rabid1st | The LJ Writer's Block Question Doctor Who Version

Whoa, cool theme! (Love the books!)

Apropos of your theme, I read to feel better, not watch TV. While I prefer to revisit s1 & s4 of DW out of any of the 5 so far, I certainly don't watch it to cheer myself up! How can I, knowing what happens to Rose and to Donna? And Nine. And Ten. :Sigh: Oh no, I can't forget, and some days I can't forgive, either, so I just don't go there unless I think that I can bear it.

Reading is my consistent ...escape. My favorite cheering up author is G.Heyer.

If I'm not reading, well, I suppose BBT is the current program that I'd choose to feel better, 'cause it's LOL funny to me ('tho I haven't seen s3 yet).

The Good Life (aka The Good Neighbors) is also Good (pun intended) for a smile. Especially the ep where FK talks to the plants to experiment with how they grow!

However, in general I find that TV shows somehow ...lack. I'd rather pop in a dvd of a movie, old or new. From "Holiday" (K.Hepburn&C.Grant) and "The Philadelphia Story" through "My Cousin Vinny", "Grosse Pointe Blank" and "The Saint" (V.Kilmer), I have some evergreen faves that I can watch again and again. (Somewhere I have a list.)

So... that's what the simple folk do.

Oh, I love Georgette Heyer. Are you a fan of the mysteries or the regencies? My favorites are Sylvester and The Grand Sophie. I also do Jeeves and Wooster and Psmith books for cheering.

I was also a huge fan of Good Neighbors at one time, isn't that quite old? Or did they remake it...or am I possibly thinking of another show? Also...what is BBT? Should I know?

I am also a fan of certain films...but that was the actual question for the LJ writer's block. My fave is probably The Princess Bride or any of the young Cary Grant films, as I too love me some Cary Grant.

Rae

Oh, I love Georgette Heyer.

Like minds, again, eh?

Are you a fan of the mysteries or the regencies?

Absolutely! Wait... You said "or"? :-D

My favorites are Sylvester and The Grand Sophie.

My faves have varied slightly over the years. My first ever was Devil's Cub, and so not only is it a sentimental fave, but also a rolicking good time. Venetia held first place for years. Sylvester is another frontrunner for me, too.

Overall, I adore Faro's Daughter, Frederica, The Reluctant Widow, Sylvester or the Wicked Uncle, The Talisman Ring, The Unknown Ajax, Venetia.

I am exceedingly fond of April Lady,
Bath Tangle, Behold, Here's Poison, Death in the Stocks / Merely Murder, False Colours, Friday's Child, Lady of Quality, The Masqueraders, Pistols for Two, The Quiet Gentleman, Regency Buck, These Old Shades.

(And I narrowed it down!)

I also do Jeeves and Wooster and Psmith books for cheering.

I'm more likely to reach for E.Peters (V.Bliss or early A.Peabody), DLSayers, and occasionally EFBenson. I also revisit J.Austen's P&P and Emma, from time to time.

I was also a huge fan of Good Neighbors at one time, isn't that quite old?

Yes, yes! That's the one. Although from the early/mid-1970s, it remains surprisingly relevant. And fun.

what is BBT?

"The Big Bang Theory". Sorry! I didn't intend to be obscure; we haven't discussed it in awhile and I shouldn't have abbreviated it out of context.

My fave is probably The Princess Bride

Ah, yes! That's on my evergreen list, too. (Though I have to say that I enjoyed the book on its own merits as well.)

A couple of others of that era are Remo Williams and Tremors.

any of the young Cary Grant films, as I too love me some Cary Grant.

Very charismatic and charming, I agree! But he was engaging at any age: I've a special fondness for The Grass Is Greener (1960), Indiscreet (1958), An Affair to Remember (1957), and even Charade (1963).

Ah, great minds again with Tremors, which I adore. There are very few movies that I love enough to own. My sister has several hundred DVD's but I only have about 20 with Tremors and Princess Bride both there...also Speed, ah, early Sandra Bullock.

I must say we part ways on the elder Cary Grant as I'm one of the few people who can't tolerate An Affair To Remember or To Catch A Thief or Charade. However, we do agree about Dorothy Sayer, another fave. And Venetia and The Devil's Cub and Faro's Daughter and Fredrica and...well...pretty much everything regency. I do find the mysteries a bit dated, but still enjoyable. I'm quite particular about my mysteries so it's not that I don't allow that she could have some winners there. I just have a particular niche of mysteries that I enjoy. Stong Poison and Have His Carcass, yes...but Gaudy Night, no! And with all due respect to the Doctor...I'm not an Agatha Christie fan as far as I can tell, I've tried three or four and haven't liked them.

Rae

Tremors! I love that one! Surprisingly the Wild West sequel is also very, very funny :)

Oh, The Christmas Invasion. Every time.

Movies? Think I'd pick "Local Hero" - a Bill Forsyth flick from 1983, full of gorgeous, gentle deadpan humour and beautiful Scottish scenery. It was an early outing for Peter Capaldi, too.

But my ultimate comfort fix has to involve elements of childhood reading, and would be "Finn Family Moomintroll." Nothing else quite captures the exact balance of adventure and safety, sunshine, scenery and the security of a home and an open-hearted mother, as beautifully as Tove Jansson's classic, and I return to it again and again.

I also enjoy rereading childhood favorites. I like the Dragonriders of Pern and Tarzan (yes, that's what I read as a child...amazingly). I also enjoy some very light children's books of today, which I began reading as a children's librarian...like the Junie B. Jones series and Wimpy Kid. What I like about those books is they are whimsical and there is no chance at all of them giving me a headache. You know where you stand with a Junie B. Jones book, that's for sure. Though my fellow librarians hated them, I found myself enthralled by what the kids love in them and wish I could write so simply.

I have yet to try your Fin Family Moomintroll series...but one day. I do also enjoy the Borrowers every time I reread.

This thread is great. I love the Dragonriders of Pern, even when it turned SciFi but Lessa will always be my heroine. I got a Fantasy collection as kid that had the first chapter of the first book in it and at that time it took me forever to hunt it down (no internet and no title, only the author...).

One of my favorite books ever is Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams and The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. I love both of them to pieces and reread them once a year at least. Strangely enough Starship Troopers by Paul Heinlein is the third place in that list.

I love Tailchaser's Song and while I don't remember Mysterious Island, I probably did read it. I was very into the Pellucidar and Mars and Venus books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, too. Heinlein was also a favorite of mine (Robert, btw), but I rather enjoyed his earlier work...like Star Beast or Door into Summer. The only trouble I had with them is that they were set in the past for me...1970 seemed like the future to Heinlein...and so I had some trouble with the dates being in my past. :grin:

Did you ever read Andre Norton? She wrote Beastmaster...the series was a very loose interpretation of those books, but some of her other books were very good and I read those as a child, too. I was raised on speculative fiction and mythology. Perhaps that's why I enjoy writing Doctor Who so much.

Robert, of course :) I read neither Star Beast nor Door into summer. I loved Tunnel in the Sky though and I've read a few others. I don't recall which one it was, but in one of them was a cat that walked through walls, simply because she didn't know she wasn't supposed to do that? I should pick up where I stopped again, but there's so many books and so little time. I've started on Robin Hobb and really enjoyed her/his first trilogy.

I must say I never read Edgar Rice Burroughs... never ever. The closes would probably be The Book Corum by Michael Moorcook (?). It had a black cat with wings in it. As a kid I was rereading it plenty of times, but I didn't get to reread it as an adult yet.

I've heard of Andre Norton, but I don't think I have anything of hers. I'll pick something up when I come across her.

The Mysterious Island is the one were you finally find out what happened to Captain Nemo. It's the continuation of The Children of Captain Grand and 20 000 Miles Under the Sea in some way. Picking up strands and characters from both books. I really enjoyed how the people who stranded on the island pretty much build their own little country there. Every movie so far has been terrible though :(

Another author I loved and love is Jack London. All his books centering on animals like White Fang and Call of the Wild or the books about Michael and Jerry. Loved them :)

I pretty much grew up on "old" stories: H.G. Wells, Lovecraft, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Phillip K. Dick, Jules Verne, Jack London and many others. I read most of the classics, even stuff like Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Jane Austen, etc.

I too read all of those authors Lovecraft, Robert Howard who invented Conan and all of the old SciFi people Silverberg and Bradbury and Asimov and Dick. I loved Call of the Wild and used to be able to quote it, but I didn't get into London's other stories as much. I read Walter Farley's Black Stallion and Flame series and Robin Hood and Peter Pan and the original poetic form of King Arthur as well as Mary Stewart's version of same.

I hear that there is a John Carter of Mars series in the works. Now that they have the computer animation skills to do it, I do hope they give it the grand treatment it deserves. Edgar Rice Burroughs is quite surprising because of the time he wrote Tarzan...which was in like 1902. The world was quite small at that time and you could run into people you know when shipwrecked in a strange land...without straining the credibility of the tale. And people complain today about the treatment of the native peoples, basically assuming they were inferior, but I don't know that Burroughs did that as much as other authors. He tended to view CLASS...as in if you are born a Lord in England somehow it shows through...as something carried in the blood. But, for the time, I thought he was quite appreciative of the skills of native people.

Tarzan is very brutal though and a lot of people don't realize because they know him from the films. He killed like an animal...and had little understanding of or appreciation for civilization. The first human he sees, he intends to kill and eat. He learned about God and climbed to the top of a tree to challenge God (which he thought was the moon) to a fight because he believe himself to be the master of creation as he knew it. It's very interesting the first few books of that series.

Rae

Probably Tooth & Claws, but also The Christmas Invasion. I love Psyche :) I don't recall any treasure hunting, or was that the one with the dinosaurs? I loved the one where they find the dinosaur :) My favorite is the one with the convention and George Takei though :)

The one with George Takei is a hoot. The blueberries...and how Shawn told George that he had hired him, so funny.

The treasure hunt one is the one with Shaun's uncle Stephen and the treasure map. The one where Gus loses his expensive track shoe in the mud and everyone is after the gold. I love when they manage to get Gus to give up his hidden cellphone and then dial the chinese place by accident and Shaun asks if anybody wants some chinese food.

The dinosaur one is also a hoot though. There are so many classic bits in Psych. The current ads for Ax Body Spray are hilarious.

I don't recalls the treasure hunt. Either I missed it (they keep switching it around) or it hasn't aired yet here. Did you ever see Strange Luck? It only ran for one season, I think, but I really liked it. On the SF front I loved Space Above and Beyond, but sadly it only went for one season :( It has two of my favorite TV episodes ever, the one with the Christmas comet and another one with the pancakes.

The LJ Writer's Block Question Doctor Who Version

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