Email came through this morning from Amazon, it is half price for 'Boneland', hardback that is, at the moment. So you've tipped the balance I'll send off for it ;) Bookshelves are full though....

Will take a look Rhiannon, thanks.

I've just ordered another Neil M Gunn book, 'The Silver Bough'. I'm hoping it's as good as 'The Well at the Worlds End' which I thought was fantastic, and can highly recommend.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Well-at-Worlds-End/dp/184697027X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346666278&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Silver-Bough-Dairmid-Gunn/dp/190444508X

By odd coincidence I re-read "Elidor" over the weekend, haven't read it since I was at primary school and found it in a Leominster charity shop on Saturday. It's great.

Thanks for the news Rhiannon.

A work of genius, albeit slightly flawed no?

It has possibly the best evocation of the pre-historic mind and imagination I've evr read - all based on his deep understanding of place, and history of working with stone and story.

I'll wager he will be proved right on his vision of rock art being eventually found under Lud's church

I didn't realise Boneland was out until October. I've just read it for the second time. First time round there was more of an emotional 'hit' at the end, but on re-reading you pick up more of the nuances and cleverly constructed parallels and intersections between 'distant' worlds - almost reminiscent of Elidor in a very subtle way. A very rich and rewarding read from an author for whom not a word is wasted.

Well it took a bit of time to get round to the book, boycotting Amazon for one, reading the other two in the trilogy but itself finished in fairly quick time.
It is an excellent read, lots to think back, the winding of the two strands Colin and the stone age ancestor. Garner's writing is so staccato, short sentences and you realise you are reading something between prose and poetry.

Motifs are easily understood, the shaman, rock art, Meg/witch/goddess and the rather unglamorous figure of Colin.

I think there must be a problem with fictional children growing up, Rowling's Harry Potter and Lewis's Narnian children come to mind. Tolkien started his great epic fairytale with adults and escaped the predicament .....

I don't like either of the two main protagonists, Meg and Colin, one is a wimp and the other loudmouthed but the writing draws you on, especially the celtic like chant of the stone-age ancestor when he names the animals as he moves through the landscape "the bell of the deer" always invokes an image....

Ursula Le Guin in the Guardian ........

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/29/boneland-alan-garner-review