Re: Least favourite among the books


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Posted by Robert Dilley on August 31, 2005 at 01:46:13 from 216.26.209.187 user rdilley.

In Reply to: Re: Least favourite among the books posted by Dan Lind on August 31, 2005 at 01:12:01:

The “Most and Least Favourite” has been done many times (not least by Rodney Dingle) and never fails to arouse interest and (often) ire.

It seems to me that much depends of the reader's interest. I have done some sailing but am not a regular sailor, so I tend to prefer books with more on-land adventures (Pigeon Post is my favourite). However, Secret Water held my attention despite the sailing, because as a budding geographer the exploring and especially the mapping was much to my taste.

As with many others, Missee Lee is at the bottom of my list. The plot line does read too much like a story made up by a bunch of early teenagers with little comprehension of how the adult world really works (eg how Chinese pirates would actually treat a group of captured young girls). In my case, the book has one constant irritation, which is the phony Chinese-English accents. I have referred to this before, based on my experience of considerable numbers of Chinese students in my classes. For someone who had a wonderful ear for British dialect – Lake District, Norfolk, Scots – AR seems to have adopted the Beano as his source for Chinese speech.

Having said which, it is still a wonderful book. To say it is my least favourite is like saying $10,000 would be my least favourite lottery win, where the alternatives were sums from $50,000 to one million. Even the least favourite amount would be nice.




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