Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Eva Ibbotson’s The Morning Gift, which I found sad, especially at the beginning. The heroine is a refugee, who has fled Vienna (by means of a marriage of convenience, which of course turns out to be true love after much travail) to England soon after the Anschluss, so probably I should have expected it to be sad. But it’s an Ibbotson book! Who expects an Ibbotson to be sad? And A Countess Below Stairs also has refugees (White Russian refugees that time), and it’s not melancholy.

But Ibbotson herself fled Vienna in the late 1930s, and her love for the city that was before the war is strong in this book. I’ve never even been to Vienna, and I want to weep for it.

What I’m Reading Now

Rosemary Sutcliff’s Rider on a White Horse.

What I Plan to Read Next

Edwidge Danticat’s Claire of the Sea Light, which I am reading partly because I’ve seen good reviews - asakiyume, I believe you wrote about it? - but also because the cover is gorgeous, which is a dangerous method for finding new books. Hopefully this will be a Crown Duel rather than a Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls situation.

Also Maureen Johnson’s The Name of the Star.

Comments

[ladyherenya]

I just reread The Morning Gift (I finished it today). I think of it as being a joyful book, which is a bit odd because it is sad, but it's the delight Ruth takes in things - her studies, her friendships, the ocean - that always stands out for me.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

How interesting! I can absolutely see how you could read it like that, and I'm a bit puzzled why I didn't, because Ruth does have this overwhelming capacity for joy - the section about the ocean particularly is just overflowing with it.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yes! I did read it, and I liked it very, very much (and it really does have just about the most beautiful cover ever). There's lots of grim in it, as I'm sure you're discovering, but I guess I felt that there was a thread of the numinous? And a sense of the beauty and worth of life. But I'll be interested to read your take!

How's Rider on a White Horse?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I've read the first two chapters of Claire of the Sea Light so far, and I've been enjoying it. It's one of those odd books that is full of death but doesn't feel at all grim (at least so far, I suppose it might change later). I'm tentatively considering checking out some of Danticat's other books, pending how I feel when I finish this one, of course. Have you read any of her others?

Rider on a White Horse is pretty good, but also very put-down-able; I enjoy it when I'm reading it, but when it doesn't have the narrative drive to make me pick it back up once I've set it aside. I meant to write more about it this morning, but it fell by the wayside because I dashed off to work on the robot book instead.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear the robot book called you!

I haven't read any of Danticat's other books. The ones whose blurbs I checked out seemed much grimmer and maybe more lurid? I think I might try *future* books by her.

... Actually, I think she wrote one about the conflict between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and I might be interested in that one.