novels in order of preference

[buntyandjinx.livejournal.com]

A nerdy question which occupied much of my childhood. How do you rank AF's novels (not counting historicals and Thursday Kidnapping)?

To me, the order is:
Cricket Term,
End of Term,
Falconer's Lure,
Peter's Room,
The Ready-Made Family,
Attic Term,
The Marlows and The Traitor,
Autumn Term,
Run Away Home,
The Thuggery Affair

Comments

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

A very interesting question... Personally I would put The Ready-Made Family on top by quite a significant margin. Falconer's Lure is probably my least favourite of the home books and then the rest of them go somewhere in the middle.

In general I like the school books less. Here I'd put Cricket Term and End of Term at the top, like you, and Autumn Term at the bottom.

That's not as carefully calibrated a scale as I could manage, but I ought to be working now!

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Ha, I am the opposite - I rate the school books much higher than the home books! My ranking would go:

Cricket Term
Attic Term
End of Term
Autumn Term
Peter's Room
Falconer's Lure
The Marlows and the Traitor
The Thuggery Affair
The Ready-Made Family
Run Away Home

I really like the fact that there isn't a general fandom consensus on this, and that different books appeal to different people.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I should have said I like the school books more than the home books - saying that I rate them more highly implies that I think the school books are qualitatively better, which isn't the case.

[buntyandjinx.livejournal.com]

I agree, I like (two) of the school books better, but that isn't because they are "better" books necessarily. I'm fascinated to hear RMF is someone's number one, would love to hear more when work isn't a distraction.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm just talking about my favourites here - make no claim to possessing objective judgment of quality! Like you I find it fascinating how many different ways there are to read and enjoy these books.

[elktheory.livejournal.com]

End of Term
Autumn Term
The Cricket Term
The Attic Term
Peter's Room
The Ready-Made Family
Falconer's Lure
Run Away Home
The Marlows and the Traitor
The Thuggery Affair

I have to put the school stories first because I read them as a child/adolescent and loved them so intensely. I don't have the same emotional connection to the other books, as I read them much later and they didn't really become a part of me in the way that books read in childhood seem to do. I really like some of the holiday stories, especially Peter's Room and The Ready-Made Family, but I think I appreciate them in a different way. I wonder how I'd view the books if I'd read them all as a child.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Cricket Term
End of Term
Falconer's Lure
Peter's Room
Autumn Term
Attic Term
Ready-Made Family
Marlows and the Traitor
Run Away Home
Thuggery Affair

I'm biased by having read them as a child/teen, liking school stories in general, and suffering from a desire to avoid both conflict and embarrassment. Peter's Room has gradually worked its way up my favourites list since I stopped skipping the bits that were "not real" (yes, I know)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I still haven't stopped slskippingipping those bits - read them properlyproperly the first time and not very interested in looking again. I find it hard to make myself read books properly when large chunks are in italics!

skipping the bits

[(Anonymous)]

Peter's room is my favourite for sentimental reasons - it was the first one I read (25 cents in a Kmart bargain bin), but I still skip the bits.
Pip

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Peter's Room
Cricket Term
End of Term
The Marlows and the Traitor
Falconer's Lure
The Readymade Family
The Attic Term
Autumn Term
Run Away Home
The Thuggery Affair.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I've always put cricket term top of the school ones, and falconer's lure top of the home ones, but not combined them. So probably

Cricket term
Falconer's lure
The Marlows and the traitor
Autumn term
End of term
Attic yermyerm
The thuggery affair
The ready made family
Peter's room
Run away home

Rah used to be much higher, but rereads, particularly this last one, have sunk it considerably.

[joyeuce]

End of Term
Cricket Term
Falconer's Lure
The Ready-Made Family
The Marlows and the Traitor
Peter's Room
Run Away Home
Autumn Term and The Attic Term tie
The Thuggery Affair

Novels in order of preference

[mheloyse.livejournal.com]

Delicious question! Mine is:

Attic Term
Ready Made Family
End of Term
Run Away Home
Peter's Room
Autumn Term
Falconer's Lure
Cricket Term
The Thuggery Affair
The Marlows and the Traitor

I can't identify much of a rationale for my order of preference. Very, very broadly, I prefer the less adventurous and sporty novels, and like reading about rank injustice.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Favourites:

End of Term
Peter's Room
Cricket Term
The Thuggery Affair
The Marlows and the Traitor
Autumn Term
Ready Made Family
Attic Term
Falconer's Lure (except Cousin Jon over the breakfast table, which I sometimes re-read on its own)
(and by some considerable margin...)
Run Away Home

(Thuggery and Traitor have their high positions because Reasons rather than overall quality, I'll be the first to admit).

In order of literary quality (still subjective, of course!):
Cricket Term
Peter's Room
Ready Made Family
End of Term
Autumn Term
The Thuggery Affair
Falconer's Lure
Attic Term
The Marlows and the Traitor
(and by some considerable margin...)
Run Away Home

Thuggery has its highish place by virtue of being a very noble experiment rather than one that actually comes off, I think.

Thuggery

[mheloyse.livejournal.com]

Yes - I feel strangely guilty for ranking Thuggery low, for the reason you've expressed so well.

There's a trend for it to be bottom or near bottom in the lists we've seen so far; I'd like to have been different but I ranked the novels on personal enjoyment and re-readability, and couldn't honestly place Thuggery any higher.

A shame as it has aspects of brilliance - I love the language - and I regard it as the darkest of the novels; but as a whole, for me, it didn't quite work. I've often wondered if what it really lacks is Nicola.

Diamond 9

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I couldn't order my preferences in a straight top to bottom list so I've put them in a diamond nine formation like they make pupils order things in school. So -

Ready Made Family.

Cricket Term. Peter's Room.

Marlows and the Traitor. End of Term.

Autumn Term. Falconer's Lure.

Attic Term. Thuggery Affair.

Run Away Home.


Except LJ won't let me do it in a diamond shape.

[kate constable (from livejournal.com)]

I must be psychic -- last night, before seeing this, I was thinking, someone should do a poll of our favourites on Trennels… and here it is! Spooky.

My list would go:

Peter's Room
Cricket Term
End of Term
Falconer's Lure (though I desperately need to reread it, my memories are golden)
Autumn Term
Ready-Made Family
Thuggery Affair
Attic Term

I'll reserve ranking on RAH as I'm still halfway through (just got hold of it this week, mirabile dictu!) and have MATT waiting to be read for the first time (lucky me…)

I love the lack of consensus -- well maybe there is a broad consensus, but there are obviously personal favourites that transcend the trend.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

For me, it's:

Cricket Term (by some margin)
Attic Term
End of Term
Falconer's Lure
The Ready-Made Family
Autumn Term
Peter's Room
Run Away Home
The Marlows and the Traitor
The Thuggery Affair

(This is based on how much I feel like rereading them; on strict literary merit I would probably have to kick PR up a few notches and RAH down one or two.)

[(Anonymous)]

And I'd go for:

End of Term
Cricket Term
Autumn Term
Falconer's Lure
Ready Made Family
Peter's Room
Attic Term
Run Away Home
Marlows and the Traitor
Thuggery Affair

I think. PR, AT, and RAH might swap around a bit, as might MATT and TA

(order of preferred reading, not literary ranking!).

-res23

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this post on my way home, and realized that I can settle on a top and bottom but not a middle.
Absolute favorites: Cricket Term, End of Term
Not so fond of*: Falconer's Lure, Run Away Home

Everything else is such a mix--scenes which I find upsetting or tiresome and skip, along with scenes I absolutely love and can pretty much recite from memory--that I don't seem to be able to put them in any order. Nearly all Lawrie's adventures in "Thuggery" drive me crazy, for instance, but I love Patrick and Jukie in the car ("I am?" "Yeh, you am.") and Peter's cool head; and while the first half of Autumn Term mostly makes me miserable, the play is so awesome, and...eh, you get the idea.

*"Not so fond of" with Forest is, of course, like saying Brahms' First Symphony doesn't live up to his later work; that still puts it a long way ahead of most other things.

Favorite Order

[mainerobin.livejournal.com]

I seem to be in a minority in that I place RAH higher and PR lower. I like

Cricket Term
End of Term
Autumn Term (read these three first and often)
Ready-Made Family (love Nick and Peter and the Dodds
Run Away Home (the sailing bits, Peter doing well, and the absurd complexity of the adventure, my disbelief greatly suspended)
Falconer's Lure
Marlows and the Traitor
Attic Term (Ginty makes me very cross)
Peter's Room (cause of the make-believe bits)
Thuggery Affair (my disbelief unsuspended)

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Cricket Term
Readymade Family
Peter's Room = End of Term
Thuggery Affair
Autumn Term
Attic Term
Falconer's Lure
Marlows and the Traitor
Run Away Home

Some of my absolute favourite passages are in End of Term and Peter's Room, though. The bottom of the list is probably fairly variable.

However, if we were including the historicals, The Players and the Rebels would these days be pretty much at the top of my list with Cricket Term. If you haven't read it - or only read it as a child - it's GOOD.

[joyeuce]

The historical pair are my absolute favourites, probably because they're the only ones I read as a child.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I think I read all the books as a child, but I've definitely put the ones I owned as a child ahead of those I bought as an adult. Not sure if childhood familiarity makes me love them more, or whether I acquired the ones I loved and didn't care so much about the others.

The Players and the Rebels has really grown on me as an adult, though. I guess it's true to an extent of all Forest's books, but I question whether the Players books are really "children's" books - in the sense that many children will struggle with them.

[mheloyse.livejournal.com]

The date of reading doesn't seem to have had any influence on my preferred order, though it took me over 20 years to collect all the Marlow books. Autumn Term was first (school library) - 5 years later, Cricket Term (library discard) - 3 years later, Peter's Room and Attic Term (very lucky charity shop finds) - and then nothing for more than 10 years, when, thanks to the advent of the internet and the GGB reprints I was finally able to fill in the gaps.

[(Anonymous)]

So difficult! The first one I read was Falconer's Lure, so I'm inclined to put that first, but I don't think it's actually the best. So here goes:

End of Term
Peter's Room
Falconer's Lure
Cricket Term
The Marlows and the Traitor
The Ready-Made Family
Autumn Term
The Thuggery Affair
Attic Term
Run Away Home

I was really wavering on the order of the first two, though, because I think Peter's Room is in some ways the most brilliant book in the series, but I also see it as flawed in ways that End of Term isn't. I'm also not totally sure about the order of Cricket Term and The Marlows and the Traitor - to me they're pretty much tied.

--Katy

And the score so far..

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

In need of some nerdy distraction I have collated all the lists to come up with an ultimate top 10. I scored each list giving 10 points to the favourite, 9 to the second, 8 to the third, etc down to 1 to the least favourite. I only scored lists of all 10 books so if people just named their favourite I didn't count that. So the results are:-

150 points - Cricket Term
136 points - End of Term
105 points - Peter's Room
96 points - Falconer's Lure
93 points - Ready Made Family
88 points - Autumn Term
79 points - Attic Term
64 points - Marlows and the Traitor
39 points - Thuggery Affair
38 points - Run Away Home.

Re: And the score so far..

[mheloyse.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, of all the lists, that's most similar in trend to Buntyandjinx's opening order - just switch the (adjacent) PR/FL, AuT/MATT and (adjacent again) TA/RAH.

Poor old RAH - wonder if it's suffering from having all its flaws exposed in the current readthrough!

Re: And the score so far..

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

Arriving late to the party:

Cricket Term
End of Term
Falconer's Lure
Thuggery Affair
Peter's Room
Run Away Home
Ready-Made Family
Marlows & the Traitor
Attic Term
Autumn Term