I’m such a List guy. I can’t get enough of them. It started with lists of recommended books in different genres, and that went so well that I decided I’m such a List guy. I can’t get enough of them. It started with lists of recommended books in different genres, and that went so well that I decided to trust the process of picking movies to watch also based on “100 Best” lists. This approach to choosing and absorbing books and movies cannot help but make one well-read, and also a bit of a film buff. I had such a wonderful time with this book that the only thing keeping me from watching a whole slew of films listed here, is that I’m committed to watching 100 Spy movies in a row, as culled from a Spy movie list in a magazine from 2009 (with a few substitutions for movies I don’t have easy or cheap access to, and those subs will mainly be pulled from an alternate Spy movie list)!
I said this before - in one of my Comment/Updates while I devoured this book - but I have to say it once in my actual review: somewhere in my Goodreads history, in a comment or a review to do with some book - I mentioned that I thought 1971 was in fact the best year for movies. I said it long before I knew Sellers’s book existed, and I’m pretty sure it was before this book came out. But it’s a very personal thing, and debatable thing, to pick a “best year” for films. So, it was very odd to see a book called 1971: 100 Films from Cinema’s Greatest Year show up in my Goodreads updates feed, not too long ago. It’s a weird thing to have someone else endorse; someone picked the year I feel very strongly about, and did a whole book making the case for 1971. I don’t actually think it’s a provable position, and for all I know, it will spawn rival books that make the same pronouncement about any other year, along with a list of movies as strong evidence. (1939, anyone?). But for a moment I was all, like, “I’m not crazy! I didn’t pick the year no one else would pick! I have some legitimate sense of how incredible the roster of films is, from 1971.”.
So I had to buy the book, and get the list of one hundred films that make the case. There is a bit of irony here: my feelings on the best movie year ever, and my instant interest in any book appearing that says the same thing, came from all those earlier lists I relied on. Slowly, as I viewed films in various genres, I started thinking in terms of what film came out when. Two things occurred to me: a lot of interesting movies in almost every genre came out in 1971; and the list of movies that I liked a lot, or loved, that came out in 1971, was long. This second realization - the films from 1971, as a group I kept adding to as I bought lists and watched a wide variety of movies, becoming, becoming a grouping I loved more than any other year I could think of - is the realization that would likely keep me from writing a whole book. How could one pick a year as the best year of movies, if one didn’t have a personal fondness for the bulk of the films involved? Couldn’t you take any year, and list all the great films, and say, at the very least, no one year is any more impressive than any other - especially in terms of the old rallying cry “Everyone’s taste is different!”. Also: could I not be ignoring a more deserving year, simply because I didn’t personally like enough truly great movies? Put it this way: if The Princess Bride, The Shawshank Redemption, The Usual Suspects, Heathers, Forrest Gump, The Graduate, Inception, Our Man in Havana, The English Patient, Arsenic and Old Lace, Rear Window, Goldfinger, and Duck Soup had all come out in the same year…many people would pick that as the best year for movies; but I either dislike those films, or at least find some of them overrated - so where the hell would that leave me?!
My fledgling notion that 1971 was the great year for film was based on seeing about 30 movies, and knowing the reputations of a few others; I really should’ve seen Klute - and especially The Last Picture Show by now. Of course, Robert Sellers has gone way beyond a mere 30 pieces of celluloid evidence for his position, which means I now have a whole bunch of 1971 films I didn’t even know about…especially because he wraps up the book with a big section of Honourable Mentions!
But my love for this book goes beyond silly personal validation, and being handed yet another list of “100 Best” choices (and more!) to obsessively pursue, like the list fanatic I am; he has made a strong, and well-reasoned case for 1971 as winner. He does not do this with one all-powerful chapter that sums everything up - no, the case is made over many, many pages. A slow accumulation of wonderful essays discussing just how ground-breaking so many of these films were, what trends they started, what careers started with creative directors coming up with a splendid first film. Films that flopped - so many of them! - and just as many getting poor reviews when first shown…but so many films slowly garnering new respect over time. Big stars, fresh stars, movies scratched out with almost no money and ending up unique or wonderfully intimate because of that….
Sure, maybe this fits ANY year. Maybe it’s all subjective. Robert Sellers says this very thing in the first lines of his fascinating book…and then dares to pick one year and take a position anyway. Obviously, I’m biased; I picked 1971 about ten years ago. And I think the film round-up for 1971 will always say a bit more than “Well, if we could pick any year, 1971 is as good as any, and better than many…”. I think, personally, it’s even a better year than that. Here’s the case I could not make, but Sellers certainly does.
There is an odd feature to the book: because the movies are listed in the order they were released in theatres, this has a rather chaotic effect on the personal and professional lives of the people who worked on the films…or rather, the reader’s perception of those lives. For example: Peter Cushing. He shows up quite a bit in this book - Hammer films, and beyond - and as one movie is discussed, we learn he was very sad on-set, though friendly, because this was the year he lost his beloved wife. Later, another film with Peter Cushing cast to appear in it is discussed, and it is was during that movie’s production that Cushing first got the news that his wife was about to pass away and so he quit the film. A jumbled order, when it comes to dealing with Peter Cushing, but arranging the films in release order is the priority, and so this side effect crops up several times; George C. Scott’s situation in 1971 is another case in point. The slowly-accumulating perception of Clint Eastwood’s version of 1971 is a little more straight-forward; The Beguiled, Dirty Harry, Play Misty For Me…this was maybe Eastwood’s year more than anyone else’s…George Lucas’s and Steven Spielberg’s arrivals notwithstanding.
So. I’ve patted myself on the back, for picking 1971 and seeing one other person bother to do it. I’ve hinted at why the book makes the valid case I could never make. I need to see if The Last Movie is actually available - finally. I need to see Murphy’s War, and maybe the 13 hour film, and the Godzilla movie that sounds very weird…
So many movies from one frigging amazing year, and not enough time. Not enough time for 1970…...more
It’s not gripping reading. It’s not. And that would be the reason for dropping it down to 4 stars. Do you read non-fiction? You know those blurbs on nIt’s not gripping reading. It’s not. And that would be the reason for dropping it down to 4 stars. Do you read non-fiction? You know those blurbs on non-fiction books, that say some variation of “Loved it! This is a piece of history, but it reads just like a really great thriller - a captivating story, and all true!”. And then you read whatever book that is, and by gosh, it DOES have all the thrills, and drama, of a terrific novel.
This is not that. Virgin Books acquiring the licence to Doctor Who (no Daleks allowed), pumping out Doctor Who books for years (while hoping to start something that could sustain itself if they eventually lost the Doctor), and then inevitably losing the licence and going forward with their greatest creation, Bernice Summerfield…all this is not the stuff of riveting human drama, full of unexpected twists and turns. This was not like reading A Game of Spies, or even Paris in the Fifties, and certainly not Confederates in the Attic. This was more like reading The Making of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in several ways…
But even when I say that, The Making of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service WAS gripping. It does contain thrilling twists - well, I’m a bit nervy going to the word “thrilling” in describing the George Lazenby magic trick, and all that resulted from that…but the story of OHMSS, packaged up as a huge book loaded with every photo and fun fact you could ever want, conjures up one heck of a fascinating yarn of how one strange film dared to get made.
The Who Adventures is also an over-sized book wherein the photo inclusions almost overshadow the story jammed in among all the amazing optical knick-knacks. Both books are a niche-completist’s dream! Both books feature a main narrative that is continuously festooned with side-bars full of extras; I’m not gonna say my eyes didn’t glaze over just a little bit, every time I stopped for another artist, or author, or editor, mini-biography in Who Adventures. Probably the least gripping reading…with apologies to anyone whose life was more exciting and meaningful than it came across as, in a slightly dead side-bar.
But probably the most dramatic surprises on display, when it comes to anything that came along to shake up the routine of spraying out Dr Who books to fans at an ever-increasing rate, were: (a) So Vile a Sin missing its publication date (one of the worst books you could pick, to get published out of intended order), (b) Peter Darvill-Evans’s awkward exit from Virgin Books (I’m not sure we get anything like the full story), and, uh, what else? Um, the alternate Christmas on a Rational Planet cover? The cover they ultimately put forth is one of my favourites in the line, but I kind of like the wonky reject (NOT the YELLOW, though!!).
Of course, the most bizarre and compelling thing to read about - when not appreciating the true reason for the book: the photos, and book-cover representations without text obscuring any art - is Virgin Books opening the writing of the novels to, well, anyone. Fans were encouraged to send in manuscripts, proposals. Sure, there was a Slush Pile. But even it got picked through, from time to time…and hey voila!: Christmas on a Rational Planet. I’m not gonna spoil what little drama actually takes place during the churning out of scads of Doctor Who novels under increasingly rushed conditions, by listing the authors who got discovered after they submitted Who ideas to Virgin, and then went on to further success. Let’s just say, it was an astonishing, and rare, situation.
Years ago, I read somewhere that, in one critic’s assessment, if we were to compare what the BBC accomplished with their Eighth Doctor novels from 1997-2005 (after they took back control of the Doctor’s adventures, still while no series was on TV), up against what Virgin Books had done just before that, 1991-1996, with the Seventh Doctor, the BBC run is slightly more impressive than the Virgin novels era. I dunno. I may never know how I feel, because I’m unlikely to ever re-read both runs, in order, to make my judgement. I joined the ‘Wilderness Years’ Party (show off the air, novels filling in the gap for sixteen years) a tad late, in 1998. I had to play catch-up with all the Virgin entries, scouring the city…paying big money for the “frustrating eight” that had eluded me.
But somewhere along the line, the Seventh Doctor became my favourite Doctor of all time, taking over from the Second Doctor (not that surprising a switch). I don’t claim to be a Time Lord, but part of that switch was during a difficult period when I came to see things more as Seven, then Two. Putting away childish things?…maybe. I dunno. I became a different person; my favourite Doctor changed. There’s all that, and that story would probably be more gripping than anything in The Who Adventures…
But I know, too, that slowly but surely, the Seventh Doctor novels put out by Virgin were a key component in my burgeoning love of the Seventh Doctor. It was a blast revisiting my own personal regeneration, in one complete package....more
Issues #192-200 of the Fantastic Four feature the team as disbanded, and although there is a lot going on, as scattered members of the foursome have tIssues #192-200 of the Fantastic Four feature the team as disbanded, and although there is a lot going on, as scattered members of the foursome have their own adventures, the thread running through these comics culminates in an epic confrontation between Mister Fantastic and the team's greatest foe, Doctor Doom. If there is a spotlight on anybody by the time #s 197-200 roll around, it's on Reed Richards, but everyone plays their part.
Issues #201-203 operate as a sort of respite from long storylines, and it's fair to say the three stories featured don't have the clout of the two epic story arcs that form the bulk of this Collection. (Though, Quasimodo's fate, left hanging, did jump to Marv Wolfman's other series, Nova, where we learn he has encountered the Sphinx with some important consequences; but we don't see that in this collection - we just see the Sphinx before and after his encounter with Quasimodo. Luckily, this doesn't take away a really important piece of the storyline running through Fantastic Four #s 204-214).
There are also two Fantastic Four Annuals crammed into this Collection - Annual #s 12, and 13 - and strangely, they are grouped together. Annual #15 brings the Sphinx into the Fantastic Four's continuity, and he will be important for issues #206-213. In fact, the Sphinx was created as a major villain for Nova...and Marv Wolfman, to the best of my knowledge, had planned a crossover storyline between Nova and the Fantastic Four. We see it start up with Fantastic Four #204...but unfortunately, the Nova series got cancelled - meaning that the last issues of Nova, #s 23-25, set the groundwork for the crossover, and happen basically as Fantastic Four #s 204-206 were coming out too...but with no more Nova series, the Fantastic Four series had to handle the bulk of the storyline that had got planned for two series. Needless to say, Marv Wolfman couldn't let Nova and his team, the New Champions, suddenly hog a lot of time in the Fantastic Four comics...so, yes, people who rate this Epic Collection lower than I do, may be reacting to a Nova storyline that attaches to a more fleshed-out Fantastic Four story arc, and then suddenly disappears. Nova's story involves him finally getting to Xandar, the planet where his powers originated, just in time to see it battered and losing a war with the Skrulls. I feel that we see enough of this war - and some turning points in it - to satisfy (although we don't know what has happened to Nova and his crew until, of all comics, Rom #24).
Personally, I would call this sloppy plotting - even if it was unavoidable - except that Wolfman never really mishandles it. He had previously moved the Sphinx over from the Nova series - with FF Annual # 12 - and I feel the Sphinx effortlessly becomes a charismatic and wonderful main threat to the FF, and then all of Earth - and this villain is more than impressive enough to carry the main storyline occurring from FF #s 204-214. In fact, Wolfman delivers an amazing destiny for the Sphinx that had obviously been conceived and worked out, years back, in Nova #6. (Wolfman is a master of the long game, in plotting - not always to his benefit, when a series gets abruptly cancelled...or he is suddenly not writing a series before things he set up have been resolved). The Sphinx starts out as an immortal, seeking some sort of cosmic secret, but also afraid of some fate that has been foretold by a character called Sayge; he dreads his own future. This all comes to fruition as the Sphinx seems destined to battle Galactus - with the fate of Earth in the balance, and Mister Fantastic working some secret, risky plot of his own to make everything end well. Most of the time, it doesn't seem like any of it will end well; Earth seems doomed, no matter who wins the Sphinx/Galactus smackdown.
Due to the events of issue # 206, three of the Fantastic Four are aging rapidly from then on, and have about three days to live. The Human Torch has been spared this looming death and if there is a spotlight on one member for #s 204-214, it is on Johnny Storm, as he watches his family accelerating towards death by old age while he becomes the only vibrant, healthy member of the team...who may be the only one left to deal with at least two all-powerful villains, who want to eat or destroy the Earth respectively...and the only one left to maybe find a way to save his family as it whithers away.
I loved the art by John Byrne and Keith Pollard. I enjoyed the connections to not only the Nova series but also the Amazing Spider-Man series - which Wolfman, Pollard, and Byrne were also shaping at around the same time. It is weird that the key scene where Peter Parker gets a new job after being fired from the Bugle occurs in an issue of FF here, and not in his own series, but okay. As for how weird HERBIE the robot is acting, from #s 209-214 - exceeding his programming and generally behaving strangely - well, that doesn't get explained until FF # 217, which is not featured in this collection. (I had actually figured out what was wrong with HERBIE...and was quite proud of myself for doing so; it just suddenly hit me...plus, by that time I knew how Marv Wolfman's devious and brilliant mind works. Very clever...you thought I forgot, didn't you, Marv!).
This Epic Collection pairs well with the Spidey one that just came out before it, called Nine Lives Has The Black Cat. Wolfman and Pollard and Byrne, oh my! (Plus many talented others.) I also think these are great FF comics to tune into before the upcoming film - Galactus and HERBIE 'n all, just sayin'. On top of all that...if you miss seeing the planet Xandar since the first Guardians of the Galaxy film, well, here's all that Nova/Xandar (admittedly Skrull-smashed) iconography in all its original splendour!
I absolutely love issues: 206 (the Skrulls are wonderful here), 208, 211, 213-14....more
Top 20 Reasons this is my favourite Spidey story arc:
(1) Art by Keith Pollard and John Byrne, chiefly.
(2) The Chameleon had refined his powers back inTop 20 Reasons this is my favourite Spidey story arc:
(1) Art by Keith Pollard and John Byrne, chiefly.
(2) The Chameleon had refined his powers back in Daredevil #134, as written by Wolfman, and here again has made further improvements to his tricks...resulting in Spider-Man being in trouble with the police, about 30 seconds after being cleared by them of all charges.
(3) How deftly a story originally slated for the series Marvel Team-Up got revised and incorporated into the story arc going on here. Great Captain America appearance, terrific art.
(4) For a second or two, Peter Parker has to talk down a worked-up Harry Osborn from becoming the Green Goblin at a very bad time.
(5) John Byrne draws the Man-Wolf. J. Jonah Jameson talks to the Man-Wolf as father to son, even while being attacked and kidnapped by him. But pleading with a wolfman (no pun intended) only goes so far...
(6) An old villain gets revealed as the mastermind behind most of what has been going on for the past several issues. This will be one of his best appearances - due his plans for revenge against Spidey and Jameson both, and his limited time to get it done.
(7) Issue #192: Spidey and Jameson shackled together, and the shackles are a bomb on a timer. It's a very suspenseful and inventive finale to the major story arc launched in #186 (which starts this Collection), but of course we have subplots still unresolved, mainly in Peter Parker's crumbling personal life.
(8) The burglar who killed Uncle Ben is re-introduced (actually, he had made a quick appearance back in Amazing Spider-Man #170, but that tease finally comes to fruition in #s 193-200)
(9) The Black Cat makes her first appearance. Yes, she is an echo of Catwoman from Batman -and she was originally supposed to debut in the Spider-Woman series while Wolfman was writing it - but, revised and reconfigured, she makes a memorable debut here.
(10) Issue #195 ends with a very depressed and defeated Peter Parker opening and reading a telegram from the nursing home where Aunt May had recently moved to. This is a gut-punch finale to a comic book, let me tell you.
(11) By this point, Peter had accumulated romance dilemmas, accidentally alienated his friends, become an even bigger target of J. Jonah Jameson than ever, lost his job at the Bugle, and even had a particularly rough time as Spidey...a lot of "even when I won, victory slipped through my fingers, literally, at the same time!". It is all written so believably, so tragically because it all happens at the same time, that it was obvious the rest of the ride to #200 was going to be epic. Oh, and I can't help thinking of where things get left off with Ned Leeds, in issue #195, given what is going to be done with his character, much much later in the series...
(12) Issue #196...which would be the best comic in this book, except that of course we are heading towards issue #200. Emotionally devastating issue...with one clue that all is not as it seems; Peter's Spidey-Sense tingles at a very odd time. And he begins to wonder if all is as it appears...
(13) The Kingpin returns. He wants to retire from crime...or rather, his wife insists he retire from crime, or lose her. With hours until the deadline for quitting, Kingpin has goons bring him Spidey, so he can kill him and bow out happy. Issue #197 is a splendid (almost)-All-Battle issue.
(14) J. Jonah's Jameson's obsession with, and hatred of, Spider-Man, finally seems to be driving him mad. His world too begins to crumble, as he struggles to hold it together.
(15) Mysterio is my favourite villain. To have him back, in a truly inspired storyline for him, as #200 approaches, is almost like a personal gift to me from Marv Wolfman, for all the comics I bought by him and fell in love with. The swimming pool sequence at the start of #199 is a mini-masterpiece, and shows the essence of Mysterio.
(16) Issue # 200 is my favourite superhero comic of any series, even allowing for subversive, genre-bending stuff like Watchmen, or The Boys, or whatever. Spider-Man versus the Burglar, the man who killed Uncle Ben. And Spidey is not exactly the superhero he was, up until the very end of #199, thanks to Mysterio's final weapon...I'll leave it at that. As a Spidey fan who was sort of dimly aware of the fact that the Burglar had been merely been captured, not killed, at the end of Spidey's origin story (as opposed to any films), it never really occurred to me that it would be perfect for him to one day return, in an epic storyline, maybe even leading up to an anniversary issue. I know this was obviously in the works, way back at #170 when Len Wein was writing the series...but whoever came up with all the details (and my understanding is that Wolfman took the existing tease and cooked up his own ideas), the result is the Spidey run I love the most.
(17) Okay. This Epic Collection does also contain two Annuals from both Amazing Spider-Man, and Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man, which I should mention. And we also get Amazing Spider-Man #s 201-206. The Annuals seem oddly displaced, almost unwelcome, when it comes to maintaining the momentum of the main series, but at least they are presented here after #200. And we do get more John Byrne art...plus Doctor Octopus.
(18) Issues #201-206 do come off as a bit anti-climactic, compared to everything preceding them. BUT. We do get a decent Punisher story (though he's a bit de-fanged). We get an irrational J. Jonah Jameson running loose in the city, after his complete loss of grip on reality; that gets resolved in a way that left some fans disappointed, in the final issue presented in this Epic Collection. There had been a real chance to deal with Jameson's obsession with Spider-Man in a compelling and realistic way, and we get, instead, what we get. But, whatever the original plan may have been with this subplot, Wolfman was departing with Jonah's mental issues unresolved, and by issue #203 or so, we can see with hindsight that the groundwork was being laid for what happens in #206.
(19) Black Cat's return in #s 204-205 is a bit odd, and Marvel later steps away from what is established here, resets her course way up in issues #226-227 (they are not in this book), but the disturbing finale to #205 almost makes up for what will ultimately be a bit of what I'll call a Black Cat character arc misfire; there's not enough here for me to take a star off my 5-star rating. Too much of the other material is amazing.
(20) And that's it! I'll leave it at that. Of course, some fans are meh, when it comes to Marv Wolfman's run on Amazing Spider-Man; there's even one assessment video on YouTube that calls it the first "bad run" on the series. I disagree, and so do a lot of fans. Incidentally, Wolfman wrote issues #182-185, and although I'm a bit disappointed they did not make it into this Collection, if the choice was between including them, or making sure we made it up to #206 - so we could see everything about the J. Jonah Jameson story get cleaned up (including finding out whether he really did look under Spidey's mask while he and Spidey were shackled together and our hero was unconscious!), then I'm all for #s 201-206 making the page-count requirements, if any, instead.
On to Marv Wolfman's (and Keith Pollard's! and John Byrne's!) run on Fantastic Four, which came out in an Epic Collection right after this one. It's like they read my mind!...more
I thought that I would just be pleasantly amused, at best. Bored a lot, at worst. But this was wonderful.
I was inspired by the early novels, and storI thought that I would just be pleasantly amused, at best. Bored a lot, at worst. But this was wonderful.
I was inspired by the early novels, and stories, of P. G. Wodehouse. The inspiration to do one more ‘Boys’ School’ novel, not by Wodehouse this time so as to see how someone else does it, did come late to me. It was years ago that I read The Pothunters by Wodehouse - as well as A Prefect’s Uncle, The Head of Kay’s - and I remember loving most of that stuff much more than I thought I would. A bit too much Cricket for my taste - I don’t know Cricket, except for a few basics - but there was no way there was not going to be Cricket in English Boys’ Boarding School tales, so I just tried to focus whenever the young fellas went out to play their beloved game so I could always tell who won, which characters did well, and who let the side down (usually due to being preoccupied with some distressing plot-line occurring in the story, not directly tied to Cricket, but definitely detrimental to peak performance). Overall, my experiences with the Wodehouse contributions to this once-popular subgenre were surprisingly satisfying; his style, wit, plotting and pacing, were already on display and running rampant. Personally, I could see Code of the Woosters lurking in the future of the writer of these charming novels for boys.
But I didn’t rush out and get a bunch of similar books by a variety of forgotten authors. For one thing, I didn’t know any relevant author names. But not too long ago, I read Benny Green’s literary biography of the Master, and Green generously gave me some names. Authors and book titles. I added to my TBR list. I ignored those additions for a while, and then recently, flipping through my TBR list, I put The Fifth Form of St. Dominic’s on order. Weirdly, when it came, I wanted to read it right away! But I did brace myself for something dusty and perhaps frivolous. Kids and hijinks, maybe care of a pet frog taking up many chapters, a young troublemaker writhing in Detention in some kind of running gag running out of steam. Trips to the candy store, letters home to parents. One big schoolyard fight, one boy learns an important spiritual lesson…and school’s out. That’s what I expected, nothing too rigorous, nothing very meaningful or affecting.
Sure, I was stuck in school. That happened. But all the various plot lines, spread out among several boys of the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourth Forms - just enough well-drawn main and supporting characters to explore several facets of school life among friends, rivals, and enemies-for-a-year - are keenly compelling. At least, I found them so; I thought the whole trip through the school year, starring Steve and older brother Oliver, was at turns joyful to behold, or at times heart-breaking and veering towards tragedy. A despicable grown-up named Cripps - not affiliated with the school, but out in the ‘real world’ and yet close enough to St. Dominic’s to be a bad influence - is a great villain, and also the most likely reason any one of these boys might fall from youthful innocence to ruined-childhood tragedy. An apparent case of cheating also suggests someone is not worthy of St. Dominic’s…but which boy? The obvious suspect, who is suddenly shunned and virtually friendless?
The book is about honour and honesty, bravery and integrity, choices and debts. It’s also about learning of the Cripps of the world, learning the hard way. Big themes, but not obnoxiously hammered home. We’re not building a Luke Skywalker, here - and Cripps is wonderfully so not wonderful, but he’s no Darth Vader. Just a small manipulative bully looking for smaller prey. And just so all of it doesn’t get too high-handed and serious, too Earth-shaking for one little school, there are wrestling matches on the stairs, childish practical jokes, spontaneous immature insult round-robins, holiday visits with family, school newspaper complications, crying over small things in private so as not to be persecuted, and getting in trouble and writing a hundred lines. Overall, the 1881 version of budding nerds, and budding jocks.
But into this charmingly rendered look at bygone school life, occasionally big stakes events intrude. The light and the heavy, I enjoyed the whole year. Among books set at school, I put this with Miss Pym Disposes, The Blackboard Jungle (which a re-read would probably bring down), School For Scumbags, and even the stuff it’s closest to: the Wodehouse Boys’ School adventures....more
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