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Wednesday Reading Meme
Oct. 9th, 2024 08:20 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
D. K. Broster’s Couching at the Door, a suitably chilling short story collection for Halloween. Again, the creepiest story in the last section was the one with no magic. Cousins Ellen and Caroline are visiting Italy, only Caroline is spoiling the trip by reading the Baedeker loudly at every sight. Ellen, miserable, bitter, trampled-upon in this as everything else, wishes that she could have just one day without Caroline… and realizes that she can. All she has to do is kill Caroline!
“That seems excessive,” I gasped, even as Ellen strangled Caroline with a silk scarf. Thereafter Ellen jaunted off to Florence, had a lovely day despite concerns that Caroline might appear at any moment, and more or less instantly lost all her money. It’s unclear if Ellen is wholly incompetent because Caroline has tyrannized over her for so long, or if Caroline has dominated Ellen because she truly can’t look after herself on account of being just a touch insane, as witness her conviction that the dead Caroline will reappear and take over her life again.
I also read Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s The Trespassers, in which a brother and sister sneak into a neglected mansion, and find a wonderful old nursery full of delightful toys, and possibly also a ghost. Wonderful atmosphere, reminiscent of The Velvet Room. Goes off a bit into Problem Novel territory once the owners of the house show up. I enjoyed Grub’s doom and gloom attacks, as I was also a child prone to doom and gloom attacks.
Also Gerald Durrell’s The Overloaded Ark. This was Durrell’s first book, and he hit the ground not quite running, but certainly skipping along at a good clip. It’s not quite as funny as his later books (I only laughed aloud once) and the metaphors are not quite as astoundingly apt (though I did love the comparison of a bat’s nose to a Tudor rose), but still a very Durrell read.
And a surprise read! As I was checking the graphic novel shelves for Pedro Martin’s Newbery Honor Mexikid, I stumbled upon a hitherto unsuspected Hayao Miyazaki graphic novel, Shuna’s Journey, translated by Alex Dudok de Wit. Miyazaki wrote and illustrated this book in the early eighties, and it prefigures much of his later work: the hero and heroine who trade off saving each other, the fascination with strange machines and stranger creatures, the wide vistas of grass blowing in the wind.
What I’m Reading Now
Creeping along in Shirley. Caroline Helstone is madly in love with her distant cousins Robert Moore, who loves her too but has (I’m pretty sure) decided that a man in his position must marry an heiress, and therefore has crushed Caroline’s heart on the rocks.
What I Plan to Read Next
Mexikid is still checked out, so my next Newbery Honor book will be Daniel Nayeri’s The Many Assassinations of Samir, Seller of Dreams. I flipped through and it has charming illustrations.
D. K. Broster’s Couching at the Door, a suitably chilling short story collection for Halloween. Again, the creepiest story in the last section was the one with no magic. Cousins Ellen and Caroline are visiting Italy, only Caroline is spoiling the trip by reading the Baedeker loudly at every sight. Ellen, miserable, bitter, trampled-upon in this as everything else, wishes that she could have just one day without Caroline… and realizes that she can. All she has to do is kill Caroline!
“That seems excessive,” I gasped, even as Ellen strangled Caroline with a silk scarf. Thereafter Ellen jaunted off to Florence, had a lovely day despite concerns that Caroline might appear at any moment, and more or less instantly lost all her money. It’s unclear if Ellen is wholly incompetent because Caroline has tyrannized over her for so long, or if Caroline has dominated Ellen because she truly can’t look after herself on account of being just a touch insane, as witness her conviction that the dead Caroline will reappear and take over her life again.
I also read Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s The Trespassers, in which a brother and sister sneak into a neglected mansion, and find a wonderful old nursery full of delightful toys, and possibly also a ghost. Wonderful atmosphere, reminiscent of The Velvet Room. Goes off a bit into Problem Novel territory once the owners of the house show up. I enjoyed Grub’s doom and gloom attacks, as I was also a child prone to doom and gloom attacks.
Also Gerald Durrell’s The Overloaded Ark. This was Durrell’s first book, and he hit the ground not quite running, but certainly skipping along at a good clip. It’s not quite as funny as his later books (I only laughed aloud once) and the metaphors are not quite as astoundingly apt (though I did love the comparison of a bat’s nose to a Tudor rose), but still a very Durrell read.
And a surprise read! As I was checking the graphic novel shelves for Pedro Martin’s Newbery Honor Mexikid, I stumbled upon a hitherto unsuspected Hayao Miyazaki graphic novel, Shuna’s Journey, translated by Alex Dudok de Wit. Miyazaki wrote and illustrated this book in the early eighties, and it prefigures much of his later work: the hero and heroine who trade off saving each other, the fascination with strange machines and stranger creatures, the wide vistas of grass blowing in the wind.
What I’m Reading Now
Creeping along in Shirley. Caroline Helstone is madly in love with her distant cousins Robert Moore, who loves her too but has (I’m pretty sure) decided that a man in his position must marry an heiress, and therefore has crushed Caroline’s heart on the rocks.
What I Plan to Read Next
Mexikid is still checked out, so my next Newbery Honor book will be Daniel Nayeri’s The Many Assassinations of Samir, Seller of Dreams. I flipped through and it has charming illustrations.
