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Wednesday Reading Meme
Jan. 8th, 2014 12:02 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Susan Fletcher’s Falcon in the Glass, which is fun, but not one of her best books.
Also two Adam Gopnik books. I am probably not the ideal reader for The Table Comes First. There is only so much I can read about the philosophical underpinnings of cooking and avant garde innovation in cuisine before my eyes start to glaze over. But I think it’s also partly that Gopnik’s writing style has become more aphoristic and more obsessed with mortality since he wrote Paris to the Moon, neither of which strike me as positive developments. He can turn anything into a meditation on mortality.
But I did like Gopnik’s children’s book, The King in the Window. I was so unimpressed by The Steps across the Water that I almost didn’t read this one, but I’m glad I did, because it’s much more solid. (Still not entirely solid. Gopnik clearly subscribes to the Alice in Wonderland school of fantasy worldbuilding, which I think only really worked in Alice and The Phantom Tollbooth.)
Oliver has become the king of the window wraiths, who are locked in an age-old struggle with their mortal enemies the...well, that would be telling: one of the pleasures of the book is learning with Oliver about the window wraiths and their world. But I mention the struggle with evil, because it leads to this great exchange between Oliver and Mrs. Pearson, the elderly lady who becomes one of his trusted lieutenants (and incidentally one of my favorite characters):
“I was thinking that since they picked me, then I must have, like, this sort of instinct inside me that would let me, uh, lead and all and that I shouldn’t really think too much. You know, trust my instincts. Get beyond my conscious mind, get in touch with the universe, go beyond, like, logic, and use the force…” Oliver trailed off weakly.
Mrs. Pearson’s eyes were like blue ice. Oliver could tell she was struggling to contain her emotions. “You...find...yourself in a confrontation with absolute evil, and you...are...planning...not...to...think?”
You have no idea how many children’s book heroes I have wanted to say this to!
What I’m Reading Now
Rosemary Sutcliff’s Sword at Sunset. This book gives me the same feeling as Blood and Sand: if Sutcliff’s publishers would have let her get away with it, Artos and his bff Bedwyr would clearly have been boinking their way up and down the coast of Britain in between Saxon-slaying sessions.
What I Plan to Read Next
Ysabeau S. Wilce’s Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), A House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog. How can I go wrong with a book that has a subtitle as long as my arm?
Susan Fletcher’s Falcon in the Glass, which is fun, but not one of her best books.
Also two Adam Gopnik books. I am probably not the ideal reader for The Table Comes First. There is only so much I can read about the philosophical underpinnings of cooking and avant garde innovation in cuisine before my eyes start to glaze over. But I think it’s also partly that Gopnik’s writing style has become more aphoristic and more obsessed with mortality since he wrote Paris to the Moon, neither of which strike me as positive developments. He can turn anything into a meditation on mortality.
But I did like Gopnik’s children’s book, The King in the Window. I was so unimpressed by The Steps across the Water that I almost didn’t read this one, but I’m glad I did, because it’s much more solid. (Still not entirely solid. Gopnik clearly subscribes to the Alice in Wonderland school of fantasy worldbuilding, which I think only really worked in Alice and The Phantom Tollbooth.)
Oliver has become the king of the window wraiths, who are locked in an age-old struggle with their mortal enemies the...well, that would be telling: one of the pleasures of the book is learning with Oliver about the window wraiths and their world. But I mention the struggle with evil, because it leads to this great exchange between Oliver and Mrs. Pearson, the elderly lady who becomes one of his trusted lieutenants (and incidentally one of my favorite characters):
“I was thinking that since they picked me, then I must have, like, this sort of instinct inside me that would let me, uh, lead and all and that I shouldn’t really think too much. You know, trust my instincts. Get beyond my conscious mind, get in touch with the universe, go beyond, like, logic, and use the force…” Oliver trailed off weakly.
Mrs. Pearson’s eyes were like blue ice. Oliver could tell she was struggling to contain her emotions. “You...find...yourself in a confrontation with absolute evil, and you...are...planning...not...to...think?”
You have no idea how many children’s book heroes I have wanted to say this to!
What I’m Reading Now
Rosemary Sutcliff’s Sword at Sunset. This book gives me the same feeling as Blood and Sand: if Sutcliff’s publishers would have let her get away with it, Artos and his bff Bedwyr would clearly have been boinking their way up and down the coast of Britain in between Saxon-slaying sessions.
What I Plan to Read Next
Ysabeau S. Wilce’s Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), A House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog. How can I go wrong with a book that has a subtitle as long as my arm?
