Wednesday Reading Meme
Jun. 6th, 2018 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Susan Coolidge’s Eyebright, which among its other endearing qualities contains a scene where the delighted heroine discovers a stack of books that have been chosen especially for her. (Naturally I took note of all the titles, and moved right on to A. D. Whitney’s We Girls, about which more anon.) I quite enjoyed many parts of this book - Eyebright’s visit to the Shakers, and her island home off the coast of Maine, and her visit to the tide pools in a cave that are like little fairy gardens - but sadly I don’t think it ever quite comes together as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
I also finished Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women, which I liked more than Some Tame Gazelle, although I’m still not sure I’ll read more Pym because her books are just so sad. Pym is writing about single women in mid-20th century Britain leading lives of quiet desperation, which are all the sadder for their very uneventful quietness, endless lives stretching forward in an unbroken string of gray days. At the end of the day I’d prefer to read about Miss Read’s spinsters and their lives of quiet contentment.
And I read Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn, which is deliciously atmospheric. Twenty three-year-old Mary Yellan, recently orphaned, has just moved to Cornwall to live with her aunt and uncle in their crumbling on on the barren coast, where the sea booms and the wind rushes across the empty moor.
But I didn’t like it as much as Rebecca or My Cousin Rachel; Jamaica Inn has a sense of looming sexual menace which those books mostly lack, which is not so much bad as not to my taste. And I quite disliked the endgame pairing, and it really detracts from the reading experience shouting “NO DON’T DO IT!” at the heroine as she goes ahead and does it. You’ll be better off alone, Mary! And I’m not sure why she thinks this dude and SPINSTERHOOD FOREVER are her only options anyway; she’s young and pretty and clearly well able to attract men.
Oh! And I completed my June challenge, “a book you can read in a day,” with Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Which was moderately amusing.
What I’m Reading Now
I suspect I’ll be reading A. D. Whitney’s We Girls for the rest of June, not because of any flaw in the book, but because summer reading has began and therefore I have less time to read at work. That’s probably a good thing but a bit frustrating from a reading perspective.
What I Plan to Read Next
No firm plans as yet. I’m turning over possibilities for my July challenge, “a book that’s more than 500 pages.” Leaning toward Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but I’ve still got a month in which to decide.
Susan Coolidge’s Eyebright, which among its other endearing qualities contains a scene where the delighted heroine discovers a stack of books that have been chosen especially for her. (Naturally I took note of all the titles, and moved right on to A. D. Whitney’s We Girls, about which more anon.) I quite enjoyed many parts of this book - Eyebright’s visit to the Shakers, and her island home off the coast of Maine, and her visit to the tide pools in a cave that are like little fairy gardens - but sadly I don’t think it ever quite comes together as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
I also finished Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women, which I liked more than Some Tame Gazelle, although I’m still not sure I’ll read more Pym because her books are just so sad. Pym is writing about single women in mid-20th century Britain leading lives of quiet desperation, which are all the sadder for their very uneventful quietness, endless lives stretching forward in an unbroken string of gray days. At the end of the day I’d prefer to read about Miss Read’s spinsters and their lives of quiet contentment.
And I read Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn, which is deliciously atmospheric. Twenty three-year-old Mary Yellan, recently orphaned, has just moved to Cornwall to live with her aunt and uncle in their crumbling on on the barren coast, where the sea booms and the wind rushes across the empty moor.
But I didn’t like it as much as Rebecca or My Cousin Rachel; Jamaica Inn has a sense of looming sexual menace which those books mostly lack, which is not so much bad as not to my taste. And I quite disliked the endgame pairing, and it really detracts from the reading experience shouting “NO DON’T DO IT!” at the heroine as she goes ahead and does it. You’ll be better off alone, Mary! And I’m not sure why she thinks this dude and SPINSTERHOOD FOREVER are her only options anyway; she’s young and pretty and clearly well able to attract men.
Oh! And I completed my June challenge, “a book you can read in a day,” with Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Which was moderately amusing.
What I’m Reading Now
I suspect I’ll be reading A. D. Whitney’s We Girls for the rest of June, not because of any flaw in the book, but because summer reading has began and therefore I have less time to read at work. That’s probably a good thing but a bit frustrating from a reading perspective.
What I Plan to Read Next
No firm plans as yet. I’m turning over possibilities for my July challenge, “a book that’s more than 500 pages.” Leaning toward Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but I’ve still got a month in which to decide.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-06 01:56 pm (UTC)Her short stories, on the other hand, DAMN. Those are brilliant tales of unease. A lot are quite like Shirley Jackson.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-06 05:59 pm (UTC)+1. I just got my father Don't Look Now because he read the original short story of "The Birds" and was blown away.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-06 09:51 pm (UTC)Aww.... https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-haunted-looking-glass?s=recomatic&variant=1094932021