Discovering Daphne...

Myself and the lovely Polly of Novel Insights will be hosting the ‘Discovering Daphne’ season throughout the whole of October this year. Polly and I are both huge fans of Daphne and we are hoping that be you a Du Maurier novice or a full on fan you will be join us to discover/further discover a marvellous author who deserves much more attention and acclaim.

Why did we decide on October? Well it’s the perfect Daphne reading time of year. As you may spot from my review of ‘The Doll’ there is something about Daphne Du Maurier’s writing that makes you want to curl up in a big comfy chair by the fire and be ever so slightly chilled and thrilled all at once, and October is a month that has that feeling doesn’t it? We also wanted to give you plenty of notice so you could join in (big thanks to Thomas of My Porch for creating some wonderful buttons for us by the way) with it all…

So what’s the plan? Well when we say the whole of October we actually mean the first week from the 1st – 9th of October 2011 and will kick of with the first of five optional (though we hope you join in with them all) Daphne read-a-longs, and where better to start than the very beginning of her career with her first novel ‘The Loving Spirit’ and ending on the 9th with a fictionalised biography of her great-great grandmother ‘Mary Anne’ a tale so wonderful its hard to believe its actually true. Around these titles will be various posts of other Du Maurier novels, reviews of books that have been inspired by her, and constant updates of what other people have been reading and thinking, plus giveaways and competitions before the final three read-a-longs…

• Sunday 16th October: ‘The House on the Strand’ – speculative time-travelling Daphne showing how versatile she is.
• Sunday 23rd October: ‘Don’t Look Now & Other Stories’ – a collection of Daphne’s short stories which are always wonderful and rather dark.
• Sunday 30th October: ‘Rebecca’ – if you have read it before or if you haven’t already, we will be discussing possibly the most famous of Daphne’s novels which should prove a perfect way to end the season.

Blimey, that should make for plenty of fun and fabulous reading and discussions for one month don’t you think?

UPDATE: ‘Discovering Daphne’ is now in full flow. You can see all my Daphers related posts during the season here and all Polly’s here. Do join in!