Celebrate Diana Wynne Jones!
A place where readers and fans can share their favorite DWJ books, quotes, stories, characters, covers, memories, interviews -- you name it! With contributions from her publishers all over the world.
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Photoset reblogged from words and stories
Books more people should read
» A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones «Time City - built far in the future on a patch of space outside time - holds the formidable task of overseeing history, yet it’s starting to decay, crumble …. What does that say for the future of the world … for the past … for the present? Two Time City boys, determined to save it all, think they have the answer in Vivian Smith, a young Twenty Century girl whom they pluck from a British train station at the start of World War II. But not only have they broken every rule in the book by traveling back in time - they have the wrong person! Unable to return safely, Vivian’s only choice is to help the boys restore Time City or risk being stuck outside time forever.
Recommended by likealittlechild
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Photo reblogged from Blue Willow
A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones
Japanese book cover
Illustration by Miho Satake -
The Book Smugglers — who have celebrated Diana’s books once before — now turn their sights on A Tale of Time City.
“A Tale of Time City is an adventurous, fun time travel story. Everything fits well and events unfold elegantly with twists that come left and right.”
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Many of the covers for A Tale of Time City, including the Firebird reissue.
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Woohoo! Fan art for A Tale of Time City — hit the illo to buy a copy of the book.
Time City kids… I doodled this stumpy Sam first that I liked a lot so I tried to draw Jonathan and Vivian to go with him and was less successful.
This book is so underrated! It seems to be a little obscure even among people who read lots of Diana Wynne Jones. But it’s soooo good and I love how different it is from, like, anything. There’s just this strange, perfect, otherworldly feel to the story… and of course I am always a sucker for time travel shenanigans.
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The amazing Robyn Johnson (who made the Calcifers) has created miniature versions of the reissues! She says:
As I had to do something with the leftover clay, I decided to make a few mini-books. They’re about the right size for an American Girl dolll …If I am able to find a child to give them to for their doll, they will probably be curious to read the actual books themselves, and I might include a regular-sized copy of one to get them started.
Wouldn’t a miniature DWJ library be fantastic?
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Remember Leonie’s post from yesterday?
Rush-That-Speaks worked long and hard to reverse engineer a butter-pie, and was kind enough to share the recipe when asked.
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There are three parts to a butter-pie. The outside is cold and solid, the inside is hot and runny, and of course there needs to be a barrier between them to keep the inside from melting the outside. This shell is the most complex part, because it needs to be something that can be filled with hot liquid and then sealed fairly easily, something that will keep its integrity, and something that still tastes good. I decided to go with caramel. The inside is toffee sauce, and the outer layer is ice cream.
For six servings of butter-pie you will need:- One pint of your ice cream of choice— in the book the flavors are described as buttery and fairly mild, so options include butter pecan, dulce de leche, praline, sweet cream, and vanilla; I would suggest not using caramel or caramel swirls to avoid too much flavor overlap with the shell.
- About one and a half cups of toffee sauce. You can buy it or make your own. If you’re making your own, Nigella Lawson’s recipe is good, or, for a darker and more complex edge, I like this toffee beer sauce, heavy on the cream.
- One standard muffin tin, non-stick if at all possible and very thoroughly greased.
- One batch of caramel. You do need to make your own caramel for this, because it needs to be molded while warm. I like a fleur de sel caramel, because the saltiness deepens the flavors and cuts possible over-sweetness, but you can certainly use whatever caramel you like the best. A nice fleur de sel caramel is the one from Annie’s Eats.
- Six individual serving bowls, preferably with fairly rounded bottoms.
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“One of my favourite books ever is A Tale of Time City. It may even be the first DWJ I read, although I can’t remember. My favourite aspect, apart from the time-travel (which I love), was the butter-pies! I would give anything to try one, and I always hoped someone somewhere would come up with a recipe. I imagine them as something close to creme brulee, but much much better…. maybe one day I’ll try and make one myself, although I don’t think it would be possible to create anything like what she described! She is much missed… x”
— Leonie
A NOTE TO LEONIE: Watch this space. Soon your wish will come true!
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Cheryl Mahoney found Diana’s books in bits and pieces, and claimed them as her own.
“It was years more before I ever realized how important Diana Wynne Jones is in children’s fantasy … In a way, I’m glad I didn’t know–because she was “my” author that I happened to stumble on in the silliest of ways.”
