Summertime and the living is easy

[osprey_archer]

First: I think it is pretty officially summertime now. The world is warm and sticky and the trees are fully leaved.

Second: I seem to have fallen off the "I should read academic books! Like a real academic!" horse. It is just so much easier to wake up in the morning when my incentive is "Talk a pleasant walk to Starbucks for hot chocolate! Make toast! Drink hot chocolate and eat toast while reading the Green Knowe series while it is still cool enough for the tree to waft a gentle and pleasing breeze through my window."

Hot chocolate is expensive. I do not want to waste it on yet another book that quotes Foucault. (You know what else quotes Foucault? Sneaky-like? The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. Yet more evidence that it is a terrible, terrible book. Someday I should get over my animus against it and try to read some of E. Lockhart's other books, because I really did like the Ruby Oliver series, but. Life is short.)

And finally: a meme, via surexit. I have 64 words on AO3. Pick a number from 1 (the most recent) to 64 (the first thing I posted there), and I'll tell you three things I currently like about it. Pick a number, any number! *puppy dog eyes*

Comments

[sineala.livejournal.com]

33!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

The Red Queen's Race (http://archiveofourown.org/works/569525), which, fortuitously, is my favorite of my Downton Abbey fics because it's the one where I feel like I finally got a handle on the period voice. Also it features Sybil being rather awkward, which is not something she does much in the show but is inevitably adorable.

And pursuant of the awkwardness, I like the way that this fic captures the spaces between Gwen and Sybil: their social statuses are so different, Gwen a housemaid and Sybil a lady, that despite all they have in common there's this occasional awkwardness to their friendship.

[egelantier.livejournal.com]

31!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Fidelity (http://archiveofourown.org/works/587821), a story for a little-known but sweet movie called Cairo Time. Juliette goes to Cairo to meet her husband, who is stuck elsewhere on business; he sends his friend Tareq to show her around Cairo, and naturally Juliette and Tareq end up falling in love. Normally I hate infidelity stories, but this one is so delicately handled that I ended up enjoying it.

This story picks up a few years later, when Juliette and Tareq meet after Juliette's husband's death. I really like the imagery in the story, the glimpse into Juliet's home life, and the way that Juliette and Tareq talk to each other without ever quite saying what is uppermost in their minds.

[artemis_wandering]

LOL, that's okay. The instant it hits summer I give up academic books! Alas, I can't entirely this year due to needing to write my prospectus. Boo.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Hope your prospectus is going well!

[dineru.livejournal.com]

Your summer days sound pretty amazing, seriously. Alas, I am still plugging away on my academic tasks, including sooo much reading. But the warm weather is nice!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Summer is a good time. We've just had a cool snap, too, so the weather is just right for walks.

[dineru.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we got the cold weather too. A bit of rain, not quite so nice, but it's nice to be able to sleep comfortably at night!

[ghosted.livejournal.com]

I realised the other day that I've gotten through my entire undergrad without reading Foucault. I feel I should read Foucault. I have the impression I'd agree with him a lot, but whether that's enough motivation to read him is another question entirely. I meant to read something fun and new and non-academic now that my English papers are done but I ended up rereading Tipping the Velvet, which my last paper was on. Oops.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think you deserve to read something less dense than Foucault after writing three final papers. Like, really anything else in the world would be less dense, except maybe Derrida.