Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
We all have favorite characters as seen in BF Skinner’s diary a couple of weeks ago:
Question of the day: Who is your favorite character from literature?
By BFSkinner
www.dailykos.com/...
There are some more obscure characters in books that are fun to share, too.
What makes a character interesting?
A character who is complex, conflicted, “yearning to breathe free”, and one who makes mistakes and learns from them is interesting.
A mysterious character whose traits are unfolded slowly bit by bit as we get to know him is interesting.
A character that changes his world view as he grows is interesting.
Villains are often interesting if they are complex and not shallow cardboard cutouts.
Sidekicks or secondary characters are interesting when they don’t have to be as heroic as the main character. The best of them sometime break our hearts with their loyalty.
A character with a sense of humor is lots of fun.
We are sometimes blessed with several good characters in one story and that makes the story even better. For me, great characters really make the book memorable.
Many years ago I made a recipe for Francis Crawford of the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett: (I expect people might disagree with my view, of course. I admit that I have a different idea of his mother than when I wrote this.)
Lymond
Take one understanding, cultured mother who loves music
Add three cups of whippings by his father for not being manly
Add five Tbs. of sheer determination
Cream together with one much older and stronger brother
Season with remorse for a loved sister who died accidentally
Stir in a cup of battles with various enemies
Add one pinch of accusations of treason, 2 pinches of sexual abuse, 2 cups of slavery, 1 cup of betrayals by friends
Grind well in a chess game that kills his only son
Garnish with killing drugs
Pummel dough, let rise, punch it down again in six different
countries
Serve some raw to all who wish to divide him up for their own uses, good and bad
Bake the rest in an oven of suspicion, misunderstandings, secrets, prophecies and lies
Check baking tin often with loyal friends watching over him
You will know he is done when blinding headaches occur
Results after removing from oven and letting him cool...a witty,
interesting, hard working, loving, talented man.
There are hundreds of characters that I like so I will list just a few and let you all tell me about others or agree with some of mine.
Francis Crawford…Lymond of the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett
Jamie Fraser of the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
Shane, Joe, Marian, Bob and Chris in Shane by Schafer
Andrea and Mallory in the Guns of Navarone by MacLean
Kathy and Mike in Mrs. Mike by the Freedmans
Ishmael, Queequeg and Starbuck in Moby Dick
Elizabeth Bennett and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice
Pierre in War and Peace
Jo and Laurie in Little Women
Pip in Great Expectations
There are so many real people who lived and made a difference, too, who appear in autobiographies, biographies and memoirs.
A few of my favorites:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
President Barack Obama
Eleanor Roosevelt
Molly Ivins
Dorothy Dunnett
Gandhi
Abraham Lincoln
General Ulysses S. Grant
Madeleine L’Engle
Jane Austen
President James A.Garfield
Hadrian
Joshua Chamberlain
Diaries of the Week:
Write On! Analyzing what keeps us reading.
By SensibleShoes
www.dailykos.com/...
……….…………….
RIP: Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Laureate, Holocaust Survivor, Professor And Writer, 87
crooksandliars.com/...
….………………………
Whither Genre?
By DrLori
www.dailykos.com/...
….…….…….……..
Contemporary Fiction Views: A palate for life and a reason to write
By bookgirl
www.dailykos.com/...
……….…………….
All Times are EDT, EST
Readers & Book Lovers Series
Schedule Day Time EST/EDT Series Editor(s)
Sunday 6:00 PM Young Reader's Pavilion The Book Bear
(last Sun of the month) 7:30 PM LGBT Literature Chrislove
Monday 8:00 PM Fantasy: The Language of the Night DrLori
Tuesday 5:00 PM Indigo Kalliope: Poems from the Left Kit RMP, ruleoflaw
8:00 PM Contemporary Fiction Views bookgirl
Wednesday 7:30 AM WAYR? Chitown Kev
8:00 PM Bookflurries Bookchat cfk
Thursday 2:00 PM Self-Publishing 101 akadjian
8:00 PM Write On! SensibleShoes
(once a month) 2:00 PM Monthly Bookpost AdmiralNaismith
Friday 8:00 PM Books Go Boom! Brecht
Saturday 9:00 AM You Can't Read That!
Paul's Book Reviews pwoodford
9:00 PM Books So Bad They're Good Ellid