GRATITUDE GIVEAWAY HOP - THANKS TO ALL MY READERS AND FOLLOWERS!

The Gratitude Giveaway  Hop is hosted and promoted by I Am A Reader, Not A Writer & All-Consuming Books. What is a giveaway hop? Each participating blog hosts a giveaway and then we link up together allowing our followers to hop easily from one giveaway to another. For followers this means lots of chances to win free books. 

This giveaway is meant to express our gratitude to our followers, readers, friends and mates on the blogosphere. As a gift,  I offer you a list of books I read, reviewed, liked or simply wrote about  in 2011 either here on FLY HIGH or on MY JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB.

To take part in this giveaway contest, choose one of the books in my list , leave a comment below this post + your e-mail address and good luck! The contest is open worldwide and ends on 27 November. The winner will be announced on the 28th.

I appreciate all those who visit my blog.  Thank you for being friendly, witty, interested and interesting! These books are for you. Pick up one, choose your favourite:

1. Alexandre Dumas, The Black Tulip

2. Syrie James, Nocturne 

3. Prue Batten, A Thousand Glass Flowers (Kindle Edition)

4. Tracey Kiely, Murder Most Persuasive

5. Victoria Connelly, A Weekend with Mr Darcy

6. Mary Lydon Simonsen, Mr Darcy's Bite

7. Heather Lynn Rigaud, Fitwilliam Darcy Rock Star

8. Karen Doornebos, Definitely not Mr Darcy

9. William Deresiewicz, A Jane Austen Education

10 Claire Harman, Jane's Fame

You'll find the list of all blogs participating in this event HERE. Hundreds of free books!

MARGARET HALE THORNTON AND HER SECRET DIARY - GUESTPOST AND GIVEAWAY BY TRUDY BRASURE

Dear friends of Fly High, especially you who like me love Mrs Gaskell's North and South, are you ready for a great couple of posts? Have you ever wondered what Margaret and John's married life could be like? Maybe you can have a glimpse on their happiness. How? Today and next Wednesday November 23 I'll have the honour to publish here on my blog two very confidential pages from Margaret Hale's - well Thornton's - Secret Diary. The first page, the one you are going to read today, was written soon after her honeymoon with John. I know, I know, I too envy her a lot. What a lucky young woman! I'll leave you to her words. For our eyes only.  Oh! And by the way, 

1. There's a giveaway linked to this series of posts. Read the details below.

2. If  you've got questions for Margaret, please, leave them here in your comments. She's ready to answer.

THE COMPANION OF LADY HOLMESHIRE BY DEBRA BROWN - DOUBLE GIVEAWAY WINNERS

• Book description from Amazon.com : A baby girl was found in a basket on Squire Carrington's doorstep. She was raised and sent to work as a servant girl for The Countess of Holmeshire. The widowed and unconventional Countess chose Miss Emma Carrington as a companion and sent her off for finishing with the goal of dragging her along into genteel Victorian society. What sort of reception would she have at tea and dinners? The young Earl of Holmeshire was engaged by arrangement to a lovely London lady, but their relationship was difficult. Could they work it out? Even the tribulations and banned romances of the servants downstairs play into the story as we follow Emma from a stone fortress to a Victorian village and then into fabulous London mansions. Great surprises unfold at a Midsummer Night's Dream Ball which help to solve mysteries that have gradually developed. You are invited to predict the great revelation of the last few pages!

Thanks a lot to all the readers who entered the contest to win this novel on occasion of Debra Brown's guestpost. Of course, many thanks also  to Debra for being my guest and offering the two copies of her book for this giveaway contest.

LONDON. THE IMPRESSIONISTS. LEONARDO.

Waldemar Januszczak

I was in London last summer when BBC2  broadcast a series of documentaries about the Impressionists. I couldn't watch them then but I took note. I had to find them. Well, I did it and I've finally seen the whole series.

In the four episodes,  Art writer Waldemar Januszczak explores the revolutionary achievements of the Impressionists: The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution, The Great Outdoors, The Gang of Four, Painting the People. 

G - LOYALTY BINDS ME: AUTHOR CHRISTOPHER RAE TALKS ABOUT HIS NOVEL OF RICHARD III

My guest today is Christopher Rae. I've asked him to answer some questions about his interest in Richard III Plantagenet and about the book he wrote about him: G - Loyalty Binds Me: A Novel of King Richard III.

Join our discussion and welcome Christopher on Fly High!

Christopher Rae was born in Glasgow, but having arrived in Yorkshire at the age of 5, after a detour via London, feels justified in claiming to be a native. A first degree in History from the University of Sussex was forgotten for a number of years while he pursued a career at the bleeding edge of information technology, working for companies such as American Express and Visa, but now provides the experience and knowledge behind the exhaustive research which underpins his writing.

WINNER OF CRANFORD DOUBLE GIVEAWAY

CRANFORD: I ONLY HOPE IT IS NOT IMPROPER ... SO MANY PLEASANT THINGS ARE! 

was my post for The Picninc at Cranford, hosted by Katherine at Gaskell's Blog.

I'm here to announce the name of the winner who's going to receive Cranford paperback + audiobook, picked up among the commenters to that post through random.org 

Of course, thanks to all of you who took part in the contest, but congratulations to ...

veganlenna!!!

DEBRA BROWN - THE WONDERFUL AUTHOR AND READER COMMUNITY - GUESTPOST AND DOUBLE GIVEAWAY

Join me and welcome author Debra Brown on Fly High! Read her guestblog and leave your comment + e-mail address to enter the double giveaway contest:

1. A signed paperback copy of Debra's "The Companion of Lady Holmeshire" for US and Canada readers only

2. An e-book version of the same book for readers from the rest of the world. 

Please, specify if you enter the contest from the US or elsewhere. This giveaway ends on November 16th. 

SPOOKS vs DOWNTON ABBEY - WHO WON THE MATCH IN THE END?

Everybody knows the answer now: Just look at the figures... Anyway, I promised in one of my previous posts (HERE) that after watching both series, I'd tell you which MY winner between Spooks 10 and Downton Abbey 2 was . Before they started broadcasting the new series, if asked to choose between them,  I would answer ... like someone else (HERE): that it was a real dilemma to me. Now Spooks has finished and we won't be asked to choose any longer. Only, am I really eager to see the  next season of Downton Abbey? *****Full of doubts. *****

Spooks has been one of my best favourite TV shows for so long and it remained such till its very end,  a couple of weeks ago.
Downton Abbey attracted my attention last year in November while I was in London because the Christmas DVD box or its publicity was almost everywhere. My fondness for period drama didn't let me resist. I had to see it! And it was a very pleasant discovery: amusing, light, well-acted, beautiful faces, beautiful costumes and locations.

Now, first of all I think it was tremendously unfair and unjust to broadcast the two series on the same day and at the same time,  so this resulting rivalry is the absurd consequence of that big mistake.
Secondly, I know that  it  may sound  incorrect  to compare such different produtcts since they actually were/are basically different in so many aspects. But BBC and ITV wanted,  if not a duel, a match. So, let's give them one.

LITERARY BLOG HOP - TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU ANALYZE LITERATURE?

This monthly blog hop is hosted at The Blue Bookcase . I know it's close to its deadline but I've just discovered this event and found it so interesting that I made up my mind and joined the discussion. This month's question is...

To what extent do you analyze literature? Are you more analytical in your reading if you know you're going to review the book? Is analysis useful in helping you understand and appreciate literature, or does it detract from your readerly experience

I tend to analyze whatever I read as a professional bias. I studied literature, I teach literature, I analyze or compare the texts I read. However, I hate dissecting literary texts and I don't usually teach literature that way. I still remember the awful sensation of hating a literary work while working on its detailed analysis, so this is just what I avoid doing with my students. They are just teenagers, English (as a foreign language) is compulsory in their curriculum,  so they are not specializing students who chose to study English Literature. This is another reason why I avoid proposing them a technical study of  literary texts. I'd like to make them love reading  novels or poetry and often the first reason why they hate those texts is because they usually study them that way at school.

However, what I do as a reader is inevitably to analyze, not only when I decide to review a book I'm reading on Fly High or My Jane Austen Book Club, but in general, whenever I read and that even when I read fanfiction or chick lit. Because I've read lots of that stuff too,  recently. Attempt to escape or to widen my horizons, I actually did it and liked it a lot (mind you, not in any case). 

My tendency to analyze and compare what I read does not detract my readerly experience, the more I read the more I like doing it. Analyzing increase the pleasure, it doesn't deminish it. You understand more, hence you appreciate or dislike  what you read more .

What is your personal attitude and experience in reading literary texts? I'd love to hear from you.

CLASSICS ON DVD - TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING (BBC 1997)

Never watching a classic period drama was more amusing. This one was brilliant. It was broadcast in 1997 first time and it is now available on DVD at a very cheap price. It is an excellent BBC 6-hours' costume drama. I simply loved watching it at the weekend. I  had added it to my TBS list after watching Faulks on Fiction in April.

The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling  (1749) is Henry Fielding's masterpiece,  which I had to read  - well, to study -  for  my English Literature Course at University when I was in my first year. I must admit I didn't have as much fun while reading it at that time.  But we grow-up, don't we? I must reread it and give Fielding's great humour another chance. It is also one of the 18th century novels I have very rarely used in my lessons. I have to correct that too: Fielding must be read. He is too clever. Do you remember the scene from "Becoming Jane" in which a fictional Tom Lefroy (James MacAvoy) suggests a fictional Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) to read  a book of an extraordinary young man to widen her horizons and write fiction with as much knowledge of the world as a masculine writer?  He  is  in fact  suggesting her to read Fielding's Tom Jones.