I know that I read In the Time of the Ghost young as well and, when I came back to it later, I was surprised that a) I'd read it already and b) that it was by Diana Wynne Jones.
Fire and Hemlock was always my favorite. I first read it when I was young, probably still in elementary school but older than my first read of Witch Week. I remember being very puzzled as to how the ending worked. I remember not owning it for years and checking it out of the library multiple times until I finally bought a paper back in junior high. I loved how every time I re-read it something would shift and I would see yet another layer, further and deeper into the book than all the ones before.
I'd read the rest of the Chrestomanci books by then (the ones in the first two omnibus volumes as neither Conrad's Fate nor the Pinhoe Egg were released yet). My favorites were Charmed Life and The Lives of Christopher Chant. I quite like Christopher Chant.
I did not like The Magicians of Caprona and I don't believe I've re-read them.
Howl's Moving Castle was read during early high school or junior high at some point as well and Castle in the Sky immediately after it.
I realized in spring 2007 that I hadn't read quite a few Diana Wynne Jones books. That was the spring break of reading all of the ones I hadn't read yet. I remember deeply enjoying Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet. I don't think I was as fond of Spellcoats and Crown of Dalemark confused me in the same twisted way as Fire and Hemlock though now it is falling into place.
I remember eagerly awaiting the release of The Pinhoe Egg, The Game, and Conrad's Fate. I remember being extraordinarily pleased when I was able to receive an ARC of House of Many Ways via my mother from ALA (or perhaps it was PLA) that year.
This summer I worked as a counselor at a summer camp. It was in the middle of the rural area of another state and at the beginning of camp I was feeling rather lonely and homesick. Reading Hexwood for the first time helped me to start enjoying those first few days. Having a Diana Wynne Jones book around was having something familiar in that strange place. I re-read Conrad's Fate that summer too.
I've been re-reading Crown of Dalemark on and off since winter break this year and it is shifting, too. So many details jump out at me now.
These books have remained with me for so long and now I lend them out to my cousin, in hopes that he enjoys them just as much. I will keep these stories with me for the rest of my life. I wish I could have met the person who wrote them.
RIP, Diana Wynne Jones.
