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Wednesday Reading Meme
Apr. 15th, 2020 09:03 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
William Dean Howells’ Suburban Sketches, which is a collection of essays about his life in a suburb of Boston in the 1870s. On the whole I enjoyed it less than his fiction, but there was one chapter when Howells starts talking about how some future chronicler is going to read this hoping for salacious tidbits about the nineteenth century Boston theater and YES Howells you have CAUGHT me I am ABSOLUTELY reading this for salacious tidbits about nineteenth century Boston theater, PLEASE TELL ME MORE about all the cross-dressing.
I also finished St. Therese of Lisieux’s The Story of a Soul; I got sort of bogged down once it moved from childhood memoir to spiritual reflection. Some of St. Therese’s insights about practicing forbearance in the face of the small irritations is very obviously applicable to the social isolation life (nuns: practicing social isolation before it was cool?), but nonetheless it took me a while to wade through it.
And I finished Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall, which is beautifully written, but I felt it ended a little too abruptly, and ( spoilers )
What I’m Reading Now
Back in the saddle with Richard Rubin’s Back Over There: One American Time-Traveler, 100 Years Since the Great War, 500 Miles of Battle-Scarred French Countryside, and Too Many Trenches, Shells, Legends, and Ghosts to Count, which is really driving home how little I know about World War I - about military history in general, actually, I don’t think there’s any war where I could reliably give the names and dates of the major battles, let along outline their military importance.
What I Plan to Read Next
Mary Norton’s Bed-knob and Broomstick! Possibly after a suitable time has elapsed since I’ve seen the movie, so I’m not comparing the two directly.
William Dean Howells’ Suburban Sketches, which is a collection of essays about his life in a suburb of Boston in the 1870s. On the whole I enjoyed it less than his fiction, but there was one chapter when Howells starts talking about how some future chronicler is going to read this hoping for salacious tidbits about the nineteenth century Boston theater and YES Howells you have CAUGHT me I am ABSOLUTELY reading this for salacious tidbits about nineteenth century Boston theater, PLEASE TELL ME MORE about all the cross-dressing.
I also finished St. Therese of Lisieux’s The Story of a Soul; I got sort of bogged down once it moved from childhood memoir to spiritual reflection. Some of St. Therese’s insights about practicing forbearance in the face of the small irritations is very obviously applicable to the social isolation life (nuns: practicing social isolation before it was cool?), but nonetheless it took me a while to wade through it.
And I finished Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall, which is beautifully written, but I felt it ended a little too abruptly, and ( spoilers )
What I’m Reading Now
Back in the saddle with Richard Rubin’s Back Over There: One American Time-Traveler, 100 Years Since the Great War, 500 Miles of Battle-Scarred French Countryside, and Too Many Trenches, Shells, Legends, and Ghosts to Count, which is really driving home how little I know about World War I - about military history in general, actually, I don’t think there’s any war where I could reliably give the names and dates of the major battles, let along outline their military importance.
What I Plan to Read Next
Mary Norton’s Bed-knob and Broomstick! Possibly after a suitable time has elapsed since I’ve seen the movie, so I’m not comparing the two directly.
