Hemlock and after

This post has been simmering nicely for over a week, while I nibbled at it; but on Sunday afternoon I found my way into it, and very nearly reached the end. I reached, in fact, an end, but not quite the end I wanted. So I took a step back, intending to read through from the beginning, hit the wrong key and - yes - deleted my entire afternoon's work. This was infuriating, but I can't claim it was inappropriate: I'm trying to write about Diana Wynne Jones's Fire and Hemlock, and I find myself like Polly, at the start of the book, trying to remember what it is I have forgotten.

It's a long time since I last read Fire and Hemlock. A rapid trawl through my book diary suggests that it's not since 1987, which must be when I first read it, because that's when it came out in paperback. But here too I feel I've forgotten something crucial - I can't believe that I've only read it once. It's one of my favourite Diana Wynne Jones books - no, it's one of my favourite books full stop. One of the reasons I love it so much is that it is a book about growing up reading: it would be interesting to read it in parallel with Jo Walton's Among Others (  - and I'll put the spoiler cut here in case anyone is worried about spoilers. Anyway, this could be long. )

Which seems like the right place to stop. I finished reading Fire and Hemlock (in rather less time than it has taken me two write about it), picked up The Islands of Chaldea and gulped that down too. Then I registered for Newcastle University's Diana Wynne Jones conference, and forced myself to read something completely different.