I don't think I've spent nearly enough time waxing poetic about one of my all-time favorite authors so that's what today's post is all about. Roald Dahl was introduced to me by my best friend roughly 15 years ago. You might know him best as the author of Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, and James and the Giant Peach. I mention these because the film adaptations are fairly popular (as they should be because they're excellent). Today I'm going to discuss 5 more that you may or may not have heard of and which I binge read quite recently.

The Twits is the story of two horrible, nasty individuals by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Twit. Their favorite occupation (besides being absolutely horrendous in increasingly vile ways to one another) is to torment their 4 trained monkeys and the birds which roost in their tree. As with most of Dahl's writing, there is a most satisfying conclusion at the end of this book which I just can't in good conscience spoil. Just know that Mr. Dahl certainly doesn't shrink from ghastly topics. ;-)

The story of The Magic Finger begins with a little girl playing with her two friends, the Gregg brothers. These two little boys share a singular passion with their father: hunting. Despite the little girls repeated pleas for them to stop this beastly sport, they decide to go ahead with their plan to go duck hunting. The little girl is made so angry by this that she unleashes the power of her Magic Finger and the results are truly horrifying. Let's just say that they shouldn't have dismissed her advice as being for the birds.

Perhaps my favorite of the lot was The Minpins which is a large sized picture book with beautiful color illustrations. The artwork alone makes this a fantastic piece of children's literature. This was posthumously published and is very different from the other books which I've read by him (and illustrated by Patrick Benson instead of Quentin Blake). It is the story of Little Billy (a human child) who escapes from his family home into the woods where he has been expressly forbidden to enter. There he comes into contact with a ferocious beast...and tiny little people called the Minpins who live high up in the trees. A marvelous adventure unfolds among these disparate characters which is both beautifully told and fantastically illustrated. It's a must read.

Now The Great Mouse Plot is a true story from Dahl's childhood which had me equal parts chuckling and shocked. It is the story of a singular event which occurred when he was a little boy. He and a few of his friends from school decide to exact revenge against a nasty old lady that runs a sweets shop...and that's all you should know going into this one. Prepare yourself.

And finally The Vicar of Nibbleswicke which was written for the Dyslexia Institute in London. (Dahl and Blake donated their rights to the Institute and it was actually published after Dahl's death.) This is a quick little book about a vicar who just happens to be dyslexic. However, he has conquered the normal form of dyslexia and contracted a new (and fictional) type called Back-to-Front Dyslexia which causes much of what he says to come out backwards. Conversations with his new parishioners, sermons, etc all are said as almost complete gibberish. Much hilarity ensues.

And there's my rundown of 5 Roald Dahl books which you may or may have heard of but which you most definitely should read.

This book is as unique as all Cornelius books. Those that prefer their authors' scripts predictable might not. I loved it, even though I'm a bit of a prude, preferring sexual content to be more implied than graphic. If one is going to lean towards porn, while still keeping the serious content on top of the page, one had better do sex scenes well. In too many books porn is included for the sake of commercial successful without regard to plot. Cornelius includes vivid porn without losing sight of her intellectual idea. There is also a little fairly graphic violence, which in its case the story simply couldn't have worked without. Both sex and violence were written with realistic efficiency, and with a great deal of gymnastics. Cornelius represents everything that is best about self-publishing, going places with her scripts that the established publishers generally fail at- genuine originality. This is inevitable because businesses have to make commercial decisions. True, reading SP is a gamble, in that one has to read nine books to find the tenth gem; but a worthwhile gamble, especially when one can grab a sure fire winner by studying previous form.

Few books are perfect, and this is no exception, despite my praise. I don't actually think she got the dominated males response quite right. Every reader will have an independent view about plausibility. I certainly think the author had tongue firmly planted in cheek. Men certainly love their kids as much as Mum's do; but on a rather less psychologically bonded and intimate levels. Their overall emotional attachment is often just as powerful, and Cornelius certainly get's that right. I'm not at all sure that many males would ever be quite as into the baby thing in the deep way that Mason is, even in a matriarch dominated world. Cornelius is writing first person male, and in the main doing it very well, I just think she overplayed the we-are-what-we're brought-up-to-be card over-strongly, against the we're-simply-what-biology-made-us one. The book has a great deal of interesting feminist angles in it, especially concerning what might actually happen if women got to wear the trousers all the time, at home, socially and in the work place. Would women behave a bit like men? To some degree yes, we already see that in more sexually equal societies. It is certainly true that nearly all the women who make it to the top of the business world do so by using traditional male behaviours rather than female ones. To fly high one has to believe one's own egotistical garbage, that's for sure. We certainly don't live in a world were quality guarantees success, just bull-shit, connections and confidence; three male strong suits. Playing dirty comes with the success package, which Cornelius doesn't shirk from seeing when it's the females in charge.

On a technical level, this book has all the mechanics spot on. It's well written and well edited. This is another first class piece, full of this author's usual inventiveness. The prose is so natural that I literally floated through the book. This is seemingly effortless writing that seems to run in a fast river across the page, sweeping the reader along. I found this to be easy reading done well, with strong and in the main very believable character behaviours.

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