Completists' Club discussion

NOVELS
The Comforters (1957)
Robinson (1958)
Memento Mori (1959)
The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960)
The Bachelors (1960)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
The Girls of Slender Means (1963)
The Mandelbaum Gate (1965)
The Public Image (1968) - Shortlisted for Booker Prize
The Driver's Seat (1970)
Not to Disturb (1971)
The Hothouse by the East River (1973)
The Abbess of Crewe (1974)
The Takeover (1976)
Territorial Rights (1979)
Loitering with Intent (1981) - Shortlisted for Booker Prize
The Only Problem (1984)
A Far Cry From Kensington (1988)
Symposium (1990)
Reality and Dreams (1996)
Aiding and Abetting (2000)
The Finishing School (2004)

OTHER WORKS
Tribute to Wordsworth (edited with Derek Stanford) (1950)
Child of Light (a study of Mary Shelley) (1951)
The Fanfarlo and Other Verse (1952)
Selected Poems of Emily Brontë (1952)
John Masefield (biography) (1953)
Emily Brontë: Her Life and Work (with Derek Stanford) (1953)
My Best Mary (a selection of letters of Mary Shelley, edited with Derek Stanford) (1953)
The Brontë letters (1954)
Letters of John Henry Newman (edited with Derek Stanford) (1957)
The Go-away Bird (short stories) (1958)
Voices at Play (short stories and plays) (1961)
Doctors of Philosophy (play) (1963)
Collected Poems I (1967)
Collected Stories I (1967)
The Very Fine Clock (children's book, illustrations by Edward Gorey)(1968)
Bang-bang You're Dead (short stories) (1982)
Mary Shelley (complete revision of Child of Light) (1987)
Going Up to Sotheby's and Other Poems (1982)
Curriculum Vitae (autobiography) (1992)
Complete Short Stories (2001)
All the Poems (2004)

Spark is a favorite writer of mine. I see that I am nowhere near a completist, having read only 6 of her novels as well the biography by Martin Stannard.

Everyone: please read The Driver's Seat! What a strange darkly comic brilliant novel (novella, really) ~

Nice to see one more lady.

I have yet to read any Spark.

oh, you must! Not everyone likes 'The Driver's Seat,'--it's really wild, you should read it eventually--you might start with 'A Far Cry from Kensington' or 'Memento Mori.'

I'll try something Spark.

Of course, 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' is deservedly a classic. Spark will spark you.

What I love about her novels is that each one is so different. They're taut, compact but at the same time, unexpectedly humorous and often weirdly wild.

Lobstergirl wrote: "Nice to see one more lady.

I have yet to read any Spark."

De Maurier is here too...am currently working my way through her oeuvre if you want to join me :)
but yes, there are so many great authors who are women, whose work we should be reading & revisiting.

I've read a decent amount of Du Maurier. More recently, some pretty awful clunkers. I don't know if I will be a Du Maurier completist. We'll see.

yeah, I don't plan to read her entire oeuvre, as you say there are too many clunkers. But...I've come to her late in life, a late discovery, and I'm very much enjoying her stories and the novels I've so far read.

Today is Dame Muriel Spark's birthday. Her last novel, The Finishing School was written when she was 86. So much to admire in her oeuvre. Always original, varied, and full of wit and intelligence.

btw, I'll be starting The Ballad of Peckham Rye soon if anyone wants to join me--

i'm working my way through all Muriel Spark. i'll post what i've completed later. i think she's wonderfully dark and humorous.

Good to know Her books remain popular, just reread Jean Brodie and three other titles, some way to go to complete her works.