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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Game by Diana Wynne Jones Diana Wynne Jones. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Diana Wynne Jones , (born Aug. 16, 1934, London, Eng.—died March 26, 2011, Bristol), British fantasy writer of more than 40 books for children, many of which centre on magic or magicians. Jones was the oldest of three sisters and often looked after her siblings—partly because of a complicated relationship with their parents, who were both teachers. Despite struggling with dyslexia, she did well in school as a child and developed a keen interest in books, reading works such as The Thousand and One Nights and Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur at a young age. Jones decided early that she wanted to become a writer, and when she was 13 years old she began writing stories for her sisters. In 1953 Jones entered St. Anne’s College, Oxford, where she studied English (B.A., 1956) and attended lectures by renowned authors C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. In 1956 Jones married John Burrow, with whom she had three sons. She read books with her children as they were growing up, which served as an introduction to the world of children’s literature—of which Jones had read little in her own childhood. During this time she submitted a few of her works to publishers and agents, but they were rejected. Though the majority of her books were written for children, Jones’s first published novel, Changeover (1970), was intended for adults. Despite having penned the novel in 1966, Jones did not embark on her writing career in earnest until all her children were in school. After being introduced to a literary agent, Jones went on to write Wilkins’ Tooth (1973; also published as Witch’s Business ), Eight Days of Luke (1975), The Ogre Downstairs (1974), and dozens more over the next several decades. Many of her books feature magic or magicians. Among the most famous are The Chronicles of Chrestomanci series and Howl’s Moving Castle (1986)—the latter of which was made into a successful animated film by Japanese director Miyazaki Hayao in 2004. Another of her works, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (1996; revised 2006), serves as a humorous exploration of the clichés of her favoured genre. Jones was the recipient of many honours and awards, including a World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement in 2007. The Game, by Diana Wynne Jones. Dot writes: anyone who knows me will be aware that I’m a raving Diana Wynne Jones fan. (Appropriately, her husband, J. A. Burrow, is one of my favourite scholars of medieval literature.) I was therefore delighted yesterday when a parcel of books arrived including her latest, a novella called The Game . I gobbled it up in the course of the day by reading during Prawn’s feeds. (There are advantages to having a greedy baby!) It’s a rollicking read and I enjoyed it very much. The central conceit, of a family who can access the ‘mythosphere’, the dimension in which characters and events from the world’s mythologies take place, reminded me initially of Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood novels; among Wynne Jones’s own books it had obvious affinities with the field of the Bannus in Hexwood . As the book goes on one can see points of contact with other Wynne Jones novels such as Eight Days of Luke and Fire and Hemlock . However, to be honest I don’t think this is one of her stronger works. She’s rather fond of scenes and sequences in which everyone rushes around madly, yelling at each other in a comical and endearing way, of crazy famillies, of sudden jack-knifes of plot and people who adruptly find themselves doing magic, and of a general rush and angularity that works brilliantly in her best books but feels disjointed here. I thought The Pinhoe Egg suffered from some of the same defects. One of her specialities is people turning out to be quite other than who you thought they were. Again, this is extraordinarily satisfying in (for example) Archer’s Goon , but in The Game I found the revelation disappointing. The idea that there is a mythosphere as well as – interwoven with – the physical universe is an exciting one and I thought it could open up ideas about how myth and reality intersect and about points of contact between different mythologies. Instead, the whole mad rushing family turn out to be Greek gods, so myth and reality collapse into each other and one mythology supersedes the others. I do wonder whether she only thought up the end part way through (she has talked about her writing process, and she is someone who follows her stories where they want to go rather than planning everything in advance). Early in the book the heroine’s grandfather says something about how golden apples run through the myths of the world but never seem to harden into a single strand – implicitly, into a religious doctrine or orthodoxy. Golden apples recur later in the book but, though there’s a list of different apple stories in the appendix to the Harper Collins edition, in the story the apples are always the apples of the Hesperides. I felt a wonderful possibility had just not been followed up. Anyhow, it was still great fun. Share this: Like this: Related. One thought on “ The Game, by Diana Wynne Jones ” Oooh a new Diana Wynne Jones book! Must order on Amazon for the hospital… I’m hooked on the Chrestomanci books and love the Tough Guide to Fantasyland… THE GAME. A fantasy novella kindles a sizzling premise that fails to catch fire. When a chance encounter with the mysterious musical magicians Flute and Fiddle introduces young Hayley to the “mythosphere,” where myths, fairy tales and legends spin their strands through the human imagination, her stringent grandmother exiles her to school in Scotland. A temporary diversion through Ireland acquaints Hayley with several aunts and innumerable cousins, and (most exhilarating) The Game: a scavenger hunt through the mythosphere. But as Hayley roams through the Zodiac and romps through the Hesperides, she discovers secrets about herself and her family—secrets that might free her to defy even her tyrannical Uncle Jolyon. As always, Jones’s prose sparkles, and Hayley is a likable character, diffident yet plucky; the mythosphere is a fascinating conceit that deserves open exploration. Unfortunately, the narrative is limited by a constricted paradigm, and the conclusion seems both predictable and forced. Readers lacking a solid grounding in Greek mythology are likely to be left puzzled, even with the concluding explanatory note. Plenty of glitter and flash, but hardly indispensable. (Fantasy. 11+) Pub Date: April 1, 2007. ISBN: 0-14-240718-6. Page Count: 192. Publisher: Firebird/Penguin. Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010. Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007. Share your opinion of this book. Did you like this book? More by Diana Wynne Jones. Engrossing, contemplative, and as heart-wrenching as the title promises. Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2017. New York Times Bestseller. THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END. by Adam Silvera ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 2017. What would you do with one day left to live? In an alternate present, a company named Death-Cast calls Deckers—people who will die within the coming day—to inform them of their impending deaths, though not how they will happen. The End Day call comes for two teenagers living in New York City: Puerto Rican Mateo and bisexual Cuban-American foster kid Rufus. Rufus needs company after a violent act puts cops on his tail and lands his friends in jail; Mateo wants someone to push him past his comfort zone after a lifetime of playing it safe. The two meet through Last Friend, an app that connects lonely Deckers (one of many ways in which Death-Cast influences social media). Mateo and Rufus set out to seize the day together in their final hours, during which their deepening friendship blossoms into something more. Present-tense chapters, short and time-stamped, primarily feature the protagonists’ distinctive first-person narrations. Fleeting third-person chapters give windows into the lives of other characters they encounter, underscoring how even a tiny action can change the course of someone else’s life. It’s another standout from Silvera ( History Is All You Left Me , 2017, etc.), who here grapples gracefully with heavy questions about death and the meaning of a life well-lived. Engrossing, contemplative, and as heart-wrenching as the title promises. (Speculative fiction. 13-adult). Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017. ISBN: 978-0-06-245779-0. Page Count: 384. Publisher: HarperTeen. Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017. Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017. Share your opinion of this book. Did you like this book? More by Adam Silvera. Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2014. New York Times Bestseller. WE WERE LIARS. by E. Lockhart ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 13, 2014. A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart. Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers.