A year of reading DWJ

Happy March Magics! Back in July of 2024, I joined a group of Diana Wynne Jones fans in reading the complete works, in publication order. You can see the host at her blog! She gave us a schedule and we dove in. This has been such a fun project for me, and a real lifesaver during some rough times. It's very enlightening to read the books in order, because I could see her writing talent developing. Every so often she would hit a new level of descriptiveness, of plot layering, of subtlety. Themes come up and into focus, and get several treatments before subsiding in favor of some new theme. So for example, Homeward Bounders (arguably her most tragic story) and Time of the Ghost (most horrifying) were written right next to each other. What does that say about what she was thinking at the time? Reading so continually also brings out characteristics that last across many books, such as a love of joyful, possibly destructive, chaos...