osprey_archer | Wednesday Reading Meme

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Many books! I’ve reached the part in Honeytrap where I need to write Investigation and Menace and an Evil Kidnapping Congressman getting hit on the head with a frying pan, much of which will hopefully be cathartic but none of which is really my forte, so I took a couple days break to catch up on my tottering pile of library books.

First, Susanna Kearsley’s The Shadowy Horses, which was all right, but not so much that I’m planning to check out other Kearsley books. I thought the ending, in particular, was quite abrupt: suddenly evil plots!

Second, Constance Reid’s Slacks and Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory, which as the title suggests is a memoir about two women working in a bomber factory in World War II - I’m a sucker for stories about women’s work in World War II and this one is particularly fun because it was written contemporaneously (published in 1944) in that breezy, wise-cracking forties style that’s so much fun. And! It’s got illustrations, courtesy of Reid’s buddy in bomber factory work, Clara Marie Allen, who taught art at the high school where Reid taught English. (That’s why they only spend the summer at the bomber factory.) (I picked up this book because

troisoiseaux recommended it - here’s the review that won me over.)

Third, Mario Giordano’s Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna. I was on the fence about continuing the series after the first book, but now that I’ve read this second one - in which Auntie Poldi acquires a detective gang, Padre Paolo and Signora Cocuzzo (a.k.a. the sad signora, who runs a little cafe and never smiles) and her nephew, the narrator, bows to the inevitable and agrees to be her Watson, I intend to continue. A detective series is all about the recurring cast, after all!

Naturally, the third book is not out yet, so this decision is practically meaningless at this moment. But eventually it will bring me more reading material.

And finally! I am one novel short of finishing my quest to read all of Shirley Jackson’s novels, having completed The Bird’s Nest, her 1954 novel about a young woman with multiple personality disorder (which I believe has been renamed, but it’s probably best to keep in mind that the book was published 70 years ago and is presumably working off the understanding of multiple personality disorder current at that time).

Is it psychologically accurate? Hell if I know. Is it a pretty darn Shirley Jackson book? Yes, very much so. Clearly Jackson heard about multiple personality disorder somewhere and realized that this meant she could create four different characters so enmeshed that they’re actually the same person and went to the races with it.

What I’m Reading Now

Tamara Allen’s The Road to Silver Plume, which is the first of an m/m series. There’s an investigation plot: the main characters are a Treasury employee and his criminal-going-legit-maybe partner who are investigating counterfeits in 1890s America, SIDENOTE, I have long yearned to read a book in which 19th century counterfeiting plays a large role, so glad someone is finally taking it on. But the main emotional weight of the story lies with the romance, and I’m curious to see how that works over multiple books, because it seems pretty clearly that it is one romance in multiple books and not a series of connected romance books with overlapping cast but different protags (which seems to be the main format for romance series).

What I Plan to Read Next

Marie Brennan has a new novel out! Or coming out soon, I’m not sure which. It’s a spinoff of the Lady Trent series called Turning Darkness into Light and… actually I looked no further than the fact that it was a new Marie Brennan novel with dragons on the cover. Bring it to me, library!