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Wednesday Reading Meme
Feb. 27th, 2019 08:55 pmWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I did loads of reading this week! So much so that I wish I’d waited to post last Wednesday’s reading meme till I’d finished Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Tailors, just to make this week’s a little less cluttered. Sayers has a real gift for coming up with uniquely chilling methods of murder - not gruesome, but chilling - in this book and Unnatural Death as well.
Usually I don’t include short stories in these round-ups, but I thought I’d mention Marie Brennan’s “From the Editorial Page of the Falchester Weekly Review,” just in case there are any fellow fans of her Lady Trent books on here who haven’t heard of it. Lady Trent exchanges increasingly sharp letters with a scientist who claims he has discovered a cockatrice.
I finally finished Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter! I’m afraid the book and I never clicked: it’s pretty much 200 straight pages of pure nature writing, and I can do about two paragraphs of nature writing before my mind starts to wander, but if nature writing is your jam then this book seems like exactly the sort of thing that you might like.
And, prompted by the 25 Must-Read Books for Women list, I read Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye, which is crushing - crushing - crushing - and I want to read more of her books - possibly once I’ve had some time to recover from this one, though, because did I mention it is crushing.
AND ALSO (deep breath) I finished Maria Thompson Daviess’ The Road to Providence, which is a piece of early 20th century fluff about a singer (often referred to as “the singer lady”) who is referred to a doctor in the idyllic small Kentucky town of Providence after her vocal cords were “frizzled” when she drank a glass of ice water right after a performance. Do they fall in love? Is the sky blue?
One thing that struck me: everyone in town expects the doctor to provide them with updates on his patients as a matter of course. (“How’s ol’ Miz Bostick doing today?” and questions of that sort.) I imagine if some rando asked he might not comply, but everyone in town knows everyone else, so in a sense they all have an interest, although obviously not one that would entitle a doctor to breach patient confidentiality today. When did that norm change?
What I’m Reading Now
Shirley Jackson’s Raising Demons, Jackson’s second of her two cheerful memoirs of minor domestic chaos. The more I learn about Jackson’s life the more these memoirs seem more fictional than her actual novels: her husband comes across as such an absent-mindedly benign figure, when in real life he cheated on her constantly and insisted on telling her about it. Why can’t you at least pretend to hide your cheating like a normal cad, Stanley?
What I Plan to Read Next
I’m starting another book on my list of 25 Must-Read Books for Women: Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place.
I did loads of reading this week! So much so that I wish I’d waited to post last Wednesday’s reading meme till I’d finished Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Tailors, just to make this week’s a little less cluttered. Sayers has a real gift for coming up with uniquely chilling methods of murder - not gruesome, but chilling - in this book and Unnatural Death as well.
Usually I don’t include short stories in these round-ups, but I thought I’d mention Marie Brennan’s “From the Editorial Page of the Falchester Weekly Review,” just in case there are any fellow fans of her Lady Trent books on here who haven’t heard of it. Lady Trent exchanges increasingly sharp letters with a scientist who claims he has discovered a cockatrice.
I finally finished Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter! I’m afraid the book and I never clicked: it’s pretty much 200 straight pages of pure nature writing, and I can do about two paragraphs of nature writing before my mind starts to wander, but if nature writing is your jam then this book seems like exactly the sort of thing that you might like.
And, prompted by the 25 Must-Read Books for Women list, I read Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye, which is crushing - crushing - crushing - and I want to read more of her books - possibly once I’ve had some time to recover from this one, though, because did I mention it is crushing.
AND ALSO (deep breath) I finished Maria Thompson Daviess’ The Road to Providence, which is a piece of early 20th century fluff about a singer (often referred to as “the singer lady”) who is referred to a doctor in the idyllic small Kentucky town of Providence after her vocal cords were “frizzled” when she drank a glass of ice water right after a performance. Do they fall in love? Is the sky blue?
One thing that struck me: everyone in town expects the doctor to provide them with updates on his patients as a matter of course. (“How’s ol’ Miz Bostick doing today?” and questions of that sort.) I imagine if some rando asked he might not comply, but everyone in town knows everyone else, so in a sense they all have an interest, although obviously not one that would entitle a doctor to breach patient confidentiality today. When did that norm change?
What I’m Reading Now
Shirley Jackson’s Raising Demons, Jackson’s second of her two cheerful memoirs of minor domestic chaos. The more I learn about Jackson’s life the more these memoirs seem more fictional than her actual novels: her husband comes across as such an absent-mindedly benign figure, when in real life he cheated on her constantly and insisted on telling her about it. Why can’t you at least pretend to hide your cheating like a normal cad, Stanley?
What I Plan to Read Next
I’m starting another book on my list of 25 Must-Read Books for Women: Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place.
