Wednesday Reading Meme
Sep. 29th, 2021 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Ludo and the Star Horse, which I loved! All I knew about the book when I began was that it was a mid-twentieth century children’s fantasy written by Mary Stewart, and I loved the process of discovering what it was about, but in case you want a bit more detail, , it’s about the magical adventures of a Bavarian peasant boy named Ludo and his horse, Renti. When Renti breaks out of the stable during a blizzard, Ludo follows him out into the snow, and the two of them end up stumbling into a magical cave, peopled by princes who are the students of a centaur called the Archer.
Renti, it turns out, is a descendent of the star horses, and now that he is reaching the end of his life as a working farm horse, he wants to join the star horses who pull the chariot of the sun. But first, he and Ludo must pass through a series of lands, one for each sign of the Zodiac - some of whom are helpful, some dangerous, all wondrous. Stewart clearly had a deep background in Greek mythology, but the book wears it lightly. The allusions add an extra level of pleasure, but I think, for instance, the scene where a blacksmith with a twisted leg shoes Renti in horseshoes of gold would work just as well if you don’t know the blacksmith is Vulcan.
At long last I have FINISHED Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad! Discovered that many of the German POWs remained in prison camps (possibly even more awful than the usual run of Soviet prison camps: apparently in the POW camps, cannibalism was rife) until 1955. Keeping POWs for a decade after the war seems excessive.
Newbery Honor book this week: Mavis Jukes’ Like Jake and Me, a sweet but forgettable story about a young boy who likes ballet bonding with his tough manly stepfather when it turns out the stepfather is afraid of spiders.
What I’m Reading Now
regshoe is hosting a Flight of the Heron readalong - two chapters a week, although this week is just the Prologue - and as the books is available as a free ebook, I couldn’t resist joining in, even though I did literally just read it. Never too soon to revisit the slashy Jacobites!
I’ve also begun rereading William Dean Howells’ The Coast of Bohemia, about girl art students in New York in the 1890s, which I read years ago and inexplicably never posted about. This book is a trip and a half and also an amazing resource, and I still remember Cornelia and Charmian’s friendship fondly.
What I Plan to Read Next
I will probably not actually be reading this next, but now that I’ve remembered how much I enjoy Mary Stewart’s fantasy, I’m really excited to read her Merlin Chronicles someday.
Ludo and the Star Horse, which I loved! All I knew about the book when I began was that it was a mid-twentieth century children’s fantasy written by Mary Stewart, and I loved the process of discovering what it was about, but in case you want a bit more detail, , it’s about the magical adventures of a Bavarian peasant boy named Ludo and his horse, Renti. When Renti breaks out of the stable during a blizzard, Ludo follows him out into the snow, and the two of them end up stumbling into a magical cave, peopled by princes who are the students of a centaur called the Archer.
Renti, it turns out, is a descendent of the star horses, and now that he is reaching the end of his life as a working farm horse, he wants to join the star horses who pull the chariot of the sun. But first, he and Ludo must pass through a series of lands, one for each sign of the Zodiac - some of whom are helpful, some dangerous, all wondrous. Stewart clearly had a deep background in Greek mythology, but the book wears it lightly. The allusions add an extra level of pleasure, but I think, for instance, the scene where a blacksmith with a twisted leg shoes Renti in horseshoes of gold would work just as well if you don’t know the blacksmith is Vulcan.
At long last I have FINISHED Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad! Discovered that many of the German POWs remained in prison camps (possibly even more awful than the usual run of Soviet prison camps: apparently in the POW camps, cannibalism was rife) until 1955. Keeping POWs for a decade after the war seems excessive.
Newbery Honor book this week: Mavis Jukes’ Like Jake and Me, a sweet but forgettable story about a young boy who likes ballet bonding with his tough manly stepfather when it turns out the stepfather is afraid of spiders.
What I’m Reading Now
regshoe is hosting a Flight of the Heron readalong - two chapters a week, although this week is just the Prologue - and as the books is available as a free ebook, I couldn’t resist joining in, even though I did literally just read it. Never too soon to revisit the slashy Jacobites!I’ve also begun rereading William Dean Howells’ The Coast of Bohemia, about girl art students in New York in the 1890s, which I read years ago and inexplicably never posted about. This book is a trip and a half and also an amazing resource, and I still remember Cornelia and Charmian’s friendship fondly.
"Well, I hope you're not conventional! Nobody's conventional here."
"I don't believe I'm conventional enough to hurt," said Cornelia.
"You have humor, too," said Miss Maybough, thoughtfully, as if she had been mentally cataloguing her characteristics. "You'll be popular."
Cornelia stared at her and turned to her drawing.
"But you're proud," said the other, "I can see that. I adore pride. It must have been your pride that fascinated me at the first glance. Do you mind my being fascinated with you?"
Cornelia wanted to laugh; at the same time she wondered what new kind of crazy person she had got with; this was hardly one of the art-students that went wild from overwork. Miss Maybough kept on without waiting to be answered: "I haven't got a bit of pride, myself. I could just let you walk over me. How does it feel to be proud? What are you proud for?"
What I Plan to Read Next
I will probably not actually be reading this next, but now that I’ve remembered how much I enjoy Mary Stewart’s fantasy, I’m really excited to read her Merlin Chronicles someday.
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Date: 2021-09-29 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-29 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-29 06:04 pm (UTC)One of these days I will read Flight of the Heron. I have an omnibus of the trilogy waiting on a shelf for someday.
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Date: 2021-09-29 09:47 pm (UTC)I will say I have quite enjoyed the readalong so far, so if that is the kind of thing you like, perhaps now is the time for Flight of the Heron? (Although I realize not everyone is a readalong person.)
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Date: 2021-09-29 07:01 pm (UTC)Quite right :D
The Coast of Bohemia sounds amazing—"Do you mind my being fascinated with you?", that is always a good way for a fictional friendship to begin!
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Date: 2021-09-29 09:50 pm (UTC)The Coast of Bohemia, like all Howells novels, is A Lot, and I'm going to be making a post about it once I'm done. (The post title might be "Charmian Is a Lesbian.") He wrote many novels and they are all A Lot, almost always in different ways, and I'm convinced that if I keep going long enough I WILL find a slashy one, as a sort of matched pair for this femslashy one.
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Date: 2021-09-30 06:01 pm (UTC)Howells sounds like a fun author! Femslashy, from the 1890s and A Lot sounds like very much my kind of thing, so I've downloaded The Coast of Bohemia—I'll see what I make of it :D
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Date: 2021-09-30 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-30 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-30 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-01 09:34 pm (UTC)(I have finally gotten around to subscribing to your dw!)
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Date: 2021-10-02 02:19 pm (UTC)And YES, I love the vividness of all the characters. It's especially fun how the Zodiac characters (the Goat, the water carrier, etc.) feel like real people without losing that numinous mythological edge. It can be a hard balance to get and Stewart does it so well!