Wednesday Reading Meme on Tuesday

[osprey_archer]

I’m doing the Reading Meme one day early this week, as tomorrow is the last day of the year and therefore the day for the Year In Review.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I am freeeeeeeee of my vow to read Christmas books for Advent, and therefore… accidentally read one more book with Christmas in… Marilyn Kluger’s Country Kitchens Remembered: A Memoir with Favorite Family Recipes, about the farm kitchens she remembers from her childhood during the Depression, not only her own family’s but her grandparents on both sides. Like any good farm kitchen memoir, the book documents the different foods of each season, which means of course a Christmas chapter, but also chapters about the new peas of spring, the corn on the cob fresh cut from the stalk literally minutes before lunch, the frost-nipped persimmons brought in during the Thanksgiving grouse hunt… Good eating and good reading.

But then! Then I truly broke free with Ngaio Marsh’s Spinsters in Jeopardy! Set in summer in the south of France, Inspector Alleyn and his lady wife Troy co-star in a mystery featuring a drug racket run by an erotic murder cult. You know I love a cult! Also featuring their six-year-old son Ricky, a surprisingly well-observed child. A shocking number of writers of adult fiction couldn’t write a convincing kid to save their life.

And I also slipped in my December Unread Bookshelf book by the skin of my teeth: E. Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet. I got this soon after I read Five Children and It, then it languished for so many years that I forgot why I was putting it off, but as I read it I remembered: I find these children so stressful! They are forever doing things like “setting off firecrackers inside the house,” which is how they set fire to the old nursery carpet which results in the bringing in of the magic carpet.

What I’m Reading Now

I’ve started Rumer Godden’s Thus Far and Now Farther, which so far is what I expected Elizabeth and her German Garden to be: a charming memoir about a woman in an isolated location with her children, her governess, and her vast army of underpriced labor making a charming garden.

What I Plan to Read Next

No plans! Only vibes! Okay, actually I do have plans, but I am contemplating if I ought to jettison them in favor of vibes. Maybe 2026 should be the Year of Vibe Reading? I have been trying to come up with a good New Year's Resolution...

Comments

[asakiyume]

LOL, I feel like I should reassure you that you don't have to babysit the Phoenix and the Carpet kids--but then again, sometimes spending time with someone even just in print can be stressful enough. (I don't remember that book hardly at all, though I know we read it after Five Children and It.

[ethelmay]

The Bastables are a lot worse, as far as nerve-racking antics go.

[asakiyume]

E Nesbit must have decided to up her ante--sort of like perpetually raising the stakes, only with character antics instead of stakes.

[osprey_archer]

I know I am not responsible for them and also know for genre reasons that nothing truly bad will ever happen to them, but STILL they stress me out. Please children! No firecrackers inside the house!

[lobelia321]

But what is vibes reading??

[asakiyume]

I'm going to hazard a guess and then Osprey Archer can tell you what she actually meant. If **I** were to say vibes reading, it would be to read whatever I wanted to, based on my mood, as opposed to reading something based on an idea like "read all Newbery honor books."

[osprey_archer]

Yes, what asakiyume said. Reading based on what I feel like reading in a moment rather than tackling the entire Newbery Honor list.

[lobelia321]

Ah, I understand! Myself, I sometimes don't know what I feel like reading and then I go to my (many) reading challenges and pick one from there and follow the 'fulfil the prompt' vibe. :D But this year I did pay attention to reading more for 'fun' and it resulted in loads more books having been read. I don't know what the Newbery Honor list is :D but I'm assuming the equivalent of the Booker or somesuch.

[osprey_archer]

The Newbery Medal is an American children's book award which is awarded annually. A little bit more than a decade ago, I finished reading all the books that won the top medal, and within the last few years I've gone through all the runners-up, which are referred to as the Newbery Honor books.

[lobelia321]

Thank you! Now that you say this, I do remember checking this award out for a reading challenge some years ago where I ended up scouring children's books; I can't now remember what I picked and I clearly couldn't even remember the name of the award (eyeroll). :D