osprey_archer: (books)
[personal profile] osprey_archer
What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I love childhood memoirs, so when [personal profile] asakiyume wrote about Little White Duck: A Childhood in China, a graphic novel memoir about the author’s childhood in China in the late seventies, of course I had to read it. It’s a short book with a distinctive artistic style (it reminds me a little bit of propaganda posters from the time period) and a child’s-eye-view of a distinctive moment in history - super interesting, although if you are especially sensitive about animal harm, there’s a chapter in which schoolchildren are assigned to Do Their Part in eliminating the Four Pests (mice, cockroaches, mosquitos, and… I forget the fourth one… this is after sparrows had been taken off the list).

I also finished Maeve Binchy’s Evening Class! [personal profile] skygiants, thank you for reccing this one. The book introduces such an interesting and wide-ranging panoply of characters, all with such interest and care that I really enjoyed getting to know them all, even though I also spent a good portion of this book arguing with its attitudes about love. (Should you stay with someone who makes you miserable just because you love them? Should you really?) But it was a productive and thought-provoking disagreement rather than an exasperating one.

I also read Jacqueline Woodson’s Before the Ever After, a novel in verse about a boy whose football player father is suffering from memory loss and mood swings caused by repeated head trauma. It’s less depressing than this description makes it sound - ZJ’s three close friends are a source of light and happiness as his father’s worsening health casts a heavy cloud of worry over his family life - but still very sad.

And I read the latest Baby-sitters Little Sister graphic novel, Karen’s Worst Day because apparently I am going to read all the Little Sister graphic novels as they come out. Maybe I will eventually Stockholm syndrome myself into an appreciation for Karen Brewer?

What I’m Reading Now

I’ve just finished part four in Wilkie Collins’ Armadale, and Lydia Gwilt’s plan to pass herself off as Allan Armadale’s widow has run into difficulties when Allan Armadale turned up ALIVE after his yacht supposedly wrecked at sea. Will Lydia and her confederates manage to intercept him and stash him in an asylum before he makes his continued existence known to his lawyers? Will Lydia’s actual husband, the OTHER Allan Armadale, realize Lydia’s perfidious scheme before it’s too late to save his friend? TUNE IN NEXT WEEK TO FIND OUT.

What I Plan to Read Next

The combined enthusiasm of the entire internet has finally battered me into putting a hold on the first Murderbot novella, All Systems Red.
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