Wednesday Reading Meme (One Day Late)
Mar. 27th, 2014 12:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
What I’ve Just Finished Reading
Nothing very recently; it’s been a busy week. Nothing since Edward Eager’s Knight’s Castle, when a group of kids magically visit Ivanhoe (and one of them unwisely explains the whole plot of the book to the villains, who promptly change their plans and spin the story off in strange directions).
I thought Knight’s Castle was a bit unfair to Rowena - she is not stunningly written in Ivanhoe, but she does have the virtue of constancy - but otherwise it’s a hoot. Clearly I’ll have to read more of Eager’s books.
What I’m Reading Now
Sarah Addison Allen’s Lost Lake. Allen’s books are a bit of a guilty pleasure, because I wouldn’t exactly call them good, but I like their sense of atmosphere and keep reading them as soon as the copies hit the library.
Evan S. Connell’s Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn, because
truepenny gave it a good review, and her nonfiction reviews are dependably incisive and insightful. (She has a masterlist of book reviews here, which is useful.)
I’m reading Son of the Morning Star in bits, because everyone keeps behaving badly (as one might expect) and there is only so much human cruelty and folly I can take at one sitting. But it’s very interesting: I didn’t know much about Little Bighorn or about the 19th century US military or about the Sioux or the Cheyenne or the various other tribes he references, so I’m learning a lot.
G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who was Thursday. I strongly suspect that the lead anarchist is going to turn out to be the same man as the chief of the anti-anarchy division of the police, but we’ll see. It’s an interestingly trippy read.
What I’ve Reading Next
Barbara Hambly’s A Free Man of Color, the first of her series of mysteries set in 1830s New Orleans with a detective who is, in fact, a free man of color. I’ve seen multiple recs for this series, so I’m hoping it will be good.
Nothing very recently; it’s been a busy week. Nothing since Edward Eager’s Knight’s Castle, when a group of kids magically visit Ivanhoe (and one of them unwisely explains the whole plot of the book to the villains, who promptly change their plans and spin the story off in strange directions).
I thought Knight’s Castle was a bit unfair to Rowena - she is not stunningly written in Ivanhoe, but she does have the virtue of constancy - but otherwise it’s a hoot. Clearly I’ll have to read more of Eager’s books.
What I’m Reading Now
Sarah Addison Allen’s Lost Lake. Allen’s books are a bit of a guilty pleasure, because I wouldn’t exactly call them good, but I like their sense of atmosphere and keep reading them as soon as the copies hit the library.
Evan S. Connell’s Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn, because
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I’m reading Son of the Morning Star in bits, because everyone keeps behaving badly (as one might expect) and there is only so much human cruelty and folly I can take at one sitting. But it’s very interesting: I didn’t know much about Little Bighorn or about the 19th century US military or about the Sioux or the Cheyenne or the various other tribes he references, so I’m learning a lot.
G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who was Thursday. I strongly suspect that the lead anarchist is going to turn out to be the same man as the chief of the anti-anarchy division of the police, but we’ll see. It’s an interestingly trippy read.
What I’ve Reading Next
Barbara Hambly’s A Free Man of Color, the first of her series of mysteries set in 1830s New Orleans with a detective who is, in fact, a free man of color. I’ve seen multiple recs for this series, so I’m hoping it will be good.
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Date: 2014-03-27 05:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 07:36 am (UTC)(these books were the highlight of my previous reading year, no lie).
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Date: 2014-03-27 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 11:49 am (UTC)ETA: Just went to check out the author and discovered she's also written lots of Star Wars novelizations, plus other SF. Versatile writer is versatile!
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Date: 2014-03-27 01:36 pm (UTC)