sire the night is darker now

[lotesse]

It got so cold these last few days that I ended up turning back to Susan Cooper to cope with it! And oh dear me, I do love her books. The Dark is Rising books are sweet as honey, and I get all heart-clenchy over them. They're the sort of books that have me gasping out characters' names in peak narrative moments, just to somehow give voice to the abundance of love I end up feeling for them.

Question: did anyone else ever read Cooper's book Seaward? It was one of my best beloveds as a kid, and I haven't seen nor touched in for years, now - it tends to be hard to find. I remember that it was one of those books that were a big deal for me in early adolescence: the ones that were still pretty much children's lit, not YA - classic high fantasy, not hip or modern or anything like that - but that had sex bits in them. And not porn or anything, but just sort of an awareness of the body as a subject. Seaward and Many Waters and Tehanu, and Freckles. Before Song of the Lioness and Mists of Avalon. I loved those books so very very much.

Comments

[theprimrosepath.livejournal.com]

Loved loved loved Seaward. Was curious about more of Cooper's work after I'd fallen in love with The Dark is Rising, sequence. i read it twice in the span of two years, but haven't picked it back up since. Now I miss it. :)

And Many Water! Just reading the title, I had to glance over at my bookshelf (I have enough L'Engle now that she gets her own shelf and I'm excited about that) and smile at it. That and A Swiftly Tilting Planet are my favourites of the Time Quartet, I think.

What's Tehanu? I'm intrigued by its title.

[lotesse]

Tehanu is Ursula LeGuin's, the fourth book of the Earthsea cycle. It's quiet and gynocentric and takes place after the male and female leads have had their great adventures, in the autumn of their lives. It's my favorite book of hers, and I love her writing a very great deal, so that's something.

[lauredhel]

Ah, I'm up to Greenwitch, reading aloud with my son, and we're loving it! Thanks for the other recommendations.

[lotesse]

I'm glad you're enjoying it - what a lovely way for your son to meet those books! I read them out of the library when I was about twelve, and then spent years and years playing pretend based on them.

[lauredhel]

There are a few YA (defined broadly) and kid classic books that I've been putting off and putting off reading myself, so that we can read together. We probably only have a short window of enjoying this read-aloud thing - he's already taken to reading his comics and graphic novels himself in bed at night.

I can't believe I never read this series as a kid myself. How did I miss it?

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

I adore Seaward. I may have read it before TDiR but I don't quite remember. I did manage to buy a copy a number of years ago but I don't remember which store, either. For a brief time I actually wanted to have knobby, hard-to-heal hands because I wanted to be Callie.

[lotesse]

Of course you've read it :) I envy your copy - I think I'm going to try to track it down online for myself for Christmas, because I miiiiss iiiit!

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

I honestly think I might have found it in a Barnes & Noble, but it is hard to find things in chain bookstores that were published more than a few years ago. Good luck!

One of my favorite parts is when Callie is teasing Westerly about his name and he just gives her this Look. And how she immediately knows what he's talking about and admits, "Yeah, but it used to be worse. They named me Calliope." Like in An Acceptable Time we find out that Meg and Calvin told Bishop, "Absolutely! You can name our child anything you want!" he went with Polyhymnia and they said, "Ok, you don't get to do that anymore." :)

[lotesse]

The thing is, I envied both of those girls - how cool would it be to be named after a Muse?!

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

Hell yes!