It's always so fun to hear about the books you've loved! My reading is pretty much entirely fics these days, and I'm perfectly happy with that, but I do enjoy getting some vicarious book joy from book bloggers like you and skygiants and oldshrewsburyian :)
The only books on your lists that I've read myself were Gaudy Night and Sonnets to Orpheus. Rilke used to be a go-to poet for me back when I was writing Battlestar Galactica fic - he's a wonderful poet for doomed romance, or any character quietly facing impending loss. I tend to get lost in his longer poems (and sometimes his shorter ones too, as vagueness was in vogue), but there's always some stunning turn of phrase that speaks to me in there. And some of his short poems are old favorites, I used to read them back and forth out loud with my mother. Our favorite translator of his work is Stephen Mitchell, I've never come across any other versions I liked half as well. I have his "The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke" on my shelf, and it includes all the Sonnets to Orpheus as well as a lot of other pieces.
When it comes to YA books, an author who was dear to me in my teenager-hood was Elizabeth Marie Pope. She only wrote two novels (her 'real job' was teaching as an English professor), and I'd recommend them both if you're ever in the mood for light, bantering romance in fun historical settings. "The Perilous Gard" (1974) is her better-known novel, set in Elizabethan England and playing on the Tam Lin ballad/legend. The one I loved best growing up, though, was "The Sherwood Ring" (1958), in which chatty ghosts of the American Revolutionary era comfort a lonely girl with stories of their adventures and romances. Both of them have a wry sense of humor that shaped my sensibilities for certain :)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2020-01-03 01:39 pm (UTC)The only books on your lists that I've read myself were Gaudy Night and Sonnets to Orpheus. Rilke used to be a go-to poet for me back when I was writing Battlestar Galactica fic - he's a wonderful poet for doomed romance, or any character quietly facing impending loss. I tend to get lost in his longer poems (and sometimes his shorter ones too, as vagueness was in vogue), but there's always some stunning turn of phrase that speaks to me in there. And some of his short poems are old favorites, I used to read them back and forth out loud with my mother. Our favorite translator of his work is Stephen Mitchell, I've never come across any other versions I liked half as well. I have his "The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke" on my shelf, and it includes all the Sonnets to Orpheus as well as a lot of other pieces.
When it comes to YA books, an author who was dear to me in my teenager-hood was Elizabeth Marie Pope. She only wrote two novels (her 'real job' was teaching as an English professor), and I'd recommend them both if you're ever in the mood for light, bantering romance in fun historical settings. "The Perilous Gard" (1974) is her better-known novel, set in Elizabethan England and playing on the Tam Lin ballad/legend. The one I loved best growing up, though, was "The Sherwood Ring" (1958), in which chatty ghosts of the American Revolutionary era comfort a lonely girl with stories of their adventures and romances. Both of them have a wry sense of humor that shaped my sensibilities for certain :)