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Wednesday Reading Meme
Mar. 16th, 2016 08:55 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I finished Eva Ibbotson’s Madensky Square, and I enjoyed it so much that I nearly flung myself headlong into The Star of Kazan, which is the other Ibbotson book that I own, but then I decided to restrain myself and save The Star of Kazan for the next time I need a feel-good book. Most of Ibbotson’s books are quite reliable for that (except maybe The Morning Gift).
I highly recommend Madensky Square for the parts about creation, the description of Vienna, the musings on sadness and mortality and getting on with life (there’s a lot of sadness in it for such a happy book; but on balance it is a very happy book), and also because Ibbotson has the rare gift for writing child characters just as well in adult fiction as in her children’s books. They always feel like real people, not child-macguffins.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches, a short book about her experiences as a nurse during the Civil War. The first quarter of it (and it’s not a very long book) is entirely taken up with her voyage to the hospital; I am thinking that perhaps it won’t have as many nursing details as I hoped.
Oh, and my hold on Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On FINALLY came in! I’m enjoying it so far, although it’s really surprisingly bleak - or maybe I shouldn’t say surprisingly. It’s riffing off Harry Potter, and it just brings the bleakness that’s mostly hidden by whimsy and sense of wonder in Harry Potter right up to the surface.
(I used to think that J. K. Rowling created the Wizarding World without realizing how astonishingly dark it was beneath the jokey exterior, but now that I’ve read her adult detective novels I’ve decided that she probably knew exactly what she was doing.)
I think I’m going to write a longer review once I’ve finished reading; Carry On is doing some interesting things in its riff off of Harry Potter’s world-building (in particular, I think it’s responding to a lot of criticisms of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), and I’ll be able to articulate it better once I’m through.
What I Plan to Read Next
I also have Louisa May Alcott’s Moods on my Kindle, so I may read that once I’ve finished Hospital Sketches. Or maybe Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ Gypsy’s Cousin Joy, which is a children’s book published about the same time as Little Women?
OH OH OH, also American Girl has a new historical character out! I feel leery, given how disappointing I found their last new series (Maryellen the 50s girl, who totally deserved better!), but this one is about the Civil Rights struggle in the sixties so I am cautiously optimistic that it might be good. At very least, it won’t be able to totally ignore the hard parts of history the way the Maryellen books did.
BUT THE LIBRARY DOESN’T HAVE IT YET, WOE. So I guess I won’t be reading it for a while.
I finished Eva Ibbotson’s Madensky Square, and I enjoyed it so much that I nearly flung myself headlong into The Star of Kazan, which is the other Ibbotson book that I own, but then I decided to restrain myself and save The Star of Kazan for the next time I need a feel-good book. Most of Ibbotson’s books are quite reliable for that (except maybe The Morning Gift).
I highly recommend Madensky Square for the parts about creation, the description of Vienna, the musings on sadness and mortality and getting on with life (there’s a lot of sadness in it for such a happy book; but on balance it is a very happy book), and also because Ibbotson has the rare gift for writing child characters just as well in adult fiction as in her children’s books. They always feel like real people, not child-macguffins.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches, a short book about her experiences as a nurse during the Civil War. The first quarter of it (and it’s not a very long book) is entirely taken up with her voyage to the hospital; I am thinking that perhaps it won’t have as many nursing details as I hoped.
Oh, and my hold on Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On FINALLY came in! I’m enjoying it so far, although it’s really surprisingly bleak - or maybe I shouldn’t say surprisingly. It’s riffing off Harry Potter, and it just brings the bleakness that’s mostly hidden by whimsy and sense of wonder in Harry Potter right up to the surface.
(I used to think that J. K. Rowling created the Wizarding World without realizing how astonishingly dark it was beneath the jokey exterior, but now that I’ve read her adult detective novels I’ve decided that she probably knew exactly what she was doing.)
I think I’m going to write a longer review once I’ve finished reading; Carry On is doing some interesting things in its riff off of Harry Potter’s world-building (in particular, I think it’s responding to a lot of criticisms of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), and I’ll be able to articulate it better once I’m through.
What I Plan to Read Next
I also have Louisa May Alcott’s Moods on my Kindle, so I may read that once I’ve finished Hospital Sketches. Or maybe Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ Gypsy’s Cousin Joy, which is a children’s book published about the same time as Little Women?
OH OH OH, also American Girl has a new historical character out! I feel leery, given how disappointing I found their last new series (Maryellen the 50s girl, who totally deserved better!), but this one is about the Civil Rights struggle in the sixties so I am cautiously optimistic that it might be good. At very least, it won’t be able to totally ignore the hard parts of history the way the Maryellen books did.
BUT THE LIBRARY DOESN’T HAVE IT YET, WOE. So I guess I won’t be reading it for a while.
