Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I've Just Finished Reading

Edward Eager's Magic or Not?. I was on the fence about the first two Eager books I read, but this one totally charmed me; it's one of my favorite fantasy subgenres, where it's unclear if there really is magic going on or just a whole lot of imagination - but just a little more evidence on the side of magic than against it. (Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Headless Cupid also falls in this category.)

What I'm Reading Now

I've been reading Carl Safina's Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, which I've really been enjoying. Safina doesn't just talk in the abstract about animal cognition: he observes animals in their natural habitat and social context and tells us their stories, and it gives his book an almost novelistic feeling. The first section is about elephants - I love elephants! - and now I'm in the part about wolves, and there's a wolf pack that is in the process of splitting apart and it's full of epic drama.

Like seriously, this stuff would make an amazing novel. Although I think a novelist might almost inevitably end up making the wolves seem like furry four-legged humans? So perhaps it's just as well that it's nonfiction.

I've also started Stefan Zweig's Beware of Pity, my first book for the 2017 Reading Challenge ("a book in translation"). So far, our narrator has been invited to a party at an important local landowner's house, where he committed the faux pas of forgetting to ask the daughter of the house to dance - only to discover, when he tried to correct his mistake, that the daughter of the house has been crippled by an as-yet-undisclosed accident (I'm betting riding accident) and can't dance. She bursts into heart-rending sobs when he asks.

What I Plan to Read Next

I'm almost done with The Count of Monte Cristo! So I've been looking for a new book to read at bedtime, and I have decided it's time to treat myself to the Ivy + Bean series.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

I read Magic or Not once! Or at least, a book by that name - I have an odd feelings it was by someone else (a woman), not Edward Eager. (But on the other hand, there is no sign of any such book existing, so maybe I'm wrong.) It was the most annoying book I'd ever read, though, because someone had torn out the final page and I never did learn if it was magic or not. I'm glad to hear yours was good and complete.

(So ends my pointless comment for this entry. ;-p)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

NOOOOO, what kind of monster tears out the final page of a book? Shame upon them! Shame upon their cow!

I once read a book that had been printed without the final chapter. It ended so abruptly that I actually sought out another copy to check if it was really supposed to end there, and nope, there really was another chapter that got left out in the first copy.

[thisbluespirit]

That is a bit weird - at least you managed to find a complete copy, though!

[tamsin]

Beyond Words sounds great - I love reading about wolves.

I've read Beware of Pity years ago and the only thing I remember is wanting to shake the narrator a lot. I'm curious what you'll think of it. My favorite from Zweig is Chess.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I have strong suspicions that I will end up wanting to shake the narrator - or possibly most of the characters in the book - but we'll see! It's still early days.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

it's one of my favorite fantasy subgenres, where it's unclear if there really is magic going on or just a whole lot of imagination

I like this too, though I can't seem to think of any examples right now!

I don't think it's inevitable that a novelist would make the animals seem like humans - but it would be rare, and fascinating! Maybe I should read this book, too.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It's so hard to think of examples when people ask for them. Even if I know that I've read a billion books just like that, my mind goes blank and I can't remember any of them till three days later.

I think you would like Beyond Words! It's got so many stories of so many different animals woven through it; it's fascinating.