Madeleine L'Engle

[Kiwi Shelf]

Okay, I have to ask right off, has anyone ever heard of her? Where I come from, she is scarce...

[lhoward]

Erm, I have heard the name - it rings a bell... A loud bell. Who is she?

[ajoe]

The writer of A Wrinkle in Time, a famous children book. I read the book but didn't really like it, though. :(

[amuse]

The sequel's called "A Wind in the Door." I think it might be a trilogy, though - am not sure. If you can't find her in children's lit, check out sci-fi. That's where I found "A Swiftly Tilting Planet;" I read it in my twenties and really liked it.

[Lara]

I used to work in a bookstore and the store carried her books on a regular basis. I haven't read them though, can't even remember all the titles. They were sold in the 'young readers' section.

[Kiwi Shelf]

I think there are actually 5 books in that series.
Then, there is another series on the Austins for young adults.
You may be surprised to hear, though, she writes books for adults too. I am experiencing mind blank though on names.... There are several of them, though.

[ajoe]

I think there's actually 4 books in the whole series.
Now that I think about it, I read somewhere A Wrinkle in Time was actually written for adults. It's somewhat science-fiction that tells how dangerous it is when one can't think for himself and only does routines like robots. (Didn't Bradbury or something like that write a similar thing?)

[amuse]

Kiwi, "...Swiftly Tilting..." may have been one. If not, as a lover of children's lit, I'm not suprised but I doubt on further reflection that it was intended for young'uns.

[amuse]

Based around a poss. world war and a rune and delving into/altering the past.

[IWilKikU]

I remember reading "A Wrinkle in Time" when I was really young and not understanding a whole lot of it. I would love to reread it sometime though. Havn't even thought about that book in years.

[Kiwi Shelf]

She is a fantastic author. Over the years I have searched most of North America for her books. She writes religious books, that don't interest me particularly. It's her fantasy and other books that interest me. If anyone is interested, her books include:

And Both Were Young

Certain Women

Camilla
A Live Coal in the Sea

The Murry Family books:
Dragons in the Water
A House Like a Lotus
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wind in the Door
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
The Arm of the Starfish
An Acceptable Time
Many Waters

The Austin Family books:
The Moon by Night
The Young Unicorns
Meet the Austins
A Ring of Endless Light
Troubling a Star

The Small Rain
A Severed Wasp

They may be broken down even further, but those are her more popular books above and I have all of them.... Although they are grouped, they other than that have no particular order to them. I was actually hoping for two things, someone that had heard of her enough to discuss her books or someone that knew her books well enough to tell me how to get the last one I need: "Love Letters". I have tried all the large book sites and stores, none have it...

Oh, and to address the mentions up above. I really think that her main aim is to write books for adults, but they were placed in the juvenile sections. Some really are for young adults, but others were more than likely written for higher reading levels. I do not believe most 12- whatever year olds would be able to understand "A Wrinkle in Time" or many of her other books.

[amuse]

This place in Colorado helped me track down "World Tales" by Idries Shah. Had the darndest time finding it until them. I'll try to find out the name of it and give you more info.

[amuse]

All I could think was "lodoss" and was trying to get that out of my head. Knew it wasn't anime (!) but some similar-sounding bookstore nonetheless. Finally gave up (after much searching) because Tattered Cover sounded vaguely familiar. Lo (!!) and behold, they have a store in Historic Lo Do (I bought "World Tales" years ago and lost the bookmark long ago, or would have remembered) - their store there had it, and their main one didn't Plus I had become a little desperate. :) Here is a link.
http://www.tatteredcover.com
If you just type in "l'engle love letters" it'll save you pages of other works by her. But there's no separate link to that page.
They were so helpful. Google has lots of other places though.

Btw, "A Wrinkle in Time" is listed here as a trilogy.

[Kiwi Shelf]

Thanks a lot for the info.

That trilogy thing could work, "A Wrinkle in Time," "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" and "A Wind in the Door." The others are about the same people, but apparently not included in the grouping.

[amuse]

Funny though...one web site refers to "Many Waters" as the fourth book in the trilogy! lol

You're welcome.

[Kiwi Shelf]

I thought that book and "An Acceptable Time" were part of the series because I bought this box set thing, it must have been back in my freshmen year of high school, and they all came together.

[amuse]

Hm. This is interesting:
"A fifth book, An Acceptable Time, makes the series a quintet in Dell's reckoning, but is actually part of the O'Keefe family series, one generation after the Murry family..." (from http://users.aol.com/lengleweb/murry.html).

[Kiwi Shelf]

Yeah, one of the main characters in the Murry family marries an O'Keefe. "An Acceptable Time" is about their daughter. And, in the book she goes to visit her grandparents, the Murry's. But, I can understand two different sets: The Murry family and The O'Keefe family. That does in fact make sense.