Wednesday Reading Meme
Dec. 14th, 2022 07:34 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I wish I had read Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Sword and the Circle: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table right when I began my swan-dive into Arthuriana, because this is a solid, straightforward retelling of most famous pre-Grail Arthurian legends, set in the traditional quasi-medieval setting with the usual budget of magic and the customary characterization. (Although I think she’s channeling White’s Lancelot. Unless he’s traditionally ugly in pre-Once and Future King sources?) Better late than never, however. Looking forward to the Grail book.
Back on my writing prompt post,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rachelmanija requested Biggles fic (this post is a treasure trove, btw, also including a Kay ficlet and uhhhhhh four Mordred fics God help us all), so of course I had to read a Biggles book for RESEARCH. Thus, Biggles Takes Charge, which actually features no Biggles at all till the halfway mark! Algy has driven to an isolated country lodge in the Sologne to return the key to a hunting lodge, which unfortunately he never got to use as it was given to him by a friend right before World War II… only when he arrives at the lodge he finds himself smack in the middle of a Ruritanian romance, with missing heirs, hidden jewels, revolutionary assassins, and our friend Erich von Stalhein, in a slightly awkward transition from his World War II Gestapo morph back into Biggles’ beloved nemesis.
And finally, I read Sujata Massey’s The Widows of Malabar Hill, which perhaps spent just a little too long on my TBR before I got around to it. I enjoyed the Bombay in the 1920s setting, but the prose was just a bit too clunky for me to want to continue the series. It’s too bad, because the covers are so stylish.
What I’m Reading Now
In A Christmas Carol, we have neatly wrapped up the Ghost of Christmas Past, with a scene which assures us that Scrooge’s former fiancee Belle did indeed find love with a man who doesn’t have a bank book for a heart! HOORAY FOR BELLE. (I always worried about this in The Muppet Christmas Carol.) Onward to the Ghost of Christmas Present!
I’m so impressed by Dickens’ pacing in this story, which is all the more noticeable in this short daily excerpt format: every single excerpt has propelled the story forward, but the cracking pace of the plot leaves plenty of room for word play and brief but incisive character sketches. (It’s so characteristic that Scrooge’s reaction to learning that the Ghost of Christmas Present has eighteen hundred odd brothers is “A tremendous family to provide for” - updated in the Muppet Christmas Carol to “Think of the grocery bills.”)
In The Lightning Conductor, Molly and her beau-who-is-pretending-to-be-her-chauffeur have reached the south of France!littlerhymes and I are both concerned that “pretending to be your beloved’s chauffeur” is not, perhaps, a strong foundation for a long-term relationship, but doubtless when Molly discovers that her surprisingly insightful and well-informed chauffeur is in fact an English lord simply acting the part of chauffeur in order to be near her, she will consider the whole situation very droll.
No news from Whale-Whenever-They-Feel-Like-It.
What I Plan to Read Next
littlerhymes, a brutal enabler of my Mordred obsession, has sent me Nancy Springer’s I Am Mordred, with Biggles of the Camel Squadron and Christine Pullein-Thompson’s Phantom Horse Comes Home for company!
I wish I had read Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Sword and the Circle: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table right when I began my swan-dive into Arthuriana, because this is a solid, straightforward retelling of most famous pre-Grail Arthurian legends, set in the traditional quasi-medieval setting with the usual budget of magic and the customary characterization. (Although I think she’s channeling White’s Lancelot. Unless he’s traditionally ugly in pre-Once and Future King sources?) Better late than never, however. Looking forward to the Grail book.
Back on my writing prompt post,
rachelmanija requested Biggles fic (this post is a treasure trove, btw, also including a Kay ficlet and uhhhhhh four Mordred fics God help us all), so of course I had to read a Biggles book for RESEARCH. Thus, Biggles Takes Charge, which actually features no Biggles at all till the halfway mark! Algy has driven to an isolated country lodge in the Sologne to return the key to a hunting lodge, which unfortunately he never got to use as it was given to him by a friend right before World War II… only when he arrives at the lodge he finds himself smack in the middle of a Ruritanian romance, with missing heirs, hidden jewels, revolutionary assassins, and our friend Erich von Stalhein, in a slightly awkward transition from his World War II Gestapo morph back into Biggles’ beloved nemesis.And finally, I read Sujata Massey’s The Widows of Malabar Hill, which perhaps spent just a little too long on my TBR before I got around to it. I enjoyed the Bombay in the 1920s setting, but the prose was just a bit too clunky for me to want to continue the series. It’s too bad, because the covers are so stylish.
What I’m Reading Now
In A Christmas Carol, we have neatly wrapped up the Ghost of Christmas Past, with a scene which assures us that Scrooge’s former fiancee Belle did indeed find love with a man who doesn’t have a bank book for a heart! HOORAY FOR BELLE. (I always worried about this in The Muppet Christmas Carol.) Onward to the Ghost of Christmas Present!
I’m so impressed by Dickens’ pacing in this story, which is all the more noticeable in this short daily excerpt format: every single excerpt has propelled the story forward, but the cracking pace of the plot leaves plenty of room for word play and brief but incisive character sketches. (It’s so characteristic that Scrooge’s reaction to learning that the Ghost of Christmas Present has eighteen hundred odd brothers is “A tremendous family to provide for” - updated in the Muppet Christmas Carol to “Think of the grocery bills.”)
In The Lightning Conductor, Molly and her beau-who-is-pretending-to-be-her-chauffeur have reached the south of France!
littlerhymes and I are both concerned that “pretending to be your beloved’s chauffeur” is not, perhaps, a strong foundation for a long-term relationship, but doubtless when Molly discovers that her surprisingly insightful and well-informed chauffeur is in fact an English lord simply acting the part of chauffeur in order to be near her, she will consider the whole situation very droll. No news from Whale-Whenever-They-Feel-Like-It.
What I Plan to Read Next
littlerhymes, a brutal enabler of my Mordred obsession, has sent me Nancy Springer’s I Am Mordred, with Biggles of the Camel Squadron and Christine Pullein-Thompson’s Phantom Horse Comes Home for company!
