Wednesday Reading Meme
Aug. 27th, 2025 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Ruth Goodman is always a good time, and her book How to Behave Badly in Elizabeth England: A Guide for Knaves, Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts is no exception to the rule. It does what it says on the tin, except for “Elizabethan England” read “England from the time of Elizabeth up to the Civil War (with brief excursions before and after),” but I suspect that the publishers believed, correctly, that their title would sell more books.
A fun fact: quoting Shakespeare would have been seen as proof of boorishness, as it showed that you spend time at the theaters down by the bear-baiting pits and the whorehouses, like a COMMONER. I also very much enjoyed the advice manual for young noblemen in service, which begged them to “try not to murder people.” You might think that goes without saying, but nope!
Jacqueline Woodson is also always a good time, although often in a mild to moderately heart-wrenching kind of way. Peace, Locomotion is an epistolary novel, told as a series of letters from a 12-year-old boy (nickname Locomotion) to his younger sister. They’re both in foster care following the death of their parents in a fire a few years ago. A book with sad moments but not overall a sad book; I particularly enjoyed Locomotion’s journey as a poet and his poetry. (There’s a companion novel-in-verse. Woodson is one of the few authors I trust with a novel-in-verse.)
Warning: you will walk out of this book with the song “Locomotion” stuck in your head.
Jane Langton is much more up and down than either Goodman or Woodson, but I’m happy to say Paper Chains is one of the ups. Evelyn has just started college, and the novel alternates between traditional narration and Evelyn’s never-to-be-sent letters to her PHIL 101 professor, on whom she has a swooning freshman crush. A good mix of college hijinks and intellectual discovery. Just kind of stops rather than having a real ending, but it works well for the story, which is very much about beginnings.
What I’m Reading Now
Onward in Gaskell’s Gothic Tales! We just had one of Gaskell’s trademarked “three people of three different faiths get together to deal with a problem, and it’s good for them all!” scenes. (Okay, I’ve only run across this twice in her work, once here and once in North and South, but it’s an unusual recurring theme.)
What I Plan to Read Next
I’ve decided it’s time for another Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I’ve already read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch and all three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago. What should I read next?
Ruth Goodman is always a good time, and her book How to Behave Badly in Elizabeth England: A Guide for Knaves, Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts is no exception to the rule. It does what it says on the tin, except for “Elizabethan England” read “England from the time of Elizabeth up to the Civil War (with brief excursions before and after),” but I suspect that the publishers believed, correctly, that their title would sell more books.
A fun fact: quoting Shakespeare would have been seen as proof of boorishness, as it showed that you spend time at the theaters down by the bear-baiting pits and the whorehouses, like a COMMONER. I also very much enjoyed the advice manual for young noblemen in service, which begged them to “try not to murder people.” You might think that goes without saying, but nope!
Jacqueline Woodson is also always a good time, although often in a mild to moderately heart-wrenching kind of way. Peace, Locomotion is an epistolary novel, told as a series of letters from a 12-year-old boy (nickname Locomotion) to his younger sister. They’re both in foster care following the death of their parents in a fire a few years ago. A book with sad moments but not overall a sad book; I particularly enjoyed Locomotion’s journey as a poet and his poetry. (There’s a companion novel-in-verse. Woodson is one of the few authors I trust with a novel-in-verse.)
Warning: you will walk out of this book with the song “Locomotion” stuck in your head.
Jane Langton is much more up and down than either Goodman or Woodson, but I’m happy to say Paper Chains is one of the ups. Evelyn has just started college, and the novel alternates between traditional narration and Evelyn’s never-to-be-sent letters to her PHIL 101 professor, on whom she has a swooning freshman crush. A good mix of college hijinks and intellectual discovery. Just kind of stops rather than having a real ending, but it works well for the story, which is very much about beginnings.
What I’m Reading Now
Onward in Gaskell’s Gothic Tales! We just had one of Gaskell’s trademarked “three people of three different faiths get together to deal with a problem, and it’s good for them all!” scenes. (Okay, I’ve only run across this twice in her work, once here and once in North and South, but it’s an unusual recurring theme.)
What I Plan to Read Next
I’ve decided it’s time for another Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I’ve already read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch and all three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago. What should I read next?
no subject
Date: 2025-08-27 02:28 pm (UTC)