BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE - OCTOBER 2016 - ATKINSON & GOLDING

KATE ATKINSON



Kate Atkinson was born in the city of York and has been thrice winner of the prestigious Whitbread/Costa Book Awards.

WILLIAM GOLDING



Cornish born William Golding will always be best known for Lord of the Flies but in addition he won the Booker Prize in 1980 and the Nobel Prize in 1983. He was involved in the pursuit and sinking of the Bismarck as part of his service in the Royal Navy in WW2.

ATKINSON'S BOOKS

Series
Jackson Brodie

1. Case Histories (2004)
2. One Good Turn (2006)
3. When Will There Be Good News (2008)
4. Started Early, Took My Dog (2010)

Todd Family
1. Life After Life (2013)
2. A God in Ruins (2015)

Novels
Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995)
Human Croquet (1997)
Emotionally Weird (2000)

GOLDING'S BOOKS

Series
To the Ends of the Earth
1. Rites of Passage (1980)
2. Close Quarters (1987)
3. Fire Down Below (1989)

Novels
Lord of the Flies (1954)
The Inheritors (1955)
Pincher Martin (1956)
Free Fall (1959)
The Spire (1964)
The Pyramid (1967)
The Scorpion God (1972)
Darkness Visible (1979)
The Paper Men (1984)
The Double Tongue (1995)

What I'm reading

ATKINSON



GOLDING

I found Behind the Scenes at the Museum on my shelves - how did that get there? I will be reading it for this month's challenge, my first Atkinson. I am on the first chapter and it is drawing me in.

I've read all of Atkinson's novels, but I don't think I've read anything by Golding, and don't really want to read Lord of the Flies... Not sure what to pick.

I will try to read Behind the Scenes at the Museum, but my reading is going so slowly right now I'm not sure I can fit it in.

Lots of driving in the last few weeks, so I am almost done with the audio:



What an amazing story! I know I won't have time to go on with A God in Ruins this month, but I will definitely get there eventually.

>7 charl08: I have started Rites of Passage which also won the Booker Prize. It is pretty good thus far.

I finished Behind the Scenes at the Museum yesterday. It's an excellent book, and it's hard to believe it was her first novel. It was the first book of hers that I've read that isn't one of the Jackson Brodie novels, and it more than lived up to my expectations. It was a 5-star read for me.

>11 cbl_tn: I did not know that this was Atkinson's first novel. I have never read anything by Kate Atkinson before and tried this author thanks to the BAC. Behind the Scenes at the Museum was very good and drew me in. I must admit, though, I thought that there would be an actual museum so it was not quite what I expected.

I will probably be giving the BAC a skip this month. I've read all of Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels and loved them. Have nothing else of hers on the shelf at the moment, but will eventually try to get to everything. Golding can just take a hike, for all I care...hated Lord of the Flies so much I think I quit after less than 20 pages.

I just finished the last Jackson Brodie book - Started Early, Took My Dog. Really loved it, and now I am sad that there are no more.

Plenty of love for Yorkshire's Edinburgh resident, Kate Atkinson, but not so much for the gifted but difficult William Golding.

I am just finishing When Will There Be Good News? and it is the third of four in a really top notch series.

Read Rites of Passage earlier and it rewarded my persistence eventually.

The only Golding I've read is Lord of the Flies back in the olden days of school. Since I've heard Kate Atkinson mentioned for so long in the threads of people I follow on LT, I chose to read her Case Histories for my first Atkinson read. It took me a bit to get comfortable on the ride - back and forth in time, up and down in atmosphere, in and out of the investigative tangles. Ultimately, I enjoyed it very much and plan to continue the series.

Well, I read this month's authors, but I can't say I liked either of them. Golding's The Spire did not impress me and Atkinson's Human Croquet was dreadful--she tried to jazz up a soap opera-ish family drama with some half-assed magical realism and the results were, expectedly, crap.