Wednesday Reading Meme
Oct. 24th, 2018 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
The combined blandishments ofrachelmanija and skygiants made Dorothy Gilman’s A Nun in the Closet impossible to resist, and it is indeed a delightful book. Two nuns (Sister John and Sister Hyacinthe) head to upstate New York to check out a property their impoverished nunnery has unexpectedly received; Sister Hyacinthe is concerned when they find a man bleeding from three bullet wounds in the closet and a suitcase full of money down the well, but Sister John remains blissfully calm: clearly God sent them the money so their order could make good use of it.
Sister John was chosen for the trip because of her all-around competence, thus proving that competence and common sense are not necessarily related.
They also team up with a bunch of hippies who are trying out their back-to-the-land experiment on the grounds of the long-abandoned house the sisters have inherited. Hippies and nuns: two great tastes that taste great together! And in a way it makes sense: both hippies and nuns are countercultural in the sense of rejecting mainstream American cultural values, even if their reasons for it are quite different.
I also finished E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It, which I enjoyed, although I must confess that my favorite part was seeing which bits Edward Eager borrowed for his own books half a century later. There’s a chapter in here where the children wish the baby was grown up that Eager riffs off of twice: once when the girls wish themselves grown up and instantly turn into flappers, and another time when the children wish the baby grown and he becomes grown up in size - but still a baby in thought.
And also Cokie Roberts’ Ladies of Liberty, which was less engrossing than her Capital Dames even though in Ladies of Liberty the British burn down the White House, which one feels ought to be enough excitement for anyone.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun Mary Stewart’s Madam, Will You Talk?. So far it seems quite a classic Mary Stewart, which is impressive given that it’s her first novel - you might expect it to be rougher than her later efforts.
What I Plan to Read Next
Martha Finley’s Elsie at the World’s Fair. As I recall, I tried to read this before (the World’s Fair being an irrepressible draw) but gave up because it had lost all that unintentionally creeptastic Elsie Dinsmore flavor. It’s something like book twenty in the series and I suspect Martha Finley was just grinding them out at that point. But still! It may have useful World’s Fair nuggets.
The combined blandishments of
rachelmanija and skygiants made Dorothy Gilman’s A Nun in the Closet impossible to resist, and it is indeed a delightful book. Two nuns (Sister John and Sister Hyacinthe) head to upstate New York to check out a property their impoverished nunnery has unexpectedly received; Sister Hyacinthe is concerned when they find a man bleeding from three bullet wounds in the closet and a suitcase full of money down the well, but Sister John remains blissfully calm: clearly God sent them the money so their order could make good use of it. Sister John was chosen for the trip because of her all-around competence, thus proving that competence and common sense are not necessarily related.
They also team up with a bunch of hippies who are trying out their back-to-the-land experiment on the grounds of the long-abandoned house the sisters have inherited. Hippies and nuns: two great tastes that taste great together! And in a way it makes sense: both hippies and nuns are countercultural in the sense of rejecting mainstream American cultural values, even if their reasons for it are quite different.
I also finished E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It, which I enjoyed, although I must confess that my favorite part was seeing which bits Edward Eager borrowed for his own books half a century later. There’s a chapter in here where the children wish the baby was grown up that Eager riffs off of twice: once when the girls wish themselves grown up and instantly turn into flappers, and another time when the children wish the baby grown and he becomes grown up in size - but still a baby in thought.
And also Cokie Roberts’ Ladies of Liberty, which was less engrossing than her Capital Dames even though in Ladies of Liberty the British burn down the White House, which one feels ought to be enough excitement for anyone.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun Mary Stewart’s Madam, Will You Talk?. So far it seems quite a classic Mary Stewart, which is impressive given that it’s her first novel - you might expect it to be rougher than her later efforts.
What I Plan to Read Next
Martha Finley’s Elsie at the World’s Fair. As I recall, I tried to read this before (the World’s Fair being an irrepressible draw) but gave up because it had lost all that unintentionally creeptastic Elsie Dinsmore flavor. It’s something like book twenty in the series and I suspect Martha Finley was just grinding them out at that point. But still! It may have useful World’s Fair nuggets.
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Date: 2018-10-24 06:01 pm (UTC)My favorite part of Five Children and It was when they got wings. Though I did think a number of the others were pretty funny, especially the grown-up Lamb. The sequels are worth reading. In some ways I like The Secret of the Amulet best; it's kind of all over the place but it has some very beautiful, haunting scenes that have stuck with me.
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Date: 2018-10-25 12:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-25 12:37 am (UTC)I know, right? I once betaed for a writer who had written an excellent novel. "You've really worked hard on your writing," I said. She wrote as well as I did after twenty years of hard effort.
"Actually, it's my first story," she said.
I only whimpered a *little*.
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Date: 2018-10-25 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-25 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-25 03:57 am (UTC)My personal favorite Nesbit is The Enchanted Castle, which I recently reread and was enthralled by all over again; I've been meaning to reread some of her other fantasies since, but haven't yet gotten around to it.
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Date: 2018-10-25 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-25 09:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-26 01:22 pm (UTC)