osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2017-11-08 09:33 am
osprey_archer) wrote2017-11-08 09:33 am
Wednesday Reading Meme
What I’ve Just Finished Reading
I don’t think I’ve finished anything this week! Well, the Krakauer book earlier this week, but nothing since then.
What I’m Reading Now
I’m still working on William Dean Howells’ Venetian Life, which is growing on me in a mild sort of way. It is reminding me yet again how fervently anti-monarchy many nineteenth-century Americans were, and how very proud of their republican form of government, and I think that pride is giving Howells a certain sense of fellow-feeling for the Venetian Republic even if it often fell short of its republican ideals. But then what country does not? The US was having a civil war when Howells served in Venice, and that’s a failure of representative government if I ever heard of one.
And I started reading Tom Reiss’s The Black Count! The book kicks off with Reiss cracking into a safe to get access to papers about Alexandre Dumas’s father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, which seems like an appropriately dramatic way to learn about the Dumas family honestly. (Although he did have government permission for this spot of safecracking, which perhaps makes it slightly less Dumasian.)
What I Plan to Read Next
I don’t usually read the Big Idea pieces on John Scalzi’s blog, but the art for Above the Timberline caught my eye, as did the author’s reference to Dinotopia - anyone who lists Dinotopia as an influence has to be good, am I right? - and now I super want to read it. Bring it to meeee, library!
I don’t think I’ve finished anything this week! Well, the Krakauer book earlier this week, but nothing since then.
What I’m Reading Now
I’m still working on William Dean Howells’ Venetian Life, which is growing on me in a mild sort of way. It is reminding me yet again how fervently anti-monarchy many nineteenth-century Americans were, and how very proud of their republican form of government, and I think that pride is giving Howells a certain sense of fellow-feeling for the Venetian Republic even if it often fell short of its republican ideals. But then what country does not? The US was having a civil war when Howells served in Venice, and that’s a failure of representative government if I ever heard of one.
And I started reading Tom Reiss’s The Black Count! The book kicks off with Reiss cracking into a safe to get access to papers about Alexandre Dumas’s father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, which seems like an appropriately dramatic way to learn about the Dumas family honestly. (Although he did have government permission for this spot of safecracking, which perhaps makes it slightly less Dumasian.)
What I Plan to Read Next
I don’t usually read the Big Idea pieces on John Scalzi’s blog, but the art for Above the Timberline caught my eye, as did the author’s reference to Dinotopia - anyone who lists Dinotopia as an influence has to be good, am I right? - and now I super want to read it. Bring it to meeee, library!
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The Musketeers totally had gov't permission for what they did! I mean, which member of the gov't and how they got it was another matter, but I don't think it detracts from the perfect Dumas-opening there.
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