Wednesday Reading Meme on Tuesday
Mar. 26th, 2024 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWednesday Reading Meme on Tuesday again! Partly for reasons of timing but also because the "What I've Just Finished Reading" section was getting overstuffed as it was...
What I’ve Just Finished Reading
A bonanza of books this week! Mostly because I’ve finally got around to finishing some of those books I swore I would finish these last couple of weeks.
First of all, I finished the last two stories in Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890-1940. I didn’t find Mary Butts’ “With and Without Buttons” (a tale of mysteriously appearing gloves) quite as creepy as many of the others in the collection, but D. K. Broster’s “Couching at the Door” was a wonderful character study of a selfish aesthetic poet who, after a sexual encounter of an unspecified occult nature, is haunted by an affectionate fur boa that pops up wherever he goes and wants to snuggle up to him at night like a cat. Somehow the cuteness makes the haunting more horrifying.
Creeping forward in the Newbery project, I finished Elizabeth Janet Gray’s Meggy MacIntosh, which is a book about a Scottish girl who runs away to America on the cusp of the Revolutionary War. She is seeking her heroine Flora MacDonald, who saved Bonnie Prince Charlie after the ’45, and is now raising troops to fight in the war… on King George’s side.
I liked Meggy, but it was Flora MacDonald who really fascinated me—a sentiment in which Meggy agrees with me completely! Though Meggy eventually comes down on the Patriot side, her admiration for Flora MacDonald never flags, for she can see that Flora is trying to do what she thinks is right. After all, she and many of the Highlanders who rally to her call took an Oath of Allegiance to the king, and to them that’s a serious thing; and perhaps they simply can’t imagine that this rebellion won’t end in another Culloden. And if that’s so, then surely the best thing to do is to put it down quickly
I also finished Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s Fool’s Gold, which I got stuck on because it’s a phobia book (this is a genre that may have died since the 1990s?), which is to say that it’s a book where the protagonist has a phobia which he will, of course, heroically overcome at the climax of the novel, probably while saving someone’s life. This is in fact exactly what happens, but despite my griping along the way I ended up getting invested in the characters, particular our hero Rudy, a class clown with a boundless curiosity who starts to see how fear shapes many people’s behavior after he begins to grapple with his own claustrophobia. And the early 1990s setting (contemporary when the book was written, of course) was such a nostalgia trip for me.
And finally, I zipped through Hilary McKay’s Lulu and the Hamster in the Night, the last of the six Lulu books. I haven’t posted about most of them because there is not much to say except that they are delightful, but they are delightful and if you have an animal-loving early reader in your life they would be a wonderful gift – or, if you happen to love children’s books about pets and friendship, a wonderful gift for yourself.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun Hilary McKay’s Straw into Gold, a collection of fairy tale retellings, or perhaps more accurately remixes. (Usually I am not big on short stories but this year I seem to have gone all out for them.) The first is set after the main action of Rapunzel, and is a slantwise look at Rapunzel growing accustomed over the years to the wide world outside her tower.
What I Plan to Read Next
So many reading plans! Colette's Claudine novels! John Le Carre's Our Game! (I thought perhaps better to start with a standalone than dive right into the Smileys.) Rosalie K. Fry's Secret of Ron Mor Skerry has arrived! We shall see what reading is in fact accomplished.
What I’ve Just Finished Reading
A bonanza of books this week! Mostly because I’ve finally got around to finishing some of those books I swore I would finish these last couple of weeks.
First of all, I finished the last two stories in Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890-1940. I didn’t find Mary Butts’ “With and Without Buttons” (a tale of mysteriously appearing gloves) quite as creepy as many of the others in the collection, but D. K. Broster’s “Couching at the Door” was a wonderful character study of a selfish aesthetic poet who, after a sexual encounter of an unspecified occult nature, is haunted by an affectionate fur boa that pops up wherever he goes and wants to snuggle up to him at night like a cat. Somehow the cuteness makes the haunting more horrifying.
Creeping forward in the Newbery project, I finished Elizabeth Janet Gray’s Meggy MacIntosh, which is a book about a Scottish girl who runs away to America on the cusp of the Revolutionary War. She is seeking her heroine Flora MacDonald, who saved Bonnie Prince Charlie after the ’45, and is now raising troops to fight in the war… on King George’s side.
I liked Meggy, but it was Flora MacDonald who really fascinated me—a sentiment in which Meggy agrees with me completely! Though Meggy eventually comes down on the Patriot side, her admiration for Flora MacDonald never flags, for she can see that Flora is trying to do what she thinks is right. After all, she and many of the Highlanders who rally to her call took an Oath of Allegiance to the king, and to them that’s a serious thing; and perhaps they simply can’t imagine that this rebellion won’t end in another Culloden. And if that’s so, then surely the best thing to do is to put it down quickly
I also finished Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s Fool’s Gold, which I got stuck on because it’s a phobia book (this is a genre that may have died since the 1990s?), which is to say that it’s a book where the protagonist has a phobia which he will, of course, heroically overcome at the climax of the novel, probably while saving someone’s life. This is in fact exactly what happens, but despite my griping along the way I ended up getting invested in the characters, particular our hero Rudy, a class clown with a boundless curiosity who starts to see how fear shapes many people’s behavior after he begins to grapple with his own claustrophobia. And the early 1990s setting (contemporary when the book was written, of course) was such a nostalgia trip for me.
And finally, I zipped through Hilary McKay’s Lulu and the Hamster in the Night, the last of the six Lulu books. I haven’t posted about most of them because there is not much to say except that they are delightful, but they are delightful and if you have an animal-loving early reader in your life they would be a wonderful gift – or, if you happen to love children’s books about pets and friendship, a wonderful gift for yourself.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun Hilary McKay’s Straw into Gold, a collection of fairy tale retellings, or perhaps more accurately remixes. (Usually I am not big on short stories but this year I seem to have gone all out for them.) The first is set after the main action of Rapunzel, and is a slantwise look at Rapunzel growing accustomed over the years to the wide world outside her tower.
What I Plan to Read Next
So many reading plans! Colette's Claudine novels! John Le Carre's Our Game! (I thought perhaps better to start with a standalone than dive right into the Smileys.) Rosalie K. Fry's Secret of Ron Mor Skerry has arrived! We shall see what reading is in fact accomplished.
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Date: 2024-03-26 10:00 pm (UTC)I've read this one! I didn't remember the title, or that it was Broster's, so every time it has come up in recent conversation the reference meant nothing to me, but but the soft furry stalking thing is indelible. I would have read it decades ago in some anthology of ghost stories. Now I do want to read the rest of her weird fiction.
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Date: 2024-03-27 10:45 am (UTC)She can live out her days in honor, no longer fearing for the Americans, and without having broken her promise.
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Date: 2024-03-27 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2024-03-27 05:22 am (UTC)OOOH
John Le Carre's Our Game
Oooh again. I don't think I've read that one, but I think it's one of the first post-Cold War novels?
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Date: 2024-03-27 12:00 pm (UTC)Yes, it looks like Our Game is one of Le Carre's first post-Cold War novels. 1995! A period piece!
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Date: 2024-03-29 02:00 pm (UTC)'Couching at the Door'... Weird and Strange is about right there. :D It's very good, and I recommend the rest of Broster's stories in the collection titled after it, if you ever have a chance to read that.
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Date: 2024-03-29 05:07 pm (UTC)I will see if I can track down more Broster short stories! I'm on a bit of a short story kick generally this year.
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