Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I picked up James Otis’s Toby Tyler; or, Ten Weeks with a Circus because Betty MacDonald included it in a list of childhood favorites in Nancy and Plum, and now I am wondering just what young Betty MacDonald saw in the book. The ratio of “fun circus hijinks” to “running away is miserable, actually” tilts definitively toward misery, and moreover, in the penultimate chapter Toby’s pet monkey is accidentally shot by a young hunter! Toby has escaped from the circus and is on his way home and the book gratuitously slaughters his monkey! Why? WHY? Truly the unkindest cut of all.

I’ve also finished Mary Renault’s Return to Night (less harrowing than expected! Or perhaps I’ve become inured?) and Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway (MORE harrowing than expected). But those will be getting posts of their own.

What I’m Reading Now

Halfway through Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword. This book is the only thing standing between me and finishing the 1980s Newbery Honor books so I WILL PERSEVERE, even though “after six weeks of training, hero/ine is magically better than people who have been training at this thing their whole lives” is my anti-trope. I’m sorry, Harry. It’s not you, it’s me.

In cheerier news, I’ve been super enjoying Spike Carlsen’s A Walk around the Block: Stoplight Secrets, Mischievous Squirrels, Manhole Mysteries & Other Stuff You See Every Day (And Know Nothing About), which offers brisk histories of various everyday objects that you see on an everyday street: alleys, garbage trucks, the asphalt in the street itself. My only complaint is that sometimes I want yet more detail, but then, if Carlsen went into great depth he wouldn’t have space for such breadth. I’m just about to start the pigeon chapter!

And I’ve begun Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave! Merlin has just discovered said Crystal Cave and had his first scrying lesson.

What I Plan to Read Next

After The Blue Sword, I’m going to take a break from the Newbery Honor project till I feel like taking it up again. This year’s crop of winners will be appearing at the end of this month, which may inspire me… or may not! We’ll see.

Comments

[philomytha]

The Crystal Cave is one of those books I absolutely adored when I was about twelve, but now cannot remember a single thing about. I know I reread it a lot, and The Hollow Hills too, though I think I didn't enjoy the third one so much.

The everyday objects book sounds amazing, please share any interesting pigeon facts! I did a bit of reading websites about urban pigeons for writing Squadron Leader Pigeon, and they're surprisingly lovely little animals really.

[lauradi7dw]

Check out "A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching" by Rosemary Mosco, released a couple of months ago.

[philomytha]

... and my tbr pile got a little higher! Thank you :-)

[osprey_archer]

Fun pigeon fact of the day: a pigeon won a Croix de Guerre in World War I after delivering a message telling the artillery that to stop shelling their own people (who were stuck in an encircled position and couldn't get the message out any other way).

In World War II, RAF pilots carried homing pigeons on the theory that if they were lost at sea, they could send the pigeon back to base with their coordinates. Biggles could have a pigeon friend!

[philomytha]

Well, that's going to have to go in a fic now!

[osprey_archer]

I don't know how deeply you want to get into pigeons in World War II, but Gordon Corera’s Secret Pigeon Service: Operation Columba, Resistance and the Struggle to Liberate Europe is a real ride. I particularly loved the OSS pigeon division's counter-espionage tactics (in case the Germans tried to sneak spy birds into British coops!), which showed a great deal of invention and not a little wartime paranoia.

[philomytha]

Pigeon counter-espionage, this is AMAZING. Now I have two more books I want to read...

[sovay]

I know I reread it a lot, and The Hollow Hills too, though I think I didn't enjoy the third one so much.

I found the books less interesting the closer they hewed to familiar Arthuriana, which meant The Last Enchantment is definitely my least favorite of the three, but I have positive feelings about The Hollow Hills and when last I checked, still loved The Crystal Cave.

[regshoe]

A Walk around the Block—what a great idea for a non-fiction book! I hope there's plenty of good information about pigeons.

And looking forward to your thoughts on Return to Night! Yeah, of the three Renault novels I've read it is definitely the least harrowing, though very strange.

[osprey_archer]

I suspect the pigeon chapter would have been more informative if I hadn't previously read a book about pigeons in WWII, which shared many of the same tidbits. This has been my experience with most of this book: if I've never looked into a topic before, I learn lots, but if I've already read about it (even on a fairly cursory level) it just tends to repeat what I already know.

The next chapter is about squirrels which I have NOT previously read anything about, so I anticipate learning MANY thrilling squirrel factoids.

I will be posting my Return to Night thoughts tomorrow!

[regshoe]

One of the eighteenth-century books I read recently had a section all about the varieties of domestic pigeons kept in the period and tips on their management. That was an interesting bit of historical detail. But I suppose this book is more contemporary :D

Anyway, hopefully the squirrel chapter teaches you some new and exciting things!

[sovay]

The ratio of “fun circus hijinks” to “running away is miserable, actually” tilts definitively toward misery

May I recommend as an antidote Eloise Jarvis McGraw's Sawdust in His Shoes (1950)? One of my mother's favorite books as a child, out of print for decades, I was finally able to get her a copy a few years ago and I do not recall it containing any kind of gratuitous monkey harm.

[osprey_archer]

THAT POOR MONKEY. I can only assume Otis was afraid that he hadn't made running away to join the circus sufficiently unenticing, so he threw in a little monkey death to really drive it home.

[osprey_archer]

Also, I tried valiantly to resist sending in YET ANOTHER interlibrary loan for Sawdust in His Shoes. (I'm sure the interlibrary loan office is !!! about my requests at this point.) But my childhood love of Eloise Jarvis McGraw's The Moorchild defeated me and I have requested it after all.

[asakiyume]

Man, I remember when The Blue Sword came out. I was juuuust exiting the period in my life when those sorts of stories spoke to me directly (as opposed to reacting to them at a remove), and I remember liking it very much, but nothing particular about it. I even wrote the author! And she wrote back... but I found that interaction less satisfying than I had with other writers... maybe I was just closer to her, by that time, in age, or maybe it was a personality thing, or who knows....

The Crystal Cave! I remember liking that too--I drew fan art for it. But really I only liked the beginning parts. When they got to be grownups and doing grownup things, my interest flagged.

The Spike Carlsen book sounds very cool.

[osprey_archer]

You were so amazing about writing to authors when you were young! (Or maybe you still are? Do you still do this?) I thought about it sometimes but I was always too shy... now I wish I'd written to Zilpha Keatley Snyder.

I'm really enjoying the Carlsen book. The chapters are the perfect size for things like "sitting in the pharmacy waiting for my Covid booster."

[asakiyume]

Hahaha, now I just gush at them on Twitter ;-) (Thinking of Malka Older, who wrote Infomocracy)

Zilpha Keatley Snyder was one I wrote to! (I probably told you that--maybe showed you the letter?)

[osprey_archer]

I don't think you showed me the letter! Something to do whenever it becomes possible for me to visit...