Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I've Just Finished Reading

Mary Stewart's The Moon-spinners, which I found completely charming. It's a total goldmine for canon h/c if that is your sort of thing. Nicola is hiking in the mountains of Crete when she stumbles on a man! Who is injured! And slightly delirious! The night is cold, and so they must cuddle for warmth! It is adorbs and also full of pretty Grecian scenery.

Also Paula Byrne's Belle, because no one is showing the movie near me :( so I decided to console myself with the book instead. However, the book contains about a magazine article's worth of information, so it feels at once very padded - Byrne simply doesn't have many sources on Dido Elizabeth Belle - but also very cursory, because she breezes past a ton of other topics that she clearly does have sources for, any one of which would have made a more satisfying book.

I can see why centering a book on a late-eighteenth-century mixed-race English young lady seemed irresistible, but the sources are so thin that Byrne really should have just written a novel. Then she could have focused on Belle, which is clearly what she wants to do.

This is especially frustrating because two of Byrne's other books - the one about Jane Austen and the one about Evelyn Waugh's secret gay Edwardian Oxford romance (I'm assuming) looked rather interesting, but if they're like Belle they're probably not worth my time. On the other hand, unlike Belle, both Austen and Waugh left plenty of documentation, so probably the books won't suffer from the missing main character issue that Belle has.

What I'm Reading Now

Eva Ibbotson's A Song for Summer. This is going to to be the summer of all the Eva Ibbotson.

What I Plan to Read Next

I found a copy of Pamela Dean's The Secret Country! But only the first one in the trilogy, so maybe I should wait until I have the other two books before reading it to avoid frustration?

Also Jo Walton's My Real Children. I'm trying to avoid reviews of it so I don't feel overhyped for it, although given how much I enjoyed Among Others I may overhype myself without any help from anyone else.

***

In other media consumption news, I am planning to watch Kings - or at least try to watch Kings - because, yes, Sebastian Stan. I'm so ashamed. Apparently his character spends a lot of time looking tortured, so hopefully that will make up for all the other parts of Kings that people complain about?

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

You need to read all three of the Dean books. They're very good. And all available on Kindle or in cheap used paperbacks.

My Real Children is very well-written and clever, but I should possibly mention that I found it awesomely depressing. It contains very vivid depictions of multiple extremely depressing things, such as (not terribly spoilery; decipher with rot13.com) Nymurvzre'f qvfrnfr, orvat urycyrff va n ahefvat ubzr, rzbgvbany nohfr, cnvashy qrngu ol pnapre, naq ahpyrne jne.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes, the jacket copy lists most of that - it looks like it will be a rough read.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The movie Belle just *looks* so pretty--I wonder if it's playing around here.

But yes, I suspect you're right, and the author of the book would have been better off going with fiction.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I actually picked up the book because the cover, which is a still from the movie, looked so irresistibly beautiful.

[tea-for-lupin.livejournal.com]

Ah, so you have been sucked into the Sebastian Stan vortex of doom as well? Many people of my acquaintance have succumbed. I somehow remain immune, though I haven't actually managed to see CA:TWS yet (I'm busting to, but I think I've missed my opportunity until it's out on DVD), so e'll see how I hold up after that. Nonetheless countless Tumblr gifs and images that have reduced my friends to helpless flailing have left me unmoved, so. No accounting for taste??

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Possibly actually seeing the movie will suck you into the vortex as well? IDK, it's kind of embarrassing, although also oddly delightful to be interested in something that so many other people are interested in at the same time.

Although I have not yet succumbed so shipping Stucky. Possibly the fact that the portmanteau name is so terrible has helped save me? I find Steve/Peggy/Bucky interesting, and also Steve/Bucky/Natasha, but apparently I really need the third person in there to balance things out.

[samgrass.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't realize Paula Byrne also wrote Mad World! It sounds a little more substantial than Belle -- still not the tightest/densest nonfiction I've ever read I really enjoyed it, at least at the time.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

So is it about Evelyn Waugh's secret gay Edwardian Oxford affair? I may have to give it a look if so.

[samgrass.livejournal.com]

Yes! More or less, iirc. It's definitely about him being a bit gayer (and having more queer friends) than he'd like to let on, though he treats some of them a bit rottenly.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Somehow it doesn't surprise me that he treated some of his friends rottenly. I'll have to check the book out!