Wednesday Reading Meme
Feb. 5th, 2014 08:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic, which is about the memory of the Civil War in the South. It’s interesting, particularly the parts about Civil War reenactors and the lengths to which they’ll go for the hardcore experience - Horwitz falls in with a group that likes to do ten-mile marches at least partially barefoot - but rather shallow; Horwitz covers a lot of ground but doesn’t get very in-depth with it.
Also Kate DiCamillo’s Floyd and Ulysses, which won the 2014 Newbery Medal. I find this baffling. It’s not a bad book, but it’s awfully slight, and most of the characters are so broadly drawn as to feel slightly unreal.
And why does DiCamillo keep writing books about rodents who fall in love with humans? First the mouse in The Tale of Despereaux and now the squirrel in Floyd and Ulysses. It’s such an odd and specific theme.
What I’m Reading Now
Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. The plot by itself probably wouldn’t grab me, but such plot as there is exists mostly as a hanger for the Night Circus itself, and given that I would happily wander around the Night Circus for hours, that’s just as well. It’s almost painful to realize that this place, described in all this loving and dreamlike detail, doesn’t actually exist and can’t be visited.
The Narrator from Pushing Daisies narrates the audiobook of The Night Circus, which is pretty perfect. The Night Circus doesn’t have the same aesthetic as Pushing Daisies, but it is similar in that it’s a strongly aestheticized story, where the aesthetic is at times purposefully at odds with the underlying grimness.
(I’m contemplating having a Night Circus tea. The aesthetic would make it easy to decorate for: black table cloth, white table runner, crimson cookie tin as a centerpiece…)
I’ve also started Eva Rice’s The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp as my new book to read a chapter a night. So far, we’ve been introduced to Tara’s large family and Tara’s late childhood habit of sneaking into the neighboring estate to ride horses in the pre-dawn light. This seems most promising.
What I Plan to Read Next
I’m thinking about reading the rest of Pamela Dean’s books. She only wrote six, but getting my hands on them may be tricky. The local library has The Dubious Hills and Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, but not the Secret Country trilogy…
I need to stop picking up new authors whose work is hard to get a hold of. This is getting a little ridiculous.
Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic, which is about the memory of the Civil War in the South. It’s interesting, particularly the parts about Civil War reenactors and the lengths to which they’ll go for the hardcore experience - Horwitz falls in with a group that likes to do ten-mile marches at least partially barefoot - but rather shallow; Horwitz covers a lot of ground but doesn’t get very in-depth with it.
Also Kate DiCamillo’s Floyd and Ulysses, which won the 2014 Newbery Medal. I find this baffling. It’s not a bad book, but it’s awfully slight, and most of the characters are so broadly drawn as to feel slightly unreal.
And why does DiCamillo keep writing books about rodents who fall in love with humans? First the mouse in The Tale of Despereaux and now the squirrel in Floyd and Ulysses. It’s such an odd and specific theme.
What I’m Reading Now
Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. The plot by itself probably wouldn’t grab me, but such plot as there is exists mostly as a hanger for the Night Circus itself, and given that I would happily wander around the Night Circus for hours, that’s just as well. It’s almost painful to realize that this place, described in all this loving and dreamlike detail, doesn’t actually exist and can’t be visited.
The Narrator from Pushing Daisies narrates the audiobook of The Night Circus, which is pretty perfect. The Night Circus doesn’t have the same aesthetic as Pushing Daisies, but it is similar in that it’s a strongly aestheticized story, where the aesthetic is at times purposefully at odds with the underlying grimness.
(I’m contemplating having a Night Circus tea. The aesthetic would make it easy to decorate for: black table cloth, white table runner, crimson cookie tin as a centerpiece…)
I’ve also started Eva Rice’s The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp as my new book to read a chapter a night. So far, we’ve been introduced to Tara’s large family and Tara’s late childhood habit of sneaking into the neighboring estate to ride horses in the pre-dawn light. This seems most promising.
What I Plan to Read Next
I’m thinking about reading the rest of Pamela Dean’s books. She only wrote six, but getting my hands on them may be tricky. The local library has The Dubious Hills and Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, but not the Secret Country trilogy…
I need to stop picking up new authors whose work is hard to get a hold of. This is getting a little ridiculous.
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 03:28 pm (UTC)That is oddly specific.
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Date: 2014-02-05 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 09:39 pm (UTC)*snerk*
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Date: 2014-02-05 08:28 pm (UTC)(I actually hated the book, because - so much potential, so little PLOT.)
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Date: 2014-02-05 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 10:37 pm (UTC)But if the build-up doesn't lead anywhere, then I'll probably tear my hair out. I'm getting close to the end! So we'll see.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 09:37 pm (UTC)The Night Circus is on my to-read list. I will be interested in your final impression of it.
Your write-up of the Kate DiCamillo book had me giggling. Why, I wonder, was *it* the Newbery winner, if it's so slight? Was there something about it that's unusual, some treatment of something that got people's attention? (What I'm asking is, can you see what it is that makes it a Newbery winner?)
no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 10:34 pm (UTC)Flora and Ulysses touches on serious issues - the heroine's parents are divorced, for example - but I didn't feel it did much with them... The characters just didn't feel very real to me, so it's hard for me to get a bead on what the Newbery committee saw in it. I suspect the characters seemed realer to them.