My Photo

2025

  • Daphne du Maurier: The King's General
  • Deborah Lawrenson: The Secretary
  • Richard Cohen: How to Write like Tolstoy
  • Adrian Tinniswood: Noble Ambitions
  • Adrian Tinniswood: The Power and the Glory
  • Martin Williams: The King is Dead, Long Live the King
  • Gavin Plumley: A Home for all Seasons
  • Robert Harris: Precipice
  • Nigel Slater: A Thousand Feasts
  • Joan Aiken: Tales of London Town
  • Alan Connor: 188 Words for Rain
  • Ben Robinson: English Villages: An Extraordinary Journey through Time

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

Cornflower book group

« A writer's notes | Main | New books, old books, writing books, finding books »

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Desperate Reader

The Scarlett Pimpernel - first and true love!

Cornflower

I haven't read it but I did see the Richard E. Grant in the television version - very dashing!

LauraC

And I had a great crush on Anthony Andrews in the 1982 version! Wow! I need to watch that again. (And, I suppose, read the book.)

Cornflower

I haven't seen that one, but Anthony Andrews would be very suave, I'm sure.

Claire (The Captive Reader)

I've had too many to count over the years but my first love was Gilbert Blythe. I fell for him when I was eight years old and read Anne of Green Gables for the first time. Other literary crushes come and go but I will always be true to Gilbert!

B R Wombat

Not strictly on the subject, but did you hear one of the teams on University Challenge mistaking the character played by Orson Welles, Timothy Dalton etc. as Inspector Clouseau when it was, of course, Mr Rochester? (A possible literary crush) It's not often that UC makes one laugh out loud . . .

AllisMcD

Mm, Atticus is lovely (and a contender for Best Name too).

I have always loved the swagger of Alan Breck in Kidnapped; more recently, I fell for Rob Ryan (In the Woods, Tana French) and a little bit for Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie too.

Not quite a crush, but I feel sad that Agatha Christie created Poirot but grew to dislike him: poor Poirot!

Audrey

At the moment, Chief Inspector Gamache, in Louise Penny's mysteries.

Victoria Corby

I have a crush on Gregory Peck. Nothing exalted or literary about it! I fell madly in love with the Marquis of Montrose in Margaret Irwin's The Proud Servant when I was 14,followed by Prince Rupert of the Rhine in Irwin's The Stranger Prince and The Scarlet Pimpernel. I went off Prince Rupert a bit when I found out what he was really like but I still have huge soft spots for Montrose and the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Belle

What a great question. Of course I adore Atticus Finch (and Gregory Peck), but would also be happy to hold hands with Detective Maigret, Lord Peter Whimsey, D'Artagnan, Jeeves AND Bertie Wooster.

Belle

Uh, oh. I am off to a bad beginning with Lord Peter...I misspelled his name. It should be Wimsey. I hope he can forgive me.

Cornflower

Eight years old!

Cornflower

I did hear that, and yes, Mr. Rochester is certainly a crush.

Cornflower

What an interesting point about Agatha Christie and Poirot - an author growing to dislike her own creation.

Cornflower

I must read those books!

Cornflower

Ah, the power of books ...

Cornflower

That's a handsome selection you have there, Belle.

Linda Gillard

Yes, the Pimpernel, Lord Peter, Rochester & D'Artagnan would be near the top of my list of crushes, but the Real Thing was/is Dorothy Dunnett's Francis Crawford from the 6 vol. series known as The Lymond Chronicles. I fell in love when I was pregnant with my son and in desperate need of something to distract me from morning sickness. Francis did the trick and we're still going strong. (My son is now 27.)

Cornflower

That's wonderful, Linda - literary passions are lasting ones, it seems.

David Nolan (dsc73277)

Are grown men allowed to have crushes on characters in books, as I suggested when referencing this blog post over on Jo's blog? (http://josbookjourney.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/jottings-11-prescription-reading/#comment-3170).

Cornflower

I'd say you are allowed, David!

Wendy Winkler

Roderick Alleyn

Cornflower

Another one from my "I've never read ..." list, I'm afraid.

Lala

Lord Peter, of course

Cornflower

Lord Peter has quite a following, has he not?

Rebecca

Loyd Peregrina, from Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams. It's a lovely book, but/and if read too young, Loyd sets a very high bar for future suitors!

On one of my many rereads of Hamlet (literature teacher's duty), I developed a brief but vivid crush on Hamlet. Very odd.

cindy

At the moment I'm listening to 'Of Mice and Men', which my daughter is studying for GCSE English. I'm developing a crush on Slim. The tall, strong, cowboy type is, I'm realising, my type. Not too many of those in Finchley!

Cornflower

I'm all for the bar being high!
I don't think I've heard of anyone having a Shakespearian crush before, but why not?

Cornflower

It's been many years since I read that book and I don't remember Slim, but you could do worse than a tall, strong cowboy!

Mr Cornflower

This is stretching the rules a bit, but many years ago I saw Zoe Wanamaker as Viola in Twelfth Night and was quite captivated. On safer territory there's a lot to be said for the fizzy heroines of PG Wodehouse: Bobbie Wickham, Stiffy Byng et al, though I suspect they'd be pretty high maintenance...

Cornflower

Were you captivated by Viola, or by Miss W.?

Sarie

Rhet Butler for me!

Sarie

I mean Rhett!

Cornflower

Rogue, cad ...!

Danielle

Horatio Hornblower! You have to love a man who decides to become a sailor who suffers from seasickness! And it doesn't hurt that the divine Ioan Gruffudd plays him in the miniseries. And Nicholas Brisbane from Deanna Raybourn's Lady Julia Gray mystery series, which has not been adapted to film or TV but I imagine the very, very divine Richard Armitage playing if it ever were... Sigh. Just in time for Valentine's Day you have me thinking of them. :)

Mr Cornflower

She played the part so well that it's impossible to make the distinction.

Cornflower

I have a vague memory of seeing Gregory Peck in that role!

Jade

Rhett Butler

Cornflower

I hadn't expected him to turn up here at all, but it seems he has a following.

The comments to this entry are closed.

Current reading:

  • Sam Leith: The Haunted Wood

Please note

  • Sidebar book cover thumbnail pictures are affiliate links to Amazon, and the storefront links to Blackwell's and The Book Depository are also affiliated; should you purchase a book directly through those links, I will receive a small commission. Older posts may also contain affiliate links to one of those bookshops. I am not paid to produce content and all opinions are my own.

A request

  • If you wish to use any original images or content from this site, please contact me.

The Book Depository

  • Free Delivery on all Books at the Book Depository

Cornflower Book Group: read

2010

2009

Statcounter 2

  • Statcounter 2

2021

2017