Top Ten Tuesday: Time for Some Thrilling Heroics

This week, That Artsy Reader Girl is giving us a freebie for Top Ten Tuesday!  I've decided to share my top ten favorite swashbucklers with you.

To me, a book or movie is a swashbuckler if it has adventure, sword fights (or brawls), daring escapes or rescues, and a certain amount of swagger.  I adore stories like that!  Here are my ten favorite, complete with a few story elements you'll find in them.  All titles are linked to my reviews.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas -- prison escape, long-lost love, revenge, murder, disguises, tall ships, young love, damsels in distress, bandits...

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson -- stolen inheritance, kidnapping, shipwreck, escape, mismatched buddies, disguises, treason, assassination, fencing, bagpipes...

The Princess Bride by William Goldman -- fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle -- archery, banditry, outlawry, brawling, courtly romance, captures, rescues...

The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley -- fencing, disguises, rescues, chases, more fencing...

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson -- pirates, treasure, tall ships, maroonings, sieges, rescues...

The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini -- pirates, damsels in distress, kidnappings, rescues, tall ships, sea battles, fencing, brawling, treachery...

The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope -- mistaken identity, disguises, fencing, kidnapping, doomed romance, rescues...

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy -- disguises, rescues, chases, fencing, romance, mistaken identities, damsels in distress...

Sackett's Land by Louis L'Amour -- exploration, chases, escapes, fencing, brawling, tall ships, sea battles, fortune seekers, romance...

And there you have it!  Are you a fan of swashbucklers too?  Got any to recommend?

"Prince of Thieves" by Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas wrote books about Robin Hood?  Say what now? 

Yes, it is true!  In fact, he wrote more than one.  Prince of Thieves is the first, and it's an origin story for Robin Hood.  It's rather different from the usual Robin Hood origin stories you get from authors like Howard Pyle.  Robin Hood here is the son of a nobleman, yes, but he's taken as an infant and given to a forester to raise because his father is dead and there's someone out to get his inheritance, and so on.  Robin grows up happily in the forest (I mean, who wouldn't?) and is in his mid-teens when he starts to have adventures, meets Maid Marian and Little John and Friar Tuck, and so on.

Most of the plot revolves around some friends of his who are trying to get married, but the girl's dad forbids the match and tries to have her intended killed, and there's all manner of skulduggery and mayhem, along with some hijinks.  It's a totally different story from any Robin Hood I've read before, and I had a lot of fun imagining Dumas just chuckling with glee as he came up with it.  It definitely stars the cheerful kind of Robin Hood that I like best.  But it's almost more of an ensemble piece, really.  I assume the sequel, Robin Hood the Outlaw, probably deals more with getting Robin's rightful inheritance back?  We shall see!  It's sitting on my TBR shelves.

Prince of Thieves was first published after Dumas's death.  It has nothing whatever to do with the Kevin Costner movie with the same title, sorry.  The version I read was translated into English by Alfred Allinson, and it has deliberately archaic language, which I'm assuming Dumas also affected, full of prithee and mayest thou and so on.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG.  It has some violence and even killing, but it's totally not gory or scary or even intense.  Still, people do die, sometimes in somewhat distressing ways if you have a vivid imagination, so I wouldn't give it to a kid younger than at least 10.

This is my second book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list and my 49th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022!

"Hawksmaid" by Kathryn Lasky

Hawksmaid is a retelling of the Robin Hood legend that focuses on Marian and imagines her as a nobleman's daughter with a love for falconry.  She and Robin Hood grow up together, and the story follows them from preteens to young adulthood.  I found that nifty, as most Robin Hood retellings don't span such a lot of years, especially not ones aimed at kids.  

I liked the characterizations in this, for Robin himself felt light-hearted, yet could be serious-minded, which is exactly what I want in a Robin Hood.  And Marian was brave, intelligent... and a little bossy.  I'm bossy myself, so I kinda liked that in her.  Plus, she learns all about falconry, which means readers learn a lot about it too.  The only other fiction book I can remember that touches on this subject is My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, which I loved as a kid.

The one thing I didn't like in this was the sort of mystical, magical turn the story veered off into toward the end, with Marian joining consciousness with her birds somehow.  The rest of the story was so grounded in reality that the injection of magical realism here and there felt weird and off-putting.  I would have loved it if it had stayed totally realistic, or if it had been magical realism from the start.  Instead, it feels like the author couldn't figure out how to make the ending work, so she resorted to adding in some magic.  As a reader, I was annoyed.  As a writer, it struck me as lazy writing.  So... I'll give this three stars.  And let my kids read it if they want to.  The characters were good, and the storyline was good.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for violence, danger, and scenes of peril, as well as unexplained magicalness.

This is my sixth book read for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Tuck" by Stephen R. Lawhead

Well, I've done it!  I've finished the King Raven trilogy!  And I managed to read Tuck in just a couple of weeks, not drag it out over months like I did Scarlet and Hood.  I liked it about equally well with Scarlet, and I loved the ending.

In fact, if you had told me this is how it all would end back when I was reading Hood, I probably wouldn't have believed you.  I probably would have laughed.  Because that book was so dark, I almost quit reading it halfway through and gave up on the series even though I had probably a dozen friends, on and off the internet, telling me the series was awesome.

Yeah, my friends were totally right.  The ending?  SO good.  I was pleased.

SPOILER ALERT:  Bran does not die.  I was just assuming this was going to be one where the Robin Hood character dies, but nope, not so.  YAY!  I actually have this rule where I don't read about Robin Hood dying because if I didn't read it, it didn't happen, and I can happily live in a world where Robin Hood still lives.  So I was fully prepared to quit reading this book before the last chapter if it became obvious Bran was going to die.  But he didn't.  So I got to read the whole thing.  END SPOILER ALERT.

Anyway.  This series still isn't my favorite Robin Hood retelling, but I did enjoy it.  Yay!  It was nifty having this book focus a lot on Friar Tuck, because I've always liked him a lot in basically every version of Robin Hood I've seen or read that includes him.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for a lot of violence and a little bad language.

(From my Instagram...)

"Scarlet" by Stephen R. Lawhead

Overall, I liked Scarlet about ten times as well as I liked Hood.  It still took me months to read, but this time it was because I had to set it aside to read a few things that I had a deadline for.  However, this book was exciting and enjoyable, with a great mix of danger and emotion, and even some fun here and there. 

This book is narrated by Will Scatlocke, aka Will Scarlet, whom I became very fond of indeed.  He was such a cheerful, sensible guy!  He tells most of it to a scribe while he's in prison.  I got closer and closer to the end and started worrying that the whole book would end before Will ever got out of prison, but happily, that totally didn't happen.  While in captivity, he relates how he joined up with Rhi Bran Hud's band of Welsh rebels even though Will isn't himself Welsh, how they fought against their oppressors by every means possible, and how he got captured.  He also talks about gradually falling in love with one of the rebels, a widow named Noin. 

The last hundred pages or so were extremely awesome, and I read them in one day.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for violence and a little bad language.

Top Ten Tuesdays: Where You Lead, I Will Follow

This week's TTT topic from The Broke and the Bookish is "Ten Characters Who Would Make Great Leaders."  I'm tweaking that a little to list off my top ten characters who lead so well, I would follow them.  So here we go!

I've put them in order by first name because... I have to have some sort of order.  Also, I spent like twenty minutes trying to decide if I should put Bard or Boromir first, and failing to come to any satisfactory conclusion.

+Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

+Bard the Bowman from The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

+Boromir from The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

+Faramir from The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

+Captain Frederick Wentworth from Persuasion by Jane Austen

+Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

+Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling

+Captain Jack Aubrey from the Aubrey/Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian

+Robin Hood, especially from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

+Roran Stronghammer from the Eragon books by Christopher Paolini


Um, yeah, there's a lot of Tolkien here.  Probably because I'm re-reading LOTR right now!  I just started another LOTR read-along, so if you're interested in joining that, you're hereby invited to do so!

Did you do a TTT list?  What leaders did you talk about?  Leave me a link to your list if you want to!

"Hood" by Stephen R. Lawhead

So, I'm in a little bit of an awkward position here.  A friend loaned me this book, and the two others in the series, about 4 months ago.  She said, "I just know you'll love these!  Here, you can borrow them."  And I was excited, because two years ago when I was doing My Year with Robin Hood, lots of people recommended these books to me.  So as soon as I'd finished my mountain of books from the library, I started in.

But... I didn't love Hood.  I liked parts of it, but not all of it.  

If a book doesn't grab me right off the bat, I usually give it 10 chapters or 100 pages, whichever comes first.  If it hasn't hooked me by then, I feel justified in quitting it.  Because this was loaned to me by a friend and I wanted to give it a very fair shake indeed, I decided to give it 150 pages.  And right around page 130, I started to get interested.  At least, interested enough to be willing to finish the book.

However, having finished this volume, I'm not at all sure that I care enough about these characters to spend another thousand pages or so with them.  I don't even like most of them much, aside from Tuck and Iwan.  

But that's not the main problem.  I mean taking 130 pages to get interesting, and only having two characters I like -- those are huge problems.  However, the main problem for me was the fact that, as I mentioned on my other blog a few days ago, I have come to realize that I need Robin Hood to be merry.  You can be dark and gritty, and I'm fine with that.  But Robin Hood himself, or whatever you're calling him (Rhi Bran Hud, for instance) -- he needs to be a cheerful, plucky fellow.  Don't get me wrong, I still love Byronic heroes.  Always will, I'm sure.  But I don't want Robin Hood to be Byronic.  Not at all.

So yeah... I didn't have a problem with this being set in Wales (I like Wales!  Ioan Gruffudd and Luke Evans and Richard Burton are Welsh.)  I didn't have a problem with it being set a long time earlier than most Robin Hood legends.  I didn't have a problem with all the not-quite-usual names.  I just Did Not Like the Robin Character.  And I kept getting bored.

I'm kinda bummed that I didn't like this book, because I really was expecting to dig this series.  Sigh.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for a smattering of bad language, quite a bit of violence, some creepy moments, and a very mild bit of innuendo.

This is my last contribution to Robin Hood Week hosted by Meanwhile, in Rivendell...  

And this is my fifth book read and reviewed for the Adventure of Reading Challenge.  Yippee!

Robin Hood Week Tag

As part of the Robin Hood Week festivities, Olivia has kindly provided us with a tag.  I love tags, did you know that?  Yeah, if you've been reading my blogs for more than about two minutes, you probably did.  Anyway, here goes!

What was your first exposure to Robin Hood?  It was the little read-along book and vinyl record put out by Disney, retelling the 1973 animated film.  I got that when I was 2 or 3, and I listened to it over and over during my childhood.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how big a fan are you?  Can I say 11?  No, because I haven't seen/read every single version of Robin Hood ever.  Guess I'm just a 10.  Robin Hood is a very important character to me, and has been so for as long as I can remember.  I'm continually inspired by his dedication to helping others at expense of his own safety.

How many versions and spin-offs of the legend have you experienced?  Hmm.  I've watched The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964), Robin Hood (1973),  Robin Hood:  Prince of Thieves (1991), Robin Hood:  Men in Tights (1993), Princess of Thieves (2001), and Robin Hood (2010), so that's 8 movie versions.  I've also watched two different versions of Ivanhoe (1952 and 1982), and Robin Hood is a pretty important part of that story, so let's add those as well.  And I've watched scattered episodes of the BBC series, as well as part of the 1950s TV series starring Richard Greene.  And an ep of The Time Tunnel called "The Revenge of Robin Hood."  So I think that means I've watched thirteen versions.

As for books, I've read Henry Gilbert's Robin Hood and Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.  Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott.  Plus a few other young adult or junior fiction adaptations now and then too.  I'm working on Hood by Stephen Lawhead right now, and but I don't think I'm going to finish it in time to review it for this week's festivities.

So... lots.  That's my answer:  lots.

What is your favorite version of Robin Hood (can be book, movie, TV series, anything)?  Goodness me, how can I choose?  I think it's a toss-up between the animated 1973 movie and the Howard Pyle book.  So difficult to decide!  Let's just say those are my favorite movie and book versions, and leave it at that.

Are you one of the lads? (Meaning, have you watched/are you a fan of the BBC show?)  I've seen half a dozen episodes and would really like to see the rest.

Who is your favorite Merry Man?  You mean besides dear Robin himself?  Generally Little John or Will Scarlet.  Depends on the movie or book!

Do you have a favorite portrayal of Lady Marian?  Probably Olivia de Havilland in the 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood.  She is equal parts strength and grace and fervor and sweetness.  Everything I love in a female character!

Do you have any interest in or aptitude at archery?  Interest?  Yes!  Aptitude... I haven't shot a bow for years, so I don't know.  I'd like to take it up at some point, and with more than a toy bow and arrow set.

Fact or fiction -- which do you think?  I think there has to be some basis in fact, but that the real people who inspired it were probably not nearly as wonderful as the character we now know.

Do you think Robin Hood has been "done to death," or are there still new twists that can be found?  I think a character who has been explored in so many varied ways is definitely rich enough to be interpreted in more ways.  Robin Hood still has plenty to give us.  There's a version coming out next year with Ben Mendelsohn as the Sheriff of Nottingham that could be cool!

Don't forget to enter my Robin Hood giveaway over here, and to visit Meanwhile, in Rivendell... for the fun Olivia has planned, as well as links to other people's participatory posts.

Tag -- I'm It!

The two books I'm reading right now are loooooooooooooooooong. Long in pages, and long in time it takes to read them.  Which means I've been neglecting this blog dreadfully. I was just thinking, "Wouldn't it be nice if I had a bookish tag sitting in my drafts I could finish off?" And I didn't, which made me frowny. But then I was playing catch-up on reading the blogs I follow, and look what I found on Flowers of Quiet Happiness! Kara was so kind as to tag everyone in the blogosphere, which includes me, so... here we go!

RULES: You must be honest. You must answer all the questions. You must tag at least 4 people.

1. What book has been on your shelf the longest?  If I'm not counting children's picture books, junior fiction, or middle grade fiction, then it would be my copy of Robin Hood by Henry Gilbert.  I bought it at a rummage sale when I was 7 or 8, too young to quite read it, but so fascinated with Robin Hood that I tried anyway.

The binding was already messed up when I got it, and my fervent loving didn't help it any.  There's actually no copyright or printing date inside!  Just says "Books, INC. Publishers, New York."

2. What is your current read, your last read, and the book you’ll read next?  I'm currently reading Something Rich and Strange by Ron Rash (a collection of short stories) and The Searchers:  The Making of an American Legend by Glenn Frankel.  The last book I finished reading was The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson.  And if I ever finish the books I'm reading right now, I'll start Hood by Stephen Lawhead.

3. What book did everyone like, but you hated?  Inkheart by Cornelia Funke.  I don't so much hate it as have a great distaste for all but one of the main characters.  And I know a lot of people who love it.  I refused to see the movie for years, but finally got persuaded to watch it, and whaddaya know?  I loved the movie!

4. What book do you keep telling yourself you'll read, but you probably won't?  Oh, probably something by Charles Dickens.  I tell myself I will read all his books, but there will probably be one or two that I just die without ever getting around to.

5. What book are you saving for retirement?  Possibly Don Quixote or Moby-Dick.  Or War and Peace.  I've been meaning to read those for years and years, but haven't gotten to them yet.  I certainly hope I'll read them before I'm retirement age, but at this rate....

6. Last page: read it first, or wait 'til the end?  Wait for the end!  On the very rarest of rare occasions, I will skip to the end -- I can remember doing this once in the last forever.  I did flip to the back of And Now Tomorrow by Rachel Field to be sure that it would end basically the way the movie did, because if it didn't, I would be angry.

7. Acknowledgement: waste of paper and ink, or interesting aside?  Um, yeah, I tend to skim or skip.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?  Dr. Watson!  I would LOVE to be Sherlock Holmes' trusty sidekick, chronicler, and friend.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life? (Place, time, person?)  So many!  I attach memories to objects, so most of the books I own hold some kind of memory for me.  To pick one, The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King reminds me of several specific VeggieTales songs (and the songs remind me of it) because, when my son was very young, I would let him watch five Silly Songs a day on YouTube, and he picked the same ones over and over.  I would sit by the computer with him on my lap and read while he watched.  "Monkey" and "The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo" are particularly linked to that book in my head.

10. Name a book that you acquired in an interesting way.  Hmm.  Um.   Hmm.  I think I've acquired all my books in pretty normal ways -- by buying them or getting them as gifts.  I've never stolen a book, or had one sent to me by a secret admirer, or found one on a train.  Oh!  I know!  When we were little kids, we used to get books from our church's library, and when my little brother was like two, he scribbled all over inside one of the books.  And got in biiiiiiiiiiiiig trouble, believe you me.  So my parents bought a replacement copy for the church library, and then we got to keep the ruined one, only they didn't want to give it to my brother because that would be like a reward for being naughty, so they gave it to me.  Which means I have a copy of this book because my brother vandalized it:

11. Have you ever given a book away for a special reason to a special person?  Yes.

12. Which book has been with you most places?  Every book I got before the age of 4 and still own has gone from Iowa to Michigan, to North Carolina, to Minnesota, to Wisconsin, to Connecticut, to Virginia.

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad later?  Not exactly.  I didn't have a lot of "required reading" in high school -- I was homeschooled, and my mom basically gave me this list of great books and said, "Read at least half of these over the next four years."  So I did.  But I got to pick and choose.  There were books I read that I disliked -- especially Lord of the Flies by William Golding and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte -- but I disliked them so much, I've never felt the urge to re-read them.

However!  There are two books that are often "required reading" for people who are in high school that I first read after I was already done with high school and really disliked.  They're The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  First time I read them, blech.  Second time, wow.  In fact, I like them so much now that I lead a read-along for Old Man a couple of years ago, and I'm leading a read-along of Gatsby in June.

14. Used or brand new?  Both!

15. Have you ever read a Dan Brown book?  No.  What a weirdly specific question.

16. Have you ever seen a movie you liked more than the book?  Inkheart, but I said that already.  Oh, I know!  North and South.  I like the book, but I love the movie way more.  This is almost entirely Brendan Coyle's fault.

17. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks included?  So many.  Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Lizzy & Jane and A Portrait of Emily Price by Katherine Reay.  Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen.  And don't get me started on cookbooks :-9

18. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?  My mom.  If she says I'll like a book, I pretty much always do.

19. Is there a book out of your comfort zone (e.g., outside your usual reading genre) that you ended up loving?  Okay, so... I read almost every genre.  I've even dipped a very hesitant toe into horror.  I've never read a bodice-ripper, though I did read a couple of Victoria Holt books in college that got way more swoony than I needed.  So what is my comfort zone?  I mean, mysteries are my favorites, and I love historical fiction and classics.  But I'll also read fantasy and sci-fi and chick lit.  Hmm.  And it has to be one I ended up loving.  Hmmmmm.  I guess I'll go with the Harry Potter books, because I didn't like the first one when I read it in college, but then I tried them again a few years later and, once I got past the first book, started really getting into them, and now I love the series.  Does that work?

I hereby tag:

Abby P. at Lavender Spring
Kathryn at The Language of Writing
Oliva at Meanwhile, in Rivendell...
Meredith at On Stories and Words
Miss March at Sunshiny Corner

Play if you want to!

Top Ten Tuesday: Historically Speaking

This week's prompt, from The Broke and the Bookish, is Top Ten Historical Settings You Love.

I love books set in the past, as you know by now.  Whether they were written long ago, or are what I consider to be "historical fiction" (set in a time prior to the age the author lived in), I love learning about how life was different in time gone by, and how it was also the same as what we have today.  People haven't changed much since the fall into sin, and that saying that "the more things change, the more they stay the same" definitely feels true when I'm reading historical fiction.

Anyway, here are the settings I'm most drawn to, in chronological order:

4000 BC-100 AD -- Biblical times.  I don't read a lot of fiction set then, though I do really love The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare and Ben-Hur:  A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace.  But I do read quite a bit of nonfiction about it -- right now, I'm working my way through When Christ Walked Among Us by James F. Pope.

500-1500 -- Middle Ages.  Basically anything involving Robin Hood, King Arthur, knights and ladies and castles.  The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle and so on.

1600s -- Elizabethan England.  If it involves Shakespeare, I'm interested.

1700s -- American Colonial Era and Revolution.  The Felicity books, The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter, The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare, Sarah Bishop by Scott O'Dell, anything involving Daniel Boone.

1800s -- Napoleonic Wars, British Regency, American frontier life.  Jane Austen, Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series.  Streams to the River, Rivers to the Sea by Scott O'Dell, anything about Davy Crockett and Kit Carson.

1860s -- American Civil War.  Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, books by Shelby Foote, memoirs of soldiers, etc.

1870s-1900 -- American Old West.  My favorite era for movies, and the one I love writing in the most.  I'm very fond of Zane Grey, getting fonder of Louis L'Amour, and want to try out Max Brand.

1900s -- Victorian Era Britain.  I love Sherlock Holmes!

1920s -- the Jazz Age.  I love Fitzgerald and Hemingway, books by them or about them.  Especially The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast by Hemingway, and Tales of the Jazz Age and Flappers and Philosophers by Fitzgerald.  

1940s -- WWII.  Basically, anything set during WWII grabs my attention.  Sarah Sundin, Raymond Chandler, anything historical about WWII.  The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, Shadows Over Stonewycke by Michael Phillips and Judith Pella, anything by Bill Mauldin or Ernie Pyle.


That's only 9, but that's all I've got :-)

EDIT:  No, it's not!  I realized that I was thinking mostly about fiction, but I do read non-fiction (and a bit of fiction) about Biblical times, so I'm adding that to the top of this list.

"Rowan Hood: Outlaw Girl of Sherwood Forest" by Nancy Springer

I picked this up at the library because, hey, who wouldn't want to read a story about Robin Hood having a daughter?  The back told me that it was a story of a girl named Rosemary whose mother dies, so she cuts off her hair, dresses as a boy, calls herself Rowan, and sets off to find her famous father, whom she's never met.  That sounded really fun, and I couldn't wait for her to have adventures with all the Robin Hood characters I love so well.

And that's sorta what I got, except only Robin Hood is in the story much, and the rest of his merry men only show up in a couple of scenes.  Rowan/Rosemary is smart and courageous, but her mother was a "woodwife," basically a witch, and so is Rowan.  Although there wasn't much "love your mother earth" sort of stuff, it had much more of a fantasy feel than I was expecting.  So while this is an okay book, it wasn't what I was expecting, which left me a little disappointed.  However, it was fast-paced and fun.  And I believe this is the beginning of a series.

But I think I'll stick with the movie Princess of Thieves (2001) when I want stories about Robin Hood and his daughter. 

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for mentioning menstruation, developing breasts, and a girl being uncomfortable when a man urinates nearby (he thinks she's a boy).

"The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood" by Howard Pyle

Oh, how I wish I'd read this book when I was younger!  Not that I didn't love and appreciate it now, because I did, but because I could have enjoyed it so many times by now.  

It took me rather a long time to read this because it was so delightful, I didn't want it to end.  And, to be truthful, I did not read the epilogue.  When I was young, maybe under ten, I made a vow never to read the end of a Robin Hood story that ended with him dying.  That way I can always think of him still merrily having bold adventures somewhere in the wide world.  And so, I never have.  I only know he dies at the end of many retellings because the one I was reading when I made that vow had a chapter called "The Death of Robin Hood," and I couldn't bear to read it.  

So imagine my joy when the epilogue of this book began with these words:  "And now, dear friend -- you who have journeyed with me in all these merry doings, -- I will not bid you follow me further, but will drop your hand here with a "good den," if you wish it" (p 319).  Pyle himself acknowledged that people like me won't want to read this part, and he readily excuses us from doing so.  What an obliging person!

Okay, but anyway, I loved this book.  Dearly.  It is, at the moment, my favorite retelling -- even surpassing the Henry Gilbert, which I read so often in my youth.  I might even have to rearrange my list of favorite books so this can be probably in the top ten. 

This of course is a pretty basic retelling of Robin Hood's adventures, though I was surprised that Maid Marian is really not in it at all.  Robin mentions her once or twice in a vague way, but she never appears at all.  However, Little John and Friar Tuck and Will Scarlet and Will Stutely and Alan a Dale are all here.  And the Sheriff of Nottingham is the main antagonist.  Guy of Gisborne only shows up at the tail end in one chapter, and is swiftly dispatched.  And Prince John isn't around at all -- for most of the book, King Henry and Queen Eleanor are on the throne, and then at the very end, King Henry dies and King Richard arrives.  It isn't until after the main book ends that Robin goes crusading, unlike many versions that have him coming home from the wars and becoming an outlaw then.

I especially love the characterization of Robin Hood.  As King Henry said toward the beginning, "He is a saucy, rebellious varlet, yet, I am fain to own, a right merry soul withal" (p. 32).  He is a cheerful, happy man, not given to brooding even when he accidentally kills a man and has to go into hiding at the very beginning of the book.  He is repentant of that killing, and mentions several times how it gives him sorrow, but overall, he's happy-go-lucky.  As it says elsewhere, "it took but little to tickle Robin's heart into merriment" (p. 222-23).  Doesn't he sound fun to hang out with?

I have lots of favorite lines, so I'm going to share many of them here to show you the book's delightful, joyous flavor, which is much of what makes me love it.

Particularly Good Bits:

As for mine host, he knew how to keep a still tongue in his head, and to swallow his words before they passed his teeth, for he knew very well which side of his bread was spread with butter, for Robin and his band were the best of customers, and paid their scores without having them chalked up behind the door (p. 26).

"Hold, friend!" cried Robin to the Miller; whereupon he turned slowly, with the weight of the bag upon his shoulder, and looked at each in turn all bewildered, for though a good stout man his wits did not skip like roasting chestnuts (p. 119).

Now happenings so come upon us in this world that the serious things of this world become so mixed up with the merry things that our life is all of a jumble of black and white, as it were, like the boards of checkered black and white upon which country folk play draughts at the inn beside the blazing fire of a winter's night (p. 123).

So passed the seasons then, so pass they now, and so they will pass in time to come, whilst we come and go like leaves of the tree that fall and are soon forgotten (p. 174).

"Gaffer Swanthold speaks truly when he saith, 'Better a crust with content than honey with a sour heart" (p. 208).

If This Was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for mild violence.  

This is my 23rd book read and reviewed for The Classics Club.  I'm almost halfway done with my challenge!

Because I'm spending a year reading about Robin Hood, I treated myself to something special back in May:  a handmade Robin Hood-themed bookmark!  I got it from the Etsy shop BookNiche and I like it a whole lot.  Do check out their shop if you like thong bookmarks!  There are nearly a hundred of them in stock right now, all different and all nifty.

"Outlaw" by Angus Donald

Well, nuts.  I'm really disappointed by this book.  It started out promisingly, with interesting characters, great historical detail, and some original takes on various characters from the Robin Hood legend.  It begins with Alan Dale joining Robin Hood's band as a young teen, and at first I thought it was going to be a YA book.  But things got adult pretty quickly.  And the truth is, I will read a book with bad language in it, and I'll read a book with violence in it.  I will even read books where characters have sex, as long as the sex isn't described in explicit, salacious detail. Sadly, this was too explicit for me to read in good conscience.  I skimmed through the first objectionable scene and kept reading, hoping that would be the end of such stuff, but eventually I realized it wasn't, so I had to stop.

And I'm so disappointed that the author chose to include all that smut, because I was very invested in the characters and intrigued by the plot, and now I'll never get to find out how Donald resolved everything.  Boo.

The good news is, I don't have this taking up space on my shelves anymore!  

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  R.  Explicit sex, very bad language, torture, violence, and pagan rituals.  I absolutely do not recommend this book.

Ten Favorite Books of 2014

I read 46 books in 2014, which rather astounds me.  That's almost four a month!  Wow.  I've decided to do a quick post about what my top ten favorites were this year, and I'm breaking it up into two sections, new-to-me books and re-reads.

My favorite new-to-me books were:

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster -- so adorable!  Funny and sweet and quirky, an instant favorite.

Sixteen Brides by Stephanie Grace Whitson -- another for my list of absolute favorites!  Which I need to revise one of these days.  I loved how this wasn't focused on romance so much as friendships.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger -- I never knew what to expect next from this book.  And I could only read it a chapter or so at a time because I had to digest every new twist and turn before I could move on.

The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley -- I love the Zorro story, and I was delighted to find that the original story was crammed with the happy-go-lucky bravery I was hoping for.

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool -- I found this book so useful for understanding 19th-century life that I asked for (and got) a copy for Christmas.

Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright -- sweet and heart-warming, with some of the most believable sibling characters I've read in a long time.


My favorite re-reads were:

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien -- yeah, yeah, I read The Fellowship of the Ring last year, but I read the other two this year, so I'm counting it as a whole for this year.  This was my sixth read-through, and it continued to astonish me with new nuances and depths I hadn't found before.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by A. Conan Doyle -- my favorite canonical Sherlock Holmes story.  It's unparalleled in its use of atmosphere and location to build suspense.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King -- my favorite non-canonical Sherlock Holmes story.  It has several mysteries and great character development, and the series that follows is very dear to my heart.

A Family Affair by Rex Stout -- my favorite Nero Wolfe mystery, with a shocking solution that makes me think of Joss Whedon.


And I've decided that 2015 will be My Year with Robin Hood.  You may recall that I spent 2013 (and into 2014 because I didn't start until March of 2013) in the company of Sherlock Holmes, and I focused on Jane Austen in 2012.  I really missed having an overall theme to my reading this year, so that's my challenge to myself for 2015:  read at least 6 books that involve Robin Hood.  You can see in my sidebar that I've already begun -- I started Angus Donald's Outlaw yesterday and immediately knew I'd found my theme for 2015.  I've loved Robin Hood stories since I was a little kid, but it's been a while since I read anything about him.  Time to remedy that!  I kind of collect Robin Hood books and movies, so I have several retellings I've never read, and I bet my enthusiasm will once again bleed over into my movie watching, like it did for Austen and Holmes.  So don't be surprised if I start reviewing Robin Hood movies on my other blog!

Happy New Year!

"The Mark of Zorro" by Johnston McCulley

I've been a Zorro fan for most of my life.  At a rummage sale when I was probably 8 or 9, I found an old picture book based on the Disney TV show, Zorro (1957-61).  I was already a lover of all things Old West by that age, and the dashing Zorro reminded me a lot of the Lone Ranger, one of my earliest heroes.  I read that already-well-loved book over and over, taping it back together whenever it fell apart a little more.  Later, I got to see some episodes of that show, plus the 1940 Tyrone Power movie, The Mark of Zorro.  I loved the show the most, as Guy Williams suited my adolescent self, with his bright smile and sly quips.  There was a Zorro TV show in the '90s that I liked too, though I only caught a handful of eps because my family didn't have cable.  And, of course, in 1998, Antonio Banderas donned The Mask of Zorro, and I love that movie version very, very much.  I also quite like Isabelle Allende's book.

So it's odd, since I've loved Zorro stories for almost 20 years, that I'd never read the original story until now.  And I'm regretting that, in a way, because I could have been enjoying this book for all these years!  It's such a zesty, fun-loving sort of story, exactly what would have pleased me in my teens.  Oh well, at least I've read it now!

And I've not only read it, I've listened to a breathtaking audio version too.  I actually listened to this a few months ago (my everlasting thanks to Deb Koren for telling me of its existence!), and then discovered when I started reading the book that, duh, this is what the audio series was based on!  Which means that I got to read this whole book with Val Kilmer's voice in my head, which... wow.  Talk about swoon-inducing!  In fact, I almost recommend the audio over the original book, based solely on the magnificence of Val Kilmer's vocal performance.

Okay, but anyway, the book we know now as The Mark of Zorro was originally a serial in a pulp magazine almost a hundred years ago, in 1919.  It was called The Curse of Capistrano, and the story caught the eye of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., who changed the title to The Mark of Zorro when he made it into a movie.  The movie was such a smash that the whole serial was released as a book under his title instead of the original.  McCulley went on to write a bunch more books about Zorro, which is kind of surprising since at the end of the original, Zorro reveals his secret identity and declares he's going to get married and settle down, basically.  But whatever, sequels of swashbucklers are a good thing and I won't quibble.

I'd put a spoiler warning here, but surely you already know who Zorro's alter-ego is, right?  If not, skip this paragraph.  Anyway, as I read this, I wondered over and over how it would have worked for people reading it the first time who did NOT know that Diego Vega was also Zorro.  It was published in five installments, so there were probably about eight chapters per installment -- did readers realize that the reason Diego got so much page-time was that he was the hero?  Or were they like, "Dude, shut up about this annoying mush-brain and get back to the good stuff already!"

Okay, so the basic story is this:  back in the early days of California, when the Spanish dons held all the power and the mission priests held all the morality (remember, this is totally fictional), the pueblo of Los Angeles has a bunch of corrupt officials who beat the peasants and mistreat the natives and persecute their enemies and generally behave like Prince John and Sir Guy of Gisborne and the Sheriff of Nottingham in your typical Robin Hood stories.  (It so happens that I'm also a major fan of Robin Hood.)  This guy in a black mask and cape, deadly with a sword, starts showing up and punishing evildoers.  He calls himself Zorro, which is the Spanish word for 'fox.'  Lovers of justice applaud him, lovers of easy money do not.

Also, there's this guy named Diego Vega, a young man who makes Sir Percy Blakeney from The Scarlet Pimpernel (a probable inspiration for this story) look like a manly man.  He wants to read poetry, he wants to sit in the sunshine and dream, he's fatigued by everything, distressed and annoyed by everything -- and fabulously wealthy.  He asks Senorita Lolita Pulido to marry him, whines and fusses when she resents not being courted, and generally is the laughingstock of the pueblo.  And, weirdly enough, I actually started to think that his idea of not going through the process of courting, singing outside the senorita's window, not making of a fool of himself -- I thought that sounded rather sensible.  I think I would have accepted him.

Unless, like Lolita Pulido, I also had the dashing Zorro making virulent protestations of love every time I turned around.  

Anyway, this would never win any prizes for a beautiful writing style, but it's a cracking good story, full of adventure and intrigue, danger and romance.  I won't be waiting long before I read it again.

Particularly Good Bits:

"I am the friend of the oppressed, senor, and I have come to punish you" (p. 15).

Don Carlos had proved himself to be a courageous man in his youth, and now he was a wise man also, and hence he knew better than to participate in an argument between women (p. 37).

If This Was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for violence and a man menacing a woman.

This is my 8th book read and reviewed for the Mount TBR Challenge, and my 9th for the Classics Club.