Wednesday Reading Meme
May. 4th, 2016 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Constance Fenimore Woolson’s Anne! Yes, I am free of this book forever! Actually it became much less irritating later on; or maybe I just became inured to it through long exposure?
It’s very telling about the book’s priorities that the big climactic moment between the two main female characters is related only in flashback when it becomes important with regards to the man that they both love. Like, dude, I for one was interested enough in their friendship that I would have liked to read about that moment as it happened.
I also finished Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire - the first volume of it, I mean. There are apparently two more, but I barely slogged through the first one so I won’t be reading them. It’s too bad in a way; when I was a kid, I really liked the Junior Jedi Knights and Young Jedi Knights series, but somehow none of the adult Star Wars tie-in novels that I’ve read have ever worked for me.
What I’m Reading Now
I’m still reading Christopher Benfey’s My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson, which is annoying me by briskly dismissing the very idea that maybe Emily Dickinson might have been a little bit into women. For goodness sake, she just wrote her future sister-in-law envisioning a future where they would be buried side by side in the church graveyard! Side by side like a married couple! That sounds at least a little bit like romantic love!
I don’t require that Benfey buy into the idea entirely; Emily Dickinson was gushingly passionate about everything, but also oblique enough that it can be hard to tell exactly what her feelings were (not just romantically, but in general). But I think there’s enough merit to it that Benfey should at least give it some consideration rather than just brushing it aside.
I’m also continuing in Chris Jennings’ Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism, and I think I have identified what I find frustrating about this book - God, I’m just frustrated by all the books this week - which is what I find frustrating about most of the books I’m read about utopianism, actually, which is that they rarely seem to give much feeling for what it was like to actually live in one of these places. What did the Shakers eat for breakfast? Did the people in Robert Owen’s New Harmony do anything but infight all day long? These are the things I want to know.
What I Plan to Read Next
The next book I have queued up on my Kindle is Louisa May Alcott’s Moods, so definitely that. And after that - well, that’s the last unread book I have on my Kindle! Clearly it’s time to go on a Kindle spree!
And of course I am going to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover for the May book challenge. Are you ready,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
evelyn_b?
Constance Fenimore Woolson’s Anne! Yes, I am free of this book forever! Actually it became much less irritating later on; or maybe I just became inured to it through long exposure?
It’s very telling about the book’s priorities that the big climactic moment between the two main female characters is related only in flashback when it becomes important with regards to the man that they both love. Like, dude, I for one was interested enough in their friendship that I would have liked to read about that moment as it happened.
I also finished Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire - the first volume of it, I mean. There are apparently two more, but I barely slogged through the first one so I won’t be reading them. It’s too bad in a way; when I was a kid, I really liked the Junior Jedi Knights and Young Jedi Knights series, but somehow none of the adult Star Wars tie-in novels that I’ve read have ever worked for me.
What I’m Reading Now
I’m still reading Christopher Benfey’s My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson, which is annoying me by briskly dismissing the very idea that maybe Emily Dickinson might have been a little bit into women. For goodness sake, she just wrote her future sister-in-law envisioning a future where they would be buried side by side in the church graveyard! Side by side like a married couple! That sounds at least a little bit like romantic love!
I don’t require that Benfey buy into the idea entirely; Emily Dickinson was gushingly passionate about everything, but also oblique enough that it can be hard to tell exactly what her feelings were (not just romantically, but in general). But I think there’s enough merit to it that Benfey should at least give it some consideration rather than just brushing it aside.
I’m also continuing in Chris Jennings’ Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism, and I think I have identified what I find frustrating about this book - God, I’m just frustrated by all the books this week - which is what I find frustrating about most of the books I’m read about utopianism, actually, which is that they rarely seem to give much feeling for what it was like to actually live in one of these places. What did the Shakers eat for breakfast? Did the people in Robert Owen’s New Harmony do anything but infight all day long? These are the things I want to know.
What I Plan to Read Next
The next book I have queued up on my Kindle is Louisa May Alcott’s Moods, so definitely that. And after that - well, that’s the last unread book I have on my Kindle! Clearly it’s time to go on a Kindle spree!
And of course I am going to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover for the May book challenge. Are you ready,
evelyn_b?
