#r.f. delderfield

[liberty1776]

Seven Men of Gascony

Just finished reading again Seven Men From Gascony. Long ago I had the hard back edition pictured at top, with the more historically accurate cover art. The copy I just read was a battered paperback edition. It is the story of seven soldiers of Napoleons army and a cantiniere woman they travel with. The story takes them the battle of Aspern essling in 1809 through the Penisular War then into Russia finially ending at Waterloo in 1815. It is an epic tale with great battle discriptions that shows the comradery and loyalty of men at war. They all begin as voltigiers, light infantry, with one eventually transfering to the cavalry. In the story one a grizled old veteran sergant leads the others, and manages to keep them alive, over time two of them marry the cantiniere, as one by one the soldiers are taken by the war. This is a Great book for anyone interested in the Napoleonic wars. R. F. Delderfield is a great storyteller. The novel has action, romance, warmth and passion, a damn good read!

[biboocat]

To Serve them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield, 1972. This is the story of 21 yo David Powlett-Jones who returns to England after having been nearly killed and badly shell shocked in Flanders. He meets a wise and compassionate headmaster at Bamfylde who helps David to start life anew as a teacher. Having attended schools like Bamfylde before the second world war, the author is able to realistically portray life in a boys public school and the sociopolitical issues of the time. It is also a moving testament to the kindness and devotion of educators and the legacies they bequeath that aren’t found in a syllabus - honor, duty, compassion, tradition. I will recall my time at Bamfylde with great fondness as if I were an Old Boy of the school.

Looking forward to seeing the adaptation of the book.

[faejilly]

Also I forgot my book

Speaking of!

My mother ran across an old Masterpiece show she'd watched & liked some 20+ years ago, and decided she'd read the book since she never had, and then she had to call me to tell me how she'd had to stop after the first chapter for minute and do the office-camera-stare to herself because THE TECHNICAL QUALITY OF THE WRITING & EDITING

especially in comparison to her general voracious reading of escapist self-pubbed genre fiction that is, no shade intended, edited at about the same rate as fanfic, which means it's usually readable, but...

Anyway

This reminded me that I have been reading mostly fanfic lately and some of it is amazing but a lot of it is not technically that proficient so now I'm reading a fifty-year-old historical fiction book and wow the structure & vocabulary y'all

🤣🤣🤣

Only I left it at home so now I'm telling you about it instead of reading it

I am delivering water to marching band practice today for Thing 2, and 1: I am really glad it's not as gross this week as it has been, both for their sake and mine, as I'm sitting in the sun; 2: I loved band but I do not miss marching band practice 😅

[gabrielferaud]

“Patient, precise, and painstaking in every stroke of the pen, he [Berthier] walked in his master's shadow until it was dark. Then he went away and killed himself.”

a description of Louis-Alexandre Berthier from R.F. Delderfield’s Napoleon’s Marshals

[captainknell]

We went to an antique market today and I always challenge my kids to find Napoleon amidst the antiques. It's a trick to make them interested in my hobbies but I'm willing to pay them if they find Napoleon so they go along with it. Well I found 3 books so I told them that I get the prize! I already have the first book that I found, Desiree by Annemarie Selinko so I didn't buy it. But I did buy the other two:

The Emperor's Lady by F.W. Kenyon and Seven Men of Gascony by R.F. Delderfield

[e-b-reads]

Not Your Classics Challenge

day 17: War and Peace

A book about existing in war time and peace time, in a very specific time and place. (Also chosen because, although the book itself isn't too long, it covers more years than the books I usually choose: it was a present from my mom.)

[calamitys-child]

She's beautiful...

[ID: A hardback book titled "The Adventures of Ben Gunn" by R.F. Delderfield. The cover is a painting of two men in old-timey pirate clothes with a large red parrot flying just above their shoulders]

Just got a book of treasure island fanfiction from 1956 weird bookshops are everything to me

[microcosme11]

An awkward encounter

Napoleon is on his way to Frejus to sail for Elba.

 Near Valence those riding ahead had an unexpected encounter. They met Marshal Augereau, the traitor of Lyons, riding in the opposite direction and warned him that the Emperor was within hail. Augereau took no steps to avoid an encounter and when the carriage stopped and Napoleon descended he met Imperial affability with churlishness. The two men walked apart and Napoleon, perhaps mischievously, asked, "Where are you going? To Court?" Augereau replied gruffly that he was on his way to Lyons and then the exchanges became acrimonious, Napoleon saying that the marshal had behaved badly during the final campaign, Augereau retorting that Napoleon owed his present plight to his own insatiable ambition. When Napoleon returned to his carriage the marshal did not uncover but remained glowering, his hands clasped behind his back. To the Emperor it was a foretaste of the kind of reception he was to receive on the road ahead. Augereau expressed himself forcibly to Colonel Campbell. "He should have marched up to a battery and died in action!" he said. Curious advice from a man who had said to Macdonald on the banks of the Elster, "Do you think I am such a fool as to die for a German suburb?"

— Imperial sunset : the fall of Napoleon, 1813-14 by R.F. Delderfield

[skonnaris]

Books I’ve Read: 2006-2020

Alexie, Sherman - Flight

Anderson, Joan - A Second Journey

                         - An Unfinished Marriage

                         - A Walk on the Beach

                         - A Year By The Sea

Anshaw, Carol - Carry the One

Auden, W.H. - The Selected Poems of W.H. Auden

Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice

Bach, Richard - Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Bear, Donald R - Words Their Way

Berg, Elizabeth - Open House

Bly, Nellie - Ten Days in a Madhouse

Bradbury, Ray - Fahrenheit 451

                       - The Martian Chronicles

Brooks, David - The Road to Character

Brooks, Geraldine - Caleb’s Crossing

Brown, Dan - The Da Vinci Code

Bryson, Bill - The Lost Continent

Burnett, Frances Hodgson - The Secret Garden

Buscaglia, Leo - Bus 9 to Paradise

                        - Living, Loving & Learning

                        - Personhood

                        - Seven Stories of Christmas Love

Byrne, Rhonda - The Secret

Carlson, Richard - Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Carson, Rachel - The Sense of Wonder

                         - Silent Spring

Cervantes, Miguel de - Don Quixote

Cherry, Lynne - The Greek Kapok Tree

Chopin, Karen - The Awakening

Clurman, Harold - The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre & the 30s

Coelho, Paulo -  Adultery

                          The Alchemist

Conklin, Tara - The Last Romantics

Conroy, Pat - Beach Music

                   - The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son

                   - The Great Santini

                   - The Lords of Discipline

                   - The Prince of Tides

                   - The Water is Wide

Corelli, Marie - A Romance of Two Worlds

Delderfield, R.F. - To Serve Them All My Days

Dempsey, Janet - Washington’s Last Contonment: High Time for a Peace

Dewey, John - Experience and Education

Dickens, Charles - A Christmas Carol

                            - Great Expectations

                            - A Tale of Two Cities

Didion, Joan - The Year of Magical Thinking

Disraeli, Benjamin - Sybil

Doctorow, E.L. - Andrew’s Brain

                        - Ragtime

Doerr, Anthony - All the Light We Cannot See

Dreiser, Theodore - Sister Carrie

Dyer, Wayne - Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

                    - The Power of Intention

                    - Your Erroneous Zones

Edwards, Kim - The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Ellis, Joseph J. - His Excellency: George Washington

Ellison, Ralph - The Invisible Man

Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Essays and Lectures

Felkner, Donald W. - Building Positive Self Concepts

Fergus, Jim - One Thousand White Women

Flynn, Gillian - Gone Girl

Follett, Ken - Pillars of the Earth

Frank, Anne - The Diary of a Young Girl

Freud, Sigmund - The Interpretation of Dreams

Frey, James - A Million Little Pieces

Fromm, Erich - The Art of Loving

                      - Escape from Freedom

Fulghum, Robert - All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Fuller, Alexandra - Leaving Before the Rains Come

Garield, David - The Actors Studion: A Player’s Place

Gates, Melinda - The Moment of Lift

Gibran, Kahlil - The Prophet

Gilbert, Elizabeth - Eat, Pray, Love

                           - The Last American Man

                           - The Signature of All Things

Ginsburg, Ruth Bader - My Own Words

Girzone, Joseph F, - Joshua

                              - Joshua and the Children

Gladwell, Malcom - Blink

                             - David and Goliath

                             - Outliers

                             - The Tipping Point

                             - Talking to Strangers

Glass, Julia - Three Junes

Goodall, Jane - Reason for Hope

Goodwin, Doris Kearnes - Team of Rivals

Graham, Steve - Best Practices in Writing Instruction

Gray, John - Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

Groom, Winston - Forrest Gump

Gruen, Sarah - Water for Elephants

Hannah, Kristin - The Great Alone

                         - The Nightingale

Harvey, Stephanie and Anne Goudvis - Strategies That Work

Hawkins, Paula - The Girl on the Train

Hedges, Chris - Empire of Illusion

Hellman, Lillian - Maybe

                        - Pentimento

Hemingway - Ernest - A Moveable Feast

Hendrix, Harville - Getting the Love You Want

Hesse, Hermann - Demian

                           - Narcissus and Goldmund

                           - Peter Camenzind

                           - Siddhartha

                           - Steppenwolf

Hilderbrand, Elin - The Beach Club

Hitchens, Christopher - God is Not Great

Hoffman, Abbie - Soon to be a Major Motion Picture

                         - Steal This Book

Holt, John - How Children Fail

                 - How Children Learn

                - Learning All the Time

                - Never Too Late

Hopkins, Joseph - The American Transcendentalist

Horney, Karen - Feminine Psychology

                       - Neurosis and Human Growth

                       - The Neurotic Personality of Our Time

                       - New Ways in Psychoanalysis

                       - Our Inner Conflicts

                       - Self Analysis

Hosseini, Khaled - The Kite Runner

Hoover, John J, Leonard M. Baca, Janette K. Klingner - Why Do English Learners Struggle with Reading?

Janouch, Gustav - Conversations with Kafka

Jefferson, Thomas - Crusade Against Ignorance

Jong, Erica - Fear of Dying

Joyce, Rachel - The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy

                      - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Kafka, Franz - Amerika

                     - Metamophosis

                     - The Trial    

Kallos, Stephanie - Broken For You  

Kazantzakis, Nikos - Zorba the Greek

Keaton, Diane - Then Again

Kelly, Martha Hall - The Lilac Girls

Keyes, Daniel - Flowers for Algernon

King, Steven - On Writing

Kornfield, Jack - Bringing Home the Dharma

Kraft, Herbert - The Indians of Lenapehoking - The Lenape or Delaware Indians: The Original People of NJ, Southeastern New York State, Eastern Pennsylvania, Northern Delaware and Parts of Western Connecticut

Kundera, Milan - The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Lacayo, Richard - Native Son

Lamott, Anne - Bird by Bird

                        Word by Word

L’Engle, Madeleine - A Wrinkle in Time

Lahiri, Jhumpa - The Namesake

Lappe, Frances Moore - Diet for a Small Planet

Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird

Lems, Kristin et al  - Building Literacy with English Language Learners

Lewis, Sinclair - Main Street

London, Jack - The Call of the Wild

Lowry, Lois - The Giver

Mander, Jerry - Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television

Marks, John D. - The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind         Control

Martel, Yann - Life of Pi

Maslow, Abraham - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature

                             - Motivation and Personality

                             - Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences

                            - Toward a Psychology of Being                            

Maugham. W. Somerset - Of Human Bondage

                                       - Christmas Holiday

Maurier, Daphne du - Rebecca

Mayes, Frances - Under the Tuscan Sun

Mayle, Peter - A Year in Provence

McCourt, Frank - Angela’s Ashes

                         - Teacher man

McCullough, David - 1776

                               - Brave Companions

McEwan, Ian - Atonement

                     - Saturday

McLaughlin, Emma - The Nanny Diaries

McLuhan, Marshall - Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

Meissner, Susan - The Fall of Marigolds

Millman, Dan - Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Moehringer, J.R. - The Tender Bar

Moon, Elizabeth - The Speed of Dark

Moriarty, Liane - The Husband’s Sister

                        - The Last Anniversary

                        - What Alice Forgot

Mortenson, Greg - Three Cups of Tea

Moyes, Jo Jo - One Plus One

                      - Me Before You

Ng, Celeste - Little Fires Everywhere

Neill, A.S. - Summerhill

Noah, Trevor - Born a Crime

O’Dell, Scott - Island of the Blue Dolphins

Offerman, Nick - Gumption

O’Neill, Eugene - Long Day’s Journey Into Night

                           A Touch of the Poet

Orwell, George - Animal Farm

Owens, Delia - Where the Crawdads Sing

Paulus, Trina - Hope for the Flowers

Pausch, Randy - The Last Lecture

Patchett, Ann - The Dutch House

Peck, Scott M. - The Road Less Traveled

                        - The Road Less Traveled and Beyond

Paterson, Katherine - Bridge to Teribithia

Picoult, Jodi - My Sister’s Keeper

Pirsig, Robert - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Puzo, Mario - The Godfather

Quindlen, Anna - Black and Blue

Radish, Kris - Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral

Redfield, James - The Celestine Prophecy

Rickert, Mary - The Memory Garden

Rogers, Carl - On Becoming a Person

Ruiz, Miguel - The Fifth Agreement

                    - The Four Agreements

                    - The Mastery of Love

Rum, Etaf - A Woman is No Man

Saint-Exupery, Antoine de - The Little Prince

Salinger, J.D. - Catcher in the Rye

Schumacher, E.F. - Small is Beautiful

Sebold, Alice - The Almost Moon

                      - The Lovely Bones

Shaffer, Mary Ann and Anne Barrows - The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Shakespeare, William - Alls Well That Ends Well

                                  - Much Ado About Nothing

                                  - Romeo and Juliet

                                  - The Sonnets

                                  - The Taming of the Shrew

                                  - Twelfth Night

                                  - Two Gentlemen of Verona

Sides, Hampton - Hellhound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin

Silverstein, Shel - The Giving Tree

Skinner, B.F. - About Behaviorism

Smith, Betty - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Snyder, Zilpha Keatley - The Velvet Room

Spinelli, Jerry - Loser

Spolin, Viola - Improvisation for the Theater

Stanislavski, Constantin - An Actor Prepares

Stedman, M.L. - The Light Between Oceans

Steinbeck, John - Travels with Charley

Steiner, Peter - The Terrorist

Stockett, Kathryn - The Help

Strayer, Cheryl - Wild

Streatfeild, Dominic - Brainwash

Strout, Elizabeth - My Name is Lucy Barton

                           - Olive, Again

                           - Olive Kitteridge

Tartt, Donna - The Goldfinch

Taylor, Kathleen - Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

Thomas, Matthew - We Are Not Ourselves

Thoreau, Henry David - Walden

Tolle, Eckhart - A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose

                     - The Power of Now

Towles, Amor - A Gentleman in Moscow

                      - Rules of Civility

Tracey, Diane and Lesley Morrow - Lenses on Reading

Traub, Nina - Recipe for Reading

Tzu, Lao - Tao Te Ching

United States Congress - Project MKULTRA, the CIA’s program of research in behavioral modification: Joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the … Congress, first session, August 3, 1977

Van Allsburg, Chris - Just a Dream

                               - Polar Express

                               - Sweet Dreams

                               - Stranger

                               - Two Bad Ants

Walker, Alice - The Color Purple

Waller, Robert James - Bridges of Madison County

Warren, Elizabeth - A Fighting Chance

Waugh, Evelyn - Brideshead Revisited

Weir, Andy - The Martian

Weinstein, Harvey M. - Father, Son and CIA

Welles, Rebecca - The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood

Westover, Tara - Educated

White, E.B. - Charlotte’s Web

Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorien Gray

Wolfe, Tom - I Am Charlotte Simmons

Wolitzer, Meg - The Female Persuasion

Woolf, Virginia - Mrs. Dalloway

Zevin, Gabrielle - The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Zusak, Marcus - The Book Thief

[napoleondidthat]

Hi I was wondering if you had any recommendations of a biography of Napoleon? I wanted to read a good book but I don't know which is good. Thanks😊

If you are in the mood to tackle a big-ish book, the biography by Adam Zamoyski is a good over-view. I will also throw in Andrew Roberts biography, though I have not gotten to read that one yet (on the list!). 

It really depends on what you are looking for. If you want a general all around biography, those two you could start with, both huge books though that may be daunting. If you want a more smallish biography, the biography by Manuel Komroff I have a soft spot for. Napoleon, An Intimate Biography by Vincent Cronin is also a good book.

If you’re looking for a more personal side of Napoleon, that is a different set of books. You may have to go older, like real older, to find these. There hasn’t been too many recent books on Napoleon in this aspect. Octave Aubrey has written several books on the personal side of Napoleon. R.F Delderfield has written some very good books on Napoleon’s more personal side also and his family.

You can always read up on his marriages, more written on Josephine, to find a more intimate history about him.

I would stay away from the Alan Schom biography.

[postmodernlit1960-79]

1972

Richard Adams - Watership Down

Isaac Asimov - The Gods Themselves

John Berger - G.

John Berger - Ways of Seeing

Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities

Angela Carter - The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

R.F. Delderfield - To Serve Them All My Days

Frederick Forsyth - The Odessa File

Franklin Jones (Adi Da) - The Knee of Listening

Thomas Keneally - The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith

Ira Levin - The Stepford Wives

Vladimir Nabokov - Transparent Things

Robert Newton Peck - A Day No Pigs Would Die

Chaim Potok - My Name is Asher Lev

Jane Roberts - Seth Speaks

Josef Škvorecký - The Miracle Game

Arkady Strugatsky - Roadside Picnic

Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Trevanian - The Eiger Sanction

Eudora Welty - The Optimist’s Daughter

[corkcitylibraries]

Comfort Reading: in praise of a multi-generational saga

by Ann Riordan

I recently finished reading Barkskins by Annie Proulx and I enjoyed it immensely. It is a multi-generational saga that follows the descendents of settlers in Newfoundland, their relationships with the indigenous inhabitants and with the forest, from the 1600s to modern day. For days after I finished reading, I was still back in that landscape, back in that time in my mind. It reminded me how much I enjoy a long-range generational family tale, you know the type that needs a family tree and a map in the preface. Those used to be popular in the 1970s - think James Michener, think R.F. Delderfield, think Alex Haley's Roots. The 1980s was also a good time for family or historical sagas of a racier nature -  with blockbusters like The Thornbirds by Colleen McCollough or Mistral's Daughter by Judith Krantz.

The 1980s also gave us two of my all time favourite comfort reads -  Ken Follett's amazing The Pillars of the Earth, and Anne Rice's The Witching Hour. (Ok, The Witching Hour was published in 1990, but it has those 1980s blockbuster ingredients.)

Most readers would be familiar with The Pillars of the Earth, it regularly appears on favourite reads lists, and it was a tv series too. But if you aren’t, it follows the life and work of a medieval cathedral builder. It doesn't sounds like much, but the treat is the depiction of medieval life, family betrayals, goodies and baddies. It is pacy and full of drama. And there are two sequels. Bonus!

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice may be more of a niche read. If you have read (and possibly become bored with) Rice's vampire books, this is a slightly different kettle of voodoo. It tells the tale of thirteen generations of a family with a dominant witch at its head. Exciting, sensational, lush in detail, what a read! I go back to it again and again, and for a while I actually carried a print of the family tree tucked up in a pocket in my handbag. Fans of A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness might like this.

Edward Rutherfield writing in the 2000s picked up the mantle with his tales of London, Paris, New York and even The Princes of Ireland: the Dublin Saga. Beverley Swerling wrote four novels in the Old New York series following the settlement of New York from New Amsterdam to the foundation of modern New York. And I also highly recommend Jane Smiley's Last Hundred Years trilogy (Some Luck, Early Warning and Golden Age) that follows an Iowa family from the early 1900s to modern day.

So, Barkskins brought all this back to me, the enjoyment of the long tale, character driven, the historical details, the complicated family trees and best of all, the prospect of a sequel! Is the family saga due for a revival? Or has it been overtaken by fantasy series in the popularity stakes? I hope not!

Barkskins and all the other titles are available through the library catalogue at www.corkcitylibraries.ie . Barkskins is also available in ebook form through your BorrowBox account. 

Please note: I wrote this piece without once using the phrase 'sweeping tale'. I am proud of me.

[biboocat]

My favorite books of 2024, an eclectic list with my own made up categories:

Most profound novel that addresses morality: Romola by George Eliot

Most impressive work of historical fiction: Romola by George Eliot

Sentimental favorite novel: The Trumpet Major by Thomas Hardy

Most entertaining mystery: The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Novel that most comprehensively depicts the range of community dynamics: The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

Funniest & wackiest novel: The Dog of the South by Charles Portis

Most heartbreaking novel: A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines

Novel with a scene that most memorably depicts human kindness and compassion: To Serve Them All my Days by R.F. Delderfield

Favorite novel that addresses class division: The Village by Marghanita Laski

Most impressive memoir: Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

Favorite short story collection: Good Evening, Mrs. Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes

[wendyandcharles]

Tweeted

ReadersGazette: RT RetroBrit: Imperial Sunset by R.F. Delderfield (My Goodreads Review) https://t.co/jfhl02hZEE

— Wendy Siefken (@WendyandCharles) July 22, 2017

[comepraisetheinfanta]

Just finished watching the TV series, and now to read the book! :)