I’ve actually just read Islands of Chaldea, Diana Wynne Jones’ last book, completed by her sister, Ursula Jones, and there will be my thoughts on that later on this month, but in the mean time, and thanks to Jenny at Reading the End, I’m going to try posting occasionally to follow #DWJMarch organised by Kristen at We Be Reading.
First up (though a bit late) is a picture of all my DWJ books, all thirty-one of them:
All my Diana Wynne Jones books (except ‘The Islands of Chaldea’)
As you can see, there are a few in similar editions, and several of her later books in hardback (because I was just too impatient to wait for the paperback). And although HarperCollins have, I think, reissued all of Jones’ books recently in the UK (hence the similar editions), it used to be impossible to get all her books. My battered copy of Charmed Life was published by Puffin; Black Maria, Dogsbody and Fire and Hemlock by Methuen; The Time of the Ghost and The Ogre Downstairs by Macmillan; The Dark Lord of Derkholm, The Year of the Griffin, Deep Secret and The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by various imprints of Gollancz; and the Dalemark quartet by Oxford University Press.
There are those which I don’t have, and have read, like The Homeward Bounders, A Sudden Wild Magic, Minor Arcana, and a couple of the books for young children (I’m not that much of a completist). I must get round to re-reading them again. And I haven’t ever read Changeover (which I confuse with the book by Margaret Mahy with the same title!), so Jenny has one up on me!
I’m not going to review any of Jones’s books for #DWJMarch, except The Islands of Chaldea, but here are links to my reviews of Deep Secret and The Pinhoe Egg, and a long ago discussion of her works is here, if you want a brief summary. There will be cover pictures, though…
Ela's Book Blog 
Lovely collection! And just for my own curiosity because I am seriously EATEN ALIVE with curiosity, what did you think of Islands of Chaldea? Briefly? Liked it or didn’t is enough for me — I’m only wondering what to expect.
Thanks for the heads up about DWJMarch, by the way!
I liked THE ISLANDS OF CHALDEA, but the ending was a bit too neat – not very DWJ like.
Fantastic! I think DWJ would have loved to see all of our mismatched collections rather than one homogenous shelf of books. They are all cobbled together just like so many things in her stories but, of course, have immeasurable strength and value. 🙂
I used to moan for ages that collecting her books was so tricky because they were all issued by different publishers. It’s great now that HarperCollins have re-issued them (nearly all of them, anyway), so that a new generation of children can enjoy them.
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