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Wednesday Reading Meme
Jun. 1st, 2016 08:51 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I took Mary Stewart’s The Ivy Tree on my trip, and it was a delight as Mary Stewart books always are. (I have in fact started saving them for trips so I will be sure of a delightful read while I’m on the road.) I wasn’t quite convinced by the final twist, but in a way that doesn’t matter; I’m not reading Mary Stewart for the plot so much as the atmosphere, the surface coziness with the underlying hint of menace, and The Ivy Tree delivers that in spades.
I didn’t finish Dinner with Persephone, but I did give up on it; life is too short for depressing travelogues from someone who seems to remain forever firmly alien from her new country. I don’t require Storace to agree with her Greek hosts that there’s something inherently disrespectful about an ad campaign showing a bottle of Coke replacing one of the pillars of the Parthenon, but I feel like her book would be more interesting if she at least gave the possibility a sympathetic hearing.
I feel like I should start a category for books that I’ve abandoned, although that might encourage me to start abandoning more of them, so maybe not.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve just started Enid Bagnold’s A Diary Without Dates, which is an oddly dreamlike memoir about her time working as a nurse during World War I. It’s strange and atmospheric and probably not very helpful if you’re looking for nitty-gritty war nursing details, but some of the images are unexpectedly captivating. Like this:
After a long walk down the corridor in almost total darkness, the vapour of the rain floating through every open door and window, the sudden brilliancy of the ward was like a haven.
What I Plan to Read Next
I have James Runcie’s Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death! This is the book that the first Grantchester series was based on, and I enjoyed that very much, so hopefully I will like the book as well.
And!!! Did you know that there’s a second series of Granchester? Netflix is getting the DVDs in June! I am excited!
I also need to decide which Mary Stewart books to add to my list - not to read immediately, mind, but for future trips. Aside from The Ivy Tree, I’ve already read Nine Coaches Waiting, The Moon-Spinners, The Stormy Petrel, and Rose Cottage; my library also has Thunder on the Right, This Rough Magic, The Gabriel Hounds, The Wicked Day, Touch Not the Cat, and of course The Crystal Cave, although I’m not sure I want to read another Arthurian retelling.
My goodness, she did write a lot of books. And I know there were lots more besides those; the library has a very incomplete selection. Anyway, of those books, are there any that you would particularly recommend? Or particularly warn against?
I took Mary Stewart’s The Ivy Tree on my trip, and it was a delight as Mary Stewart books always are. (I have in fact started saving them for trips so I will be sure of a delightful read while I’m on the road.) I wasn’t quite convinced by the final twist, but in a way that doesn’t matter; I’m not reading Mary Stewart for the plot so much as the atmosphere, the surface coziness with the underlying hint of menace, and The Ivy Tree delivers that in spades.
I didn’t finish Dinner with Persephone, but I did give up on it; life is too short for depressing travelogues from someone who seems to remain forever firmly alien from her new country. I don’t require Storace to agree with her Greek hosts that there’s something inherently disrespectful about an ad campaign showing a bottle of Coke replacing one of the pillars of the Parthenon, but I feel like her book would be more interesting if she at least gave the possibility a sympathetic hearing.
I feel like I should start a category for books that I’ve abandoned, although that might encourage me to start abandoning more of them, so maybe not.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve just started Enid Bagnold’s A Diary Without Dates, which is an oddly dreamlike memoir about her time working as a nurse during World War I. It’s strange and atmospheric and probably not very helpful if you’re looking for nitty-gritty war nursing details, but some of the images are unexpectedly captivating. Like this:
After a long walk down the corridor in almost total darkness, the vapour of the rain floating through every open door and window, the sudden brilliancy of the ward was like a haven.
What I Plan to Read Next
I have James Runcie’s Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death! This is the book that the first Grantchester series was based on, and I enjoyed that very much, so hopefully I will like the book as well.
And!!! Did you know that there’s a second series of Granchester? Netflix is getting the DVDs in June! I am excited!
I also need to decide which Mary Stewart books to add to my list - not to read immediately, mind, but for future trips. Aside from The Ivy Tree, I’ve already read Nine Coaches Waiting, The Moon-Spinners, The Stormy Petrel, and Rose Cottage; my library also has Thunder on the Right, This Rough Magic, The Gabriel Hounds, The Wicked Day, Touch Not the Cat, and of course The Crystal Cave, although I’m not sure I want to read another Arthurian retelling.
My goodness, she did write a lot of books. And I know there were lots more besides those; the library has a very incomplete selection. Anyway, of those books, are there any that you would particularly recommend? Or particularly warn against?
