Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I’ve been so busy with house stuff that I finished nothing new this week! (Well, okay, I finished Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions, but Peasprout demanded her own post.)

What I’m Reading Now

Meandering along in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Becky Sharp has just received a proposal of marriage from a baronet, which she has been forced to turn down because… she’s already married! This is as much a surprise to the reader as to the baronet, and I for one am wondering if this is the firmest and most polite way she could think of to turn him down on the spur of the moment. Although let’s face it, it wouldn’t be very Becky Sharp to turn down a rich man, no matter how odious, so probably she IS married and we’ll discover the groom in the next couple of chapters.

What I Plan to Read Next

The 2025 Newbery awards have been announced! And they’ve given yet another medal to Erin Entrada Kelly, WHY, both of her previous Newbery books have been astoundingly mediocre, I just don’t get it.

Oh well. The other authors are all new to me, so that will be an exciting adventure!

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

This is as much a surprise to the reader as to the baronet

Ohhhh you're going in UNSPOILED unspoiled. That's so fun!!!

[osprey_archer]

All I know about Vanity Fair is that Becky Sharp is an amoral schemer out for what she can get. And also maybe goes to India at some point? That second bit is based entirely on a vague memory of the trailer of a movie that came out in the early 2000s.

[regshoe]

I was so baffled by that twist in Vanity Fair and the way it was presented! But the drama continues perfectly well once all is revealed...

[osprey_archer]

Becky Sharp got secretly married!!! A secret even from the reader.

[silverusagi]

Is it common for authors to end up with multiple Newbery medals?

[osprey_archer]

There are six authors who have done so, so it's not unheard of, but it's not super common either.

[asakiyume]

I wonder what they see in this particular author! Or maybe she's bribed the committee??

[osprey_archer]

Truly who can say!!! (I believe her first winner hit the right buttons of "diverse but not in an upsettingly messy way," and also had what the committee considered a heartwarming anti-bullying message.)