Fans of British Writers discussion

American readers (and most Goodreaders, including yours truly, are Americans) tend to be lamentably unread in the literature of most countries other than their own. The one happy exception to that is the voluminous literature of the British Isles. Most Americans are of British descent; our literature started out as a colonial extension of theirs; there are a LOT of British books out there, and we can read them without needing a translation. So it isn't surprising that British writers have always found an appreciative audience in America --which helps pry us, at least a little, out of our parochial shell, and connect up with the broader patrimony of the world's literary heritage and thought. Given the sheer scope of what's within this parameter to discuss, and the amount of interest British writers have always evoked from readers (not only in the U.S., but around the world --and native Brits are welcome as members of this group, as well!), I thought one more Goodreads group devoted to this theme couldn't hurt!

Like any other subject matter, there's always gray areas at the fringes. :-) Some writers were born far from the British Isles, but moved there and wrote there. Others were British-born, but moved elsewhere during their writing careers, or before they started to write. And while we think of "British" as another word for English, some of the writers in this great tradition were Scottish, Irish or Welsh. Personally, I'm not going to be picky about definitions; when you post, I'll let you decide who you classify as a British writer!

Our bookshelves are open shelves, so any of you can add books there --anything by British writers that you've read, or want to read. Consider yourselves encouraged to do that --I'd like to build up the shelves!

I'm waiting for Orthodoxy to show up at the library now.

As to "British" one of my favorite "British" writers is P. G. Wodehouse ( I mean can Bertie and Jeeves be anything but British?) Except of course, having been born in England...Wodehouse became an American citizen. I'm not picky either. :)

Mike wrote: "I'm waiting for Orthodoxy to show up at the library now.

As to "British" one of my favorite "British" writers is P. G. Wodehouse ( I mean can Bertie and Jeeves be anything but British?) Except of ..."

My husband listened to a number of Wodehouse's books a couple of years ago and recommended them to me. I remember greatly enjoying the one audiobook that I borrowed from him, yet it didn't leave a lasting impression, I'm afraid. Now that I've joined the modern era with a CD player in my car, maybe I'll get to listen to more audiobooks.

Speaking of which: I know this is a bit tangential, but two of my favorite audiobook series were by British children's authors (J.K. Rowling and Jonathan Stroud). The books are obviously enjoyable to read to oneself, but the voice talent (Simon Jones, I think) is amazing.

Haven't listened to the Stroud books but (unless there are two versions) Jim Dale reads the Potter books, and they are indeed an experience. "We" have a set (by "we" I mean that my daughter moved back in after her mom died, worried about the "old man" I think. She brought the audio books, most of which I think I'd bought her "back when" with her. She lets dad borrow them.)in the house. I may try the Stroud books later. Of course I don't need more books on my "to read list" lol

Whoa---that was pretty exciting! Just added The Great Game to the group bookshelf. It's an amazingly readable although lengthy work about the struggle between Russia and Britain to use/dominate/exploit the areas around Iran, Afghanistan, etc. Depressingly similar to today's events, and yet there's a bit of comfort in knowing that it's all happened before.

>4: Mike, I am truly sorry about your loss, but how fortunate that your daughter cares enough to be with you.

Mike wrote: "Haven't listened to the Stroud books but (unless there are two versions) Jim Dale reads the Potter books, and they are indeed an experience. "We" have a set (by "we" I mean that my daughter moved b..."

Oh, yes, I knew Jim Dale was the voice talent for the Harry Potter books. I liked Simon Jones so much that I just wanted to give him more credit.

Gail wrote: "Whoa---that was pretty exciting! Just added The Great Game to the group bookshelf. It's an amazingly readable although lengthy work about the struggle between Russia and Britain to use/dominate/exp..."

Sounds like a fascinating book that I should read. Maybe if I put it on my "to-read" shelf, I will, someday.

It's come to light that most Goodreads groups save their group's "currently reading" shelf strictly for books they're doing as a common read. We haven't been following the majority practice in the past, but that's created some confusion; so, thanks to a discussion over in the Moderator Support Group, I've decided (if nobody minds?) to adopt that policy, too. So from here on, no book will appear on the "currently reading" shelf unless we're reading it as a group! (True, we've never done a common read in this group; but we can sometime, if it's something people want to do.)

For some time, I've been giving some thought to the viability of our group. We have 43 members, which is a decent size; but none of us are very active. Our most recent posts were back in April, and we've had only 13 so far this year. My impression is that, since we started two summers ago, activity has tended to dwindle, falling off sharply in 2011 from the 2010 level. Some of the reasons that gave impetus to the group's founding no longer exist; and it's also true that "British writers" is a pretty broad, amorphous literary category. (That is, most people don't consciously pick books to read, or like books, based on the author's British nationality; we're more prone to gear our tastes to particular genres, types of books, writing styles, or authors, regardless of nationality. I haven't picked a book to read by an author who happened to be British in a good while, and I'm surely not alone in that.) And I know I'm not the world's most active moderator; I'm spread a bit too thin, and don't give this group more than a lick and a promise.

I invite your thoughts about our group's future, and whether you think it should continue! Does it still meet a need, or a want? If so, I certainly won't dissolve it! Or has it lived out its usefulness, and is it ready to be decently buried? Also, I've posted a poll where you can vote on some options for making changes, discontinuing the group, or keeping it just as it is; and I've made it anonymous, so how you vote as an individual won't be shown to me or anyone else (I thought you all might feel more free to be candid that way). It'll run through this month, and then we'll see if we can make a consensus decision.

I wouldn't say dissolve it at all. It's largely that I'm active in other groups (fantasy, science fiction and action reads primarily). I need to stop back by and check for subject heads and when I like a book written by an English writer.

I don't think to check back often enough I guess. I'll look through the headings in the next couple of days and see what's what...

Sorry.

Mike, nothing to be sorry about at all! (After all, I haven't posted here since April either --I have the same problem you do, being active in other groups.) Your feedback is really helpful; that's exactly the kind of thing I want to find out.

I am also guilty of not checking often enough. I am a moderator in a huge group that takes a lot of time.......but I think we should continue and just be a little more conscious that we need to post more often.

Thanks for your feedback, Jill! I can relate; I'm a moderator or co-moderator in six groups counting this one (one with over 1,000 members!), and I never feel like I have time to do any of them justice. :-(

Goodreads is designed to be fun, not a duty or a chore, so I wasn't trying to lay a guilt trip on anybody to make them try to post oftener, even if they don't have anything they want to say! It's fine if we don't have posts very often, as long as I know that folks do want the group to be here on those occasions when they DO have something to say.

I'm a relatively new member of the group and as such I usually chime in rather than initiate.. I read almost exclusively British but I don't even review much.. I will participate more if I see posts though :)

I'm not reading anything by a British author right now...

The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Antony Beevor

I just finished this truly amazing book that looks at the last few months of the Third Reich and the horrors visited on the population of Berlin by the Red Army. That Army was frenzied by their experiences at the hands of the Nazis when Germany invaded Russia and they wreaked unimaginable suffering in their revenge....tanks crushing civilians, mass rape, pillage and total destruction. The author does a masterful job of reconstructing the experiences of those millions caught up in the Third Reich's final collapse. I give it the highest recommendation. It is also a wonderful companion book to The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45 by Ian Kershaw

Thanks for the feedback, everybody. I've also gotten a couple of personal messages from members, one of whom made the point that she reads the discussions even if she doesn't post. That's an important reminder; in all groups, there are more members who read with interest than post, and the group serves a purpose for them. It seems there's more vitality in our group than I'd feared!

To clarify something in response to the messages, I don't mind the workload of being moderator (there's not much to mind, since I do very little!). I just sometimes feel like I'm shortchanging you all by not being very active; but I'm game to go on doing what I can!

Mike, I'm in the same boat, not happening to be reading anything by a British writer right now. The soonest that I expect to will be in January, when I hope to start a trilogy by Bernard Cornwell that my son-in-law gave me for Christmas in 2010. (Yes, I'm lamentably slow in getting around to reading things!)

Jill, it's okay to post on the "Currently reading anything by a British writer?" thread, even if it's technically about a book you just finished! :-) The Beevor book sounds good.

I'm in a....well a sort of reading "funk" right now. I tried 3 books lately that I just put down. I didn't rate them badly as it may just be me, LOL. Trying to finish up some library books and been doing some rereads.

Don't know what I'll pick up next.

Our poll runs until midnight; but we've had no new votes on it for awhile, so I think it's safe to say the results are in. Thanks to everyone who took part! (We had a total of eight votes --a higher percentage than have voted on some polls in more active groups.) There were no votes at all for disbanding the group or for replacing the moderator. So, that's a confirmation that this group DOES fill a niche here on Goodreads, and an affirmation that even though I'm not super-active, y'all are satisfied with the job I'm doing. That vote of confidence is appreciated; and with these results, I'll commit myself to keeping this group alive for the long haul!

Altogether, four people voted for the idea of doing occasional common reads (three voted to keep things as they are). So, I'd suggest that after the first of the year (I've got some other reading commitments until then) we give that idea a try. But I'll stipulate that any common read we decide to do will be strictly voluntary; you don't have to join to be in the group! Between now and then, we can talk about the logistics of exactly when, how often, what to read, etc.

Only two people actually voted for adding a co-moderator; but I'm assuming that most others aren't radically opposed to the idea. Goodreads encourages groups to have more than one moderator (if nothing else, it allows for some continuity in leadership if, someday, the original moderator is unable to continue). I'm happy to announce that LeAnn Neal Reilly has generously agreed to become a co-mod for our group, though she's even busier than I am. She can't be super-active either, but we'll both do our best! Thanks, LeAnn.

Thank you, Werner. I'm looking forward to seeing what you suggest for a group read in January (or later).

Well, I could make some suggestions. My physical to-read piles are overflowing their boundaries, and I'm resolved to pare them back next year; some of those books are by British authors (including Agatha Christie, Bernard Cornwell, Erskine Childers, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon). But I don't know whether any or all of those would appeal to many others in the group. I'm hoping to get suggestions from you and other folks here. :-)

In my Supernatural Fiction Readers group (where we've done this several times), we usually put up a poll during part of the month before the common read --not running for the whole month, since people need time to get a copy of the chosen book. We have a thread for discussing what to read (actually, I think we have one in this group, too, though it's never been used --if not, I'll start one!), and we use that, in the time between common reads, to kick around suggestions and narrow the poll choices down. (I think over six makes too long a poll, and scatters the votes too much.) Does that sound like a plan?

Sure, I'm good with that. I only recognize Agatha Christie's name (see how poorly read I am) -- my husband is a fan of hers. I'll have to see if I can finish a couple of the 6 books that I've read about 30 percent into so that I'm ready to tackle a completely new book.

LeAnn, no pressure, but I hope you can --the more people who join in, the better! (Are any of those six that you've read about a third of written by British authors? :-) ) I'll commit to taking part, barring anything radically unforeseen.

Well, I started a sketch of Thomas Aquinas by G. K. Chesterton, but that's not fiction and not likely to appeal to a wide audience. The others are not by British writers, but I've wanted to reread Great Expectations ever since my daughter tackled it last spring. There's a new movie version coming out in November with Helena Bonham-Carter as Miss Havesham and Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch, so I would love to follow up the movie with a rereading of the book.

Great Expectations would certainly be a viable possibility! I've read it twice, and would definitely join in a discussion if that book was the group's choice. My feeling on common reads is that, if you've already read the book and can remember it well enough to talk about it intelligently, you don't have to reread it (unless you want to!) to join in the discussion. That's a feeling probably influenced by the fact that I don't reread books very often, though I do it sometimes; there are so many out there calling to me that I haven't read! :-)

Oh, I just recalled a British writer that I enjoy. He's Welsh, actually. Jasper FForde. He's got a series of books with a literary detective named Thursday Next that are really hard to categorize in terms of genre. They're set in an alternate U.K. in which the British are bogged down in an ongoing Crimean War, there is genetic engineering (she has a pet dodo), and literary works are so revered that knockoffs are peddled from the back of trucks. There are even talking Shakespeare animatronic "WillSpeaks" on street corners that will recite scenes and poetry if you drop a coin into them.

One reason I recalled the series is that in a couple of the books, Thursday is able to get into novels to foil fictional crimes. She meets Miss Havesham, a character who crosses over into Thursday's "reality" to recruit her as a "jurisfiction" detective inside novels. These books are strange and clever and fun with lots of literary and publishing allusions (the first title in the series is "The Eyre Affair"). Of course, I'm ready for the fourth book in the series, so maybe they're not the best bet for a group read ....

I have The Eyre Affair in one of my to-read piles, so I'm definitely open to doing a read of that one! (I picked up a copy at our favorite thrift store in Harrisonburg last year; I usually find a book there that's worth buying every summer, and sometimes more than one.)

Laura-Lee, glad to have you back online! Keep an eye out for flea markets and yard sales in your new neighborhood, too. I've gotten some great book bargains in those venues!

Or perhaps the library? I get a large number of my books there. I'm lucky that our library network is large and I can request almost anything I want from dozens of libraries, especially as the local used paperback bookstore went out of business last summer.

In the post above, I was thinking of owning books; but as LeAnn reminded us, you don't have to own a book to read it --long live libraries! (I'm a librarian myself, and a big user of the library where I work, so I appreciate the plug for that venue!)

Our local library system has a sale once a month where they sell books they've pulled. Hard backs 1$ papers less. if you can get past the people buying to resell on line and the decorators buying by color you can find a few books. It'd fairly frustrating though.

The Bluefield branch of the county library system has a continuous sale rack, both for discarded books and expired magazines, also with good prices. I've never actually found anything there that I wanted to buy, though; they tend to hang on to any books that are really worth reading!

I haven't been in a while because of the things I mentioned above (the internet sales people will almost snatch a book out of your hands). The system has a large room at one branch that the use for sales.

I've just organized our discussion board topic threads into folders, which hopefully will make our group page a bit more user friendly to navigate. Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions (positive or negative) about the new look!

Werner, with regard to the Sense and Sensiblity read, it may be easier if the books were broken up into threads that correspond to the chapters we are discussing weekly. James is doing a great job as group leader but it would be easier for the posters to be able to figure out which comments were directed to which week, if the format was changed. It may be too late for Sense and Sensibility but future in-depth reads might be set up in this manner. Of course, if the book is not a classic or does not facilitate an analytical reading, then of course one thread is fine. What are your thoughts?

Cleo, I can see your point! I'm going to move this discussion to the Common Reads thread, so more of the members can give their thoughts on it.

Ellen wrote: "Where is everyone? There's been no activity in this group for months! Are we pretty much finished talking, reading books and discussing them, discovering new authors and the like? If so, perhaps the admins might consider closing the group? What's everyone's opinion?"

Ellen, I took the liberty of moving your post to this thread, since this is the more natural forum for it.

I posted in this group a bit less than three weeks ago. That said, it's true that we don't have a lot of activity most of the time. (We're usually the most active from January through March, when we're picking a book for our annual common read, and then discussing it.) We all read and discuss books, discover new authors, etc. on an ongoing basis; the authors just don't always happen to be British, so members don't necessarily often have things to post in this particular group. But the general feeling seems to be that for those times when we do, we like to have this group here. The idea of discontinuing the group was discussed back in August of 2012, and a poll was taken; all of the votes were for continuing.

Discussion, of course, is the lifeblood of any group on Goodreads, and none of us would mind having more of it here. The key to that happening is for each of us to post when he/she has something to contribute. Ellen, you posted six comments back in the summer of 2011, but nothing since then until now. We've missed your participation! Have you read anything at all by a British writer in the intervening years? Are there areas of British literature you'd like to discuss? Do you have any thoughts that are relevant to the discussion threads we already have? Are there discussion threads you'd like to start? (You don't have to be a moderator to do that!) The same thing applies to us all; we can make the group as active as we collectively want to make it. But I also don't want to lay guilt trips on anyone for not posting, nor try to goad folks into posting for the sake of it when they don't have anything they actually want to say. (Another group I'm in has a rule that members have to post once a week; but I don't personally think that's a good idea. I'd rather see it left to each person's own discretion.)

Personally I know I'm in too many groups. I don't often think about whether a writer is British or not, LOL. Still I check back occasionally.