This book came with a recommendation by Ursula Le Guin on the cover "If Le Carré scares you, read Jo Walton" it said. So, here is a quote from one of my very favouritist authors, referencing one of my other very favouritist authors? Ooo!
How I hated that poem when I was younger. It seemed to push aside the still-perfectly-good summer and be rushing needlessly ahead, without acknowledging that a *proper* autumn wasn't about sun on hazelnuts, but about wild winds and crunchy leaves and frost and bonfires. The poem has grown on me a bit since, but I still think 'close bosom-friend of the maturing sun' is an utterly ludicrous line. ( And a little more wittering, with some butterflies. )