Wednesday Reading Meme on Tuesday

[osprey_archer]

This week I’m doing Wednesday Reading Meme a day early, as tomorrow is MY BIRTHDAY and I will therefore be frolicking through birthday festivities.

Books I Quit Reading

Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, which I’ve meant to read for ages because it’s been recced to hell and back. It’s an excellent example of literary fiction, which unfortunately means it’s reminding me why I don’t read much modern literary fiction, which is that I find it depressing. Olive is just so mean?? She’s so contemptuous to her husband in chapter one that I was actually rooting for him to ditch her and run away with his pharmacy clerk, and I never root for male characters to leave their wives.

I read a few more chapters, but then I realized I was actively dreading picking it up again, and life is simply too short.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Nothing this week! The birthday festivities have already begun, and I spent the weekend in Bloomington, meeting a friend’s new baby and having cocktails at a speakeasy, where we had the best seats in the house watching the bartender make the drinks. He had a wonderful contraption for blowing a giant smoke-filled bubble over a drink, which clung to the rim of the glass until you popped it, and then the smoke wisped away in the dimness of the bar.

What I’m Reading Now

Hilary McKay’s The Time of Green Magic, which is a magical house children’s fantasy, and I LOVE a magical house children’s fantasy. Gorgeous. The heroine is already slipping into the books she reads, tasting the sea salt on her lips. Excited to report back.

What I Plan to Read Next

Blue Balliett’s Out of the Wild Night.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Hilary McKay seems like an author who delivers!

Yeah, we read Olive Kitteridge in my book group. I stuck with it to the end, and some of the later stories (says my review! I didn't remember this off the top of my head) were apparently more hopeful, but also, I made this remark in the review: "Some of the stories were extremely grim--not in a dramatic way, but in an intimate human-pain way. Even these were good (well written), but it was hard to read bunches of them at once. I felt Gloom coming down to catch me in its claws."

I look forward to hearing about your birthday frolics after the fact!

[osprey_archer]

I think you would enjoy Hilary McKay. The Porridge Hall trilogy (Dog Friday, The Amber Cat, Dolphin Luck) I remember as having really lovely, numinous timeslip magic, where part of it is real magic but part of it is also just the magic of childhood imagination.

However, The Time of Green Magic is more recent and therefore almost certainly more accessible.

Gloom coming down to catch you in its claws sounds very much like my experience with Olive Kitteredge, yes.

[troisoiseaux]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! May the day be full of fun and friends and cake and other good things.

[osprey_archer]

Thank you! I've already made a batch of chocolate white chip cookies to take to Dulcimer Gathering tonight. Getting started on the celebration early!

[lirazel]

it’s reminding me why I don’t read much modern literary fiction, which is that I find it depressing

SAME.

I LOVE a magical house children’s fantasy

Also same!

Happy birthday! I hope it's a great day, and I'm glad you already had a fun weekend!

[osprey_archer]

#notallliteraryfiction, but so often in literary fiction the world seems so small and the people in it so petty. These are both aspects of the human experience but they are not ALL of the human experience. Range wider, literary fiction authors!

The weather is looking good for my birthday! I took the day off, and then I realized that I would just be back one day before I'd have the Fourth of July off too, which just seemed silly... so I have a five day weekend to look forward to.

[lirazel]

Oh lovely! Enjoy your blissfully long weekend!

[kore]

Happy happy birthday!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!

[genarti]

Happy birthday and happy reading!!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!

[rachelmanija]

Happy birthday!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!

[marginaliana]

Happy birthday! (days belated now, but no less sincere)

I have yet to learn how to love literary fiction. It always seems as if modern authors of it believe that humanity is cruel in essence and that it is thus necessary to show that in order to give us something deep about life.

[osprey_archer]

Every so often I try a recent work of highly recommended literary fiction to see if maybe I've developed a taste for it, and sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised and try a second one, and then the second one reverts to type and I'm like "Oh, okay, I still generally don't like this."