Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I Just Finished Reading

Wilhelm Hauff’s Little Long-Nose, which is actually more of a short story than a book, but printed in beguiling book form by Candlewick Press for its Candlewick Treasures imprint. I can only assume this venture didn’t work out, because they don’t seem to have printed any books beyond the original six, which is a crying shame because these are beautifully bound and illustrated books.

Fortunately the library has all of the original six. I am particularly excited about reading Sarah Orne Jewett’s The White Heron, because Sarah Orne Jewett is one of those authors who appears in every discussion ever of 19th century American literature. At last I can acquaint myself with her work!

What I’m Reading Now

All the books! Or, well, three books. No, four. I haven’t read any more Les Mis since last week.

Other books that I am reading:

Barry Hughart’s Bridge of Birds, which in the first fifty pages has not grabbed me. Presumably it gets good later on?

Eric P. Kelly’s The Trumpeter of Krakow, which won the Newbery Medal in 1929. When I was about eleven I decided to read all the Newbery Medal books, as a way of emulating Ashley Wyeth in The Baby-Sitters Club books (yes, what an obscure and unliterary character to emulate, I know), and you’d think I would have given up on this years ago, but HAHA, my projects never actually die. They just go into hibernation.

I haven’t gotten very far in The Trumpeter of Krakow, so I can’t tell you much about the book itself. But if I suddenly start burying you in reviews of Newbery Medal winners, you will know why. (Perhaps this will finally kickstart me to read Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence!)

And finally, I have begun P. G. Wodehouse’s Mike and Psmith. So far Psmith and Mike have stolen the study right out from under the nose of Spiller, to whom it actually belonged, for no other reason than because they could. Because picking on the weak is what cool people do, am I right!

There are probably beginnings more perfectly calibrated to make me loathe the main characters, but I can’t actually think of any at the moment.

Do I have to read this book? By which I mean, is it possible to skip it and just read the other Psmith books, which I can only presume will not make me want to throttle the main characters?

What I Plan to Read Next

Still a couple more Green Knowe books to go. Also, maybe Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, which is sitting on my bookshelf so I don’t even know why I haven’t read it. No, wait, that’s actually why I haven’t read it: it’s not from the library so there’s no due date and no hurry.

Also, apparently Jaclyn Moriarty has a book that I didn’t even know about! Possibly because neither of the libraries I frequent have it, even though it was only published in 2005, are they really cycling through their stock that quickly? But maybe they didn't buy it back when it came out. Or possibly a patron loved it so much that she just never returned it.

It is called I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes, which sounds like a picture book title, but I think it is an honest to goodness novel. It has a hot air balloon on the cover! This is surely promising.

Comments

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It's hard to go wrong with a book that has its own reading list! Matilda does too. I've always vaguely meant to read all the books on the list of the books that Matilda reads at the public library...

It is a good title! Maybe it will get more exciting when I get to the actual bridge of birds.