Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

A couple of NetGalley books, one of which I’ve already posted about & one of which I really liked and am therefore finding it difficult to post about. Why is it always so much easier to write about the books you hate?

I guess there is an element of vulnerability in saying that you loved something, or that something touched you or inspired you, in a way that isn’t true of saying that you hated something.

What I’m Reading Now

Ethel Turner’s The Family at Misrule, the sequel to Seven Little Australians, because my heart finally recovered from the ending of that first book. The second book seems less likely to BREAK MY HEART AND CRUSH IT INTO PULP, but then I didn’t expect it of the first book either till the very last chapter, so WHO KNOWS.

I’m also reading The Collected Raffles, which is all four books of Raffles stories collected into one; I’ve finished the first two, and they are just as much ludicrous late-Victorian you-don’t-even-need-slash-goggles-to-see-this fun as they were when I read the first few stories online.

It really is nicer to have them in book form though. I don’t mean to knock ebooks - God knows without them, my quest to read obscure old books would be utterly hamstrung - but I do feel that I retain more & often have more of an emotional response when I read books on paper.

...although being an ebook certainly did not keep me from having an emotional response to Seven Little Australians, so maybe not so much.

What I Plan to Read Next

GUESS WHO JUST FOUND DOROTHY SAYERS’ HAVE HIS CARCASE. THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S ME. I now have all four Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane books!

...I’m actually still not planning to read them for a few more months (I’m saving them for my reading challenge “Three or more books by one author”), but it’s nice to have them all.

For books that I am planning to read next in the literal sense: Isobelle Carmody’s The Red Queen. I’ll be back visiting my parents for the weekend, so I will have lots of lovely empty time to read, which is really the best way to read a Carmody book IMO.

Comments

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

RAFFLES! It's always just a little startling to realize that I actually don't care about Raffles at all, except that poor Bunny cares so much. I'd say "Bunny, you need better friends" but does he really? Obviously he would resent this transparent attempt to steal Raffles away from him. Oh, Bunny. :|

So I'm happy that you found all the books you were looking for, but I am also A LITTLE DISAPPOINTED because I was looking forward to sending you this paperback copy of Have His Carcase with a humorously inaccurate cover illustration. Still! I'll be interested to see what you think.

Why is it always so much easier to write about the books you hate?

Story of my life. Or at least it used to be; now I have trouble even hating books with my former joyful ease.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Bunny might need better friends, but he clearly doesn't want them. Raffles and only Raffles for him!

Now I want to see a picture of this humorously inaccurate cover illustration. Do you keep an eye out for books with bizarrely inaccurate covers? I seem to remember you snagged one when you visited me, too.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

I don't remember buying any specially inaccurate ones when I was with you, but I do keep an eye out for comically inaccurate covers, and also comically lurid covers and covers with spoilers on them.

I tried to scan you the cover, but my scanner is being difficult. So Harriet's practical walking suit will have to wait.

[thisbluespirit]

I guess there is an element of vulnerability in saying that you loved something, or that something touched you or inspired you, in a way that isn’t true of saying that you hated something.

Yes. Other people may declare that they hated it, spell out all the things wrong with it and those then haunt and spoil it, too. It's very unfair, really.

Aw, have a nice time with your Carmody book, even if it did have the bad taste to displace Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
I’ve finished the first two, and they are just as much ludicrous late-Victorian you-don’t-even-need-slash-goggles-to-see-this fun as they were when I read the first few stories online.

I haven't read the books yet, but this is a pretty good description of the 70s adaptation (or as much of it as I could take before I panicked over the protagonists breaking the law all the time; I am not good at law breaking unless for very important good reasons). I'm not sure if it's the slashiest 70s thing, because some of the BBC Shakespeare is pretty hard to beat, but it's certainly right there in the top ten. I feel sure that after I stopped they must have kissed because there was nowhere else left for the relationship to go.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I've seen this TV adaptation! Or at least most of it; I didn't get all the way to the end, so I don't know for sure if it ended in the two of the kissing. At very least, I feel like it ought to have ended with Bunny kissing Raffles' marble brow after Raffles dies in some appropriately dramatic and redemptive fashion - and then Bunny goes off to write the chronicles of their adventures, so Raffles can live forever at least in literature.

There was an episode I particularly liked where Raffles gets stuck in a murder machine worthy of a Bond villain and Bunny has to save him. OH BUNNY. (I just read the written version of this and Bunny is far less clever and heroic than in the TV version. Good on you, TV writers.)

[thisbluespirit]

I didn't get all the way to the end, so I don't know for sure if it ended in the two of the kissing. At very least, I feel like it ought to have ended with Bunny kissing Raffles' marble brow after Raffles dies in some appropriately dramatic and redemptive fashion - and then Bunny goes off to write the chronicles of their adventures, so Raffles can live forever at least in literature.

LOL, let us both imagine that it did! I can't cope with my characters breaking the law all the time like that, which is a shame, because it was a pretty fun series otherwise. (I was watching it because my favourite James Maxwell was Inspector McKenzie in the pilot. Which is the version with dodgy intentions about getting Bunny in his dark room, obviously not realising that Bunny and Raffles are already married.)

Aww, yay, 1970s writers! Sometimes they improve things; sometimes they really don't. It's good to know when they do. :-)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Why is it always so much easier to write about the books you hate?

This is so true, though God knows why it is. Bad reviews are often a lot more fun to read as well.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It helps that bad reviews are often funny, too: the reviewer is drawing out all the most ludicrous qualities of this horrible horrible book/movie/TV show. Whereas a good review is almost inevitably earnest.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I am looking forward to you getting to the Sayers. Have you read The Prisoner of Zenda though? I mean, you can read Have his Carcase without Zenda, but I feel it does add something if you have.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I have read The Prisoner of Zenda! I liked it so much that I even read Rupert of Hentzau,

[littlerhymes]

I've never read The Family at Misrule. Please advise if I should let it tread on my heart, or if I should avoid for fear of sobbing in public!

Raffles is a delight.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I haven't quite finished it yet, so I don't know if it will end with TRAGEDY like the first, but it def. starts the heart treading about three-quarters of the way through. I was reading it on my lunch break at work today and snuffling pathetically as *spoilers redacted* happened.