Wednesday Reading Meme
Mar. 3rd, 2021 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Max smiled. “Perhaps my greatest charm is that I’ve no interest in killing you.”
“That is important in a friendship,” she told him gravely, with a twinkle in her eye.
After the Shirley Jackson biography I needed a light read to cleanse my palate, and Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish really fit the bill. This one has a clever twist in its spy plot, and I enjoyed the Moroccan setting. (Gilman seems to be getting increasingly fed up with the CIA as the books go along: this book mentions Mrs. Pollifax upbraiding her CIA handler Carstairs after the Iran-Contra scandal.)
Another light and cheerful book was Gerald Durrell’s Two in the Bush, about his trips to New Zealand, Australia, and Malaya. I think I can do no better by this book than to let you read this passage about Durrell’s encounter with a wombat:
AND FINALLY, last but assuredly not least, I got the latest Charles Lenox mystery, An Extravagant Death! In this book, The Most Comfortable Man in London becomes The Most Comfortable Man in Newport, as he travels to America to learn about American policing methods but, inevitably, becomes embroiled in a murder investigation in America’s playground for the rich. Loved the atmosphere in this book. Thrilled to see Charles Lenox in America! A little worried that this might be the last book in the series, as it ends with Lenox talking about retiring? DON’T DO THIS TO ME, CHARLES FINCH. Do you know how much trouble it would be to find a new favorite mystery series? DO YOU KNOW.
What I’m Reading Now
I’m finally doing the sensible thing and reading James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom to give myself a basic grounding in the Civil War. Why did I wait so many years to do this? Wouldn’t it have been easier to start here so that I could have approached my other Civil War reading with a solid knowledge of, for instance, when and where Antietam happened and why it mattered?
I’m also reading Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, which is beautifully written but SO sad. As McCourt says on the first page, “It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while.” (I have actually read some very fine happy childhood memoirs but that is emphatically not McCourt’s genre.) I may need another Mrs. Pollifax book after this to raise my spirits.
What I Plan to Read Next
More Irish books! Siobhan Dowd’s Bog Child and Maeve Binchy’s Evening Class have both arrived, and they ought to keep me busy for a while.
Max smiled. “Perhaps my greatest charm is that I’ve no interest in killing you.”
“That is important in a friendship,” she told him gravely, with a twinkle in her eye.
After the Shirley Jackson biography I needed a light read to cleanse my palate, and Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish really fit the bill. This one has a clever twist in its spy plot, and I enjoyed the Moroccan setting. (Gilman seems to be getting increasingly fed up with the CIA as the books go along: this book mentions Mrs. Pollifax upbraiding her CIA handler Carstairs after the Iran-Contra scandal.)
Another light and cheerful book was Gerald Durrell’s Two in the Bush, about his trips to New Zealand, Australia, and Malaya. I think I can do no better by this book than to let you read this passage about Durrell’s encounter with a wombat:
The Wombat, having appeared out of the undergrowth, paused for a moment and then sneezed violently and with a melancholy air. Then he shook himself and walked up the path towards me with the slow, flat-footed, resigned walk of a teddy bear who knows he is no longer favourite in the nursery. He approached me in this dispirited manner, his eyes blank, obviously thinking deep and morbid thoughts. I was standing quite still, and so it wasn’t until he was within a couple of yards of my feet that he noticed me. To my astonishment he did not rush off into the forest - he did not even check in his advance. He walked straight up to my legs and proceeded to examine my trousers and shoes with a faintly interested air. Then he sneezed again, uttered a heartrending sigh, pushed past me unceremoniously, and continued up the path.
AND FINALLY, last but assuredly not least, I got the latest Charles Lenox mystery, An Extravagant Death! In this book, The Most Comfortable Man in London becomes The Most Comfortable Man in Newport, as he travels to America to learn about American policing methods but, inevitably, becomes embroiled in a murder investigation in America’s playground for the rich. Loved the atmosphere in this book. Thrilled to see Charles Lenox in America! A little worried that this might be the last book in the series, as it ends with Lenox talking about retiring? DON’T DO THIS TO ME, CHARLES FINCH. Do you know how much trouble it would be to find a new favorite mystery series? DO YOU KNOW.
What I’m Reading Now
I’m finally doing the sensible thing and reading James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom to give myself a basic grounding in the Civil War. Why did I wait so many years to do this? Wouldn’t it have been easier to start here so that I could have approached my other Civil War reading with a solid knowledge of, for instance, when and where Antietam happened and why it mattered?
I’m also reading Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, which is beautifully written but SO sad. As McCourt says on the first page, “It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while.” (I have actually read some very fine happy childhood memoirs but that is emphatically not McCourt’s genre.) I may need another Mrs. Pollifax book after this to raise my spirits.
What I Plan to Read Next
More Irish books! Siobhan Dowd’s Bog Child and Maeve Binchy’s Evening Class have both arrived, and they ought to keep me busy for a while.
