Diana Wynne Jones
Now this edition of Author You Should Be Reading is as much for myself as it is for you, dear reader. This is because, though I’ve read and re-read and re-read HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE (read our review here), THE GAME, and FIRE AND HEMLOCK, I have yet to delve into her other books! Of which there are 40! So may this edition of AYSBR serve as a reminder to all of us to get our butts in gear!
First, a bit on Diana Wynne Jones, plucked from her website: Diana Wynne Jones was born in London, where she had a chaotic and unsettled childhood against the background of World War II. As children, Diana and her two sisters were deprived of a good, steady supply of books by her father, ‘who could beat Scrooge in a meanness contest’. So, armed with a vivid imagination and an insatiable quest for good books to read, she decided that she would have to write them herself.
Over the course of her life she wrote over 40 works of art (including picture books, short stories and novels) and won both the Mythopoeic Award (1999) and the Karl Edward Wagner award (1999).
So we have much to catch up on, yes? Yes.
Diana’s work is singular. Her prose is simple yet rich in
texture and tone. Within a sentence or two you are there (there being wherever
she chooses to take you!). There is a Diana Wynne Jones book for any reader,
really. Do you like adventure? There’s a book for you. Fantasy? There’s a book
for you. Witty writing and unforgettable characters? Spoiler alert, there’s a
book for you!
Though, as confessed, I’ve only read a small smattering of her work, I continue to go back to it over and over again. If that isn’t one of the marks of a great piece of work, then I don’t know what is. I can pick up HOWL’S or FIRE AND HEMLOCK and both remember why I loved it and discover something new to love.
Darn! Now I want to re-read them again.
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