Wednesday Reading Meme
Feb. 25th, 2026 08:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
William Dean Howells’ My Mark Twain, which is half reminiscences of Howells’ friendship with Mark Twain and half a collection of reviews Howells’ wrote of Twain’s various books. The first half would make an amazing buddy comedy: Mark Twain the eccentric humorist as the comic and Howells as straight man, going on adventures like “visiting Gorky in his hotel room to help him raise money for the Revolution, only to end up embroiled in Publicity when Gorky got kicked out of the hotel the next day for checking in with a woman not his wife.”
The second half unfortunately made me want to read some Mark Twain. I say “unfortunately” because historically I have struggled with Mark Twain, having attempted and failed to finish The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, AND Joan of Arc. But maybe if I try something aside from Twain’s historical romances…? His essays, his autobiographical travel books….? And I’ve always felt a sneaking suspicion that I really ought to read Tom Sawyer.
Gerald Durrell’s Marrying Off Mother and Other Stories, which I thought was more uneven than most of Durrell’s work. A couple of stories struck me as mean-spirited (particularly “Ludwig”), but I really liked “The Jury” and “Miss Booth-Wycherly’s Clothes.” I believe these are both fiction dressed up as memoir, but if anyone was going to run into a former professional hangman who was now a drunk in the jungles of South America, it would be Gerald Durrell.
What I’m Reading Now
After long cogitation, I’ve decided that it’s time to reread Katherine Patterson’s Jacob Have I Loved. As a child I found the narrator unbearably whiny about her perfect sister, but I’ve long harbored the suspicion that I might see something more or at least different in it as an adult. So far, I’ve been appreciating the strong sense of place and time, both in the lyrical landscape descriptions and the clear picture of the community on Rass Island at the beginning of World War II, and noticing that Louise does indeed have some endearing qualities: for instance, she loves to use long words, but often pronounces them wrong, as she’s only ever seen them written.
…I was not however wrong to remember that Louise spends a LOT of time whining about her sister Caroline, enviously recounting that every time they suffered a childhood illness, Caroline nearly DIED, thus making herself the center of attention YET AGAIN. So we’ll see how I feel about this in the end.
What I Plan to Read Next
Fascinated/appalled to discover that American Girl is releasing a novel about grown-up Samantha: Fiona Davis’s Samantha: The Next Chapter. Opposed to the whole endeavor on the grounds that everyone ought to be free to imagine Samantha’s future as they wish, whether it’s marriage to Eddie Ryland or rabble-rousing as a lesbian suffragette. However, I may nonetheless prove unable to resist reading the book.
William Dean Howells’ My Mark Twain, which is half reminiscences of Howells’ friendship with Mark Twain and half a collection of reviews Howells’ wrote of Twain’s various books. The first half would make an amazing buddy comedy: Mark Twain the eccentric humorist as the comic and Howells as straight man, going on adventures like “visiting Gorky in his hotel room to help him raise money for the Revolution, only to end up embroiled in Publicity when Gorky got kicked out of the hotel the next day for checking in with a woman not his wife.”
The second half unfortunately made me want to read some Mark Twain. I say “unfortunately” because historically I have struggled with Mark Twain, having attempted and failed to finish The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, AND Joan of Arc. But maybe if I try something aside from Twain’s historical romances…? His essays, his autobiographical travel books….? And I’ve always felt a sneaking suspicion that I really ought to read Tom Sawyer.
Gerald Durrell’s Marrying Off Mother and Other Stories, which I thought was more uneven than most of Durrell’s work. A couple of stories struck me as mean-spirited (particularly “Ludwig”), but I really liked “The Jury” and “Miss Booth-Wycherly’s Clothes.” I believe these are both fiction dressed up as memoir, but if anyone was going to run into a former professional hangman who was now a drunk in the jungles of South America, it would be Gerald Durrell.
What I’m Reading Now
After long cogitation, I’ve decided that it’s time to reread Katherine Patterson’s Jacob Have I Loved. As a child I found the narrator unbearably whiny about her perfect sister, but I’ve long harbored the suspicion that I might see something more or at least different in it as an adult. So far, I’ve been appreciating the strong sense of place and time, both in the lyrical landscape descriptions and the clear picture of the community on Rass Island at the beginning of World War II, and noticing that Louise does indeed have some endearing qualities: for instance, she loves to use long words, but often pronounces them wrong, as she’s only ever seen them written.
…I was not however wrong to remember that Louise spends a LOT of time whining about her sister Caroline, enviously recounting that every time they suffered a childhood illness, Caroline nearly DIED, thus making herself the center of attention YET AGAIN. So we’ll see how I feel about this in the end.
What I Plan to Read Next
Fascinated/appalled to discover that American Girl is releasing a novel about grown-up Samantha: Fiona Davis’s Samantha: The Next Chapter. Opposed to the whole endeavor on the grounds that everyone ought to be free to imagine Samantha’s future as they wish, whether it’s marriage to Eddie Ryland or rabble-rousing as a lesbian suffragette. However, I may nonetheless prove unable to resist reading the book.
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Date: 2026-02-25 01:41 pm (UTC)Wow, I guess now that the generation that first played with American Girl dolls have grown up, the company sees a market in stories like Samantha: The Next Chapter.
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Date: 2026-02-25 03:30 pm (UTC)Yeah, AG has been leaning hard on the nostalgia angle recently. The latest Girl of the Year is apparently Samantha's great-great-(however many greats) granddaughter, for instance.
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Date: 2026-02-25 02:06 pm (UTC)(Interesting that they keep specifically building out Samantha's story— the Girl of the Year 2026 is canonically Samantha's great-great- or whatever-granddaughter, and now these sequel?)
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Date: 2026-02-25 03:24 pm (UTC)I do wonder why they keep returning to Samantha. Samantha's great, but so are all the other classic girls! Why not a bit more Felicity?
ETA: They apparently also released a 1920s girl while I wasn't looking. Haven't read that one either. Generally on American Girl strike until the illustration situation is remedied.