Wednesday Reading Meme
Sep. 7th, 2022 07:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Melody Warnick’s This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live, a self-help memoir of the little exercises that Warnick did to help herself feel more rooted in her local community. Most of these exercises are low-key, visit-a-local-attraction sort of things, which is useful from a self-help perspective (a small task is much more likely to get done) but not exciting as a memoir.
A while ago,evelyn_b sent me Helen Perry Curtis’s Jean and Company, Unlimited, a 1937 novel based loosely on Curtis’s travels through Europe with her daughters (here telescoped into one daughter, Jean). Curtis was a museum curator as well as a freelance writer (most of the chapters in this book were initially serialized in a magazine) who went to Europe to purchase folk costumes, so we get a LOT of folk costume detail, plus delicious food and fascinating historical tidbits. Absolutely charming. Now I want to go on a European tour too…
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun A Wizard of Earthsea! Attempting to impress his hated rival Jasper, Ged attempted a spell to summon the spirit of a dead person and accidentally also summoned a nameless shadow creature, which is now lurking somewhere in Earthsea waiting to possess Ged so as to use him as a puppet of evil. Well, Ged, maybe you should’ve just stayed with your first master Ogion instead of going to mage school, huh?
(Also relieved that I went into this knowing that Tehanu is going to unpack some of the patriarchal assumptions undergirding Earthsea, because WOW. “Weak as women’s magic, wicked as women’s magic,” huh? Strong words from a story about a boy who summoned a nameless horror from the deep!)
In Dracula, Lucy briefly regained her health… only to take a turn for the worse! Dr. Seward has summoned his mentor Van Helsing from the continent, but Van Helsing seems devastatingly averse to telling anyone what is actually wrong. VAN HELSING, MAYBE IF YOU WERE MORE FORTHCOMING IT MIGHT SAVE HER.
What I Plan to Read Next
Once I’m done with the Newbery Honor books of the 1970s (three left!!!) I’m going to devote myself to the books on my TBR shelf, with the intention of finishing them by November. Then on my Massachusetts trip I can splurge in the used bookstores guilt-free!
Melody Warnick’s This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live, a self-help memoir of the little exercises that Warnick did to help herself feel more rooted in her local community. Most of these exercises are low-key, visit-a-local-attraction sort of things, which is useful from a self-help perspective (a small task is much more likely to get done) but not exciting as a memoir.
A while ago,
evelyn_b sent me Helen Perry Curtis’s Jean and Company, Unlimited, a 1937 novel based loosely on Curtis’s travels through Europe with her daughters (here telescoped into one daughter, Jean). Curtis was a museum curator as well as a freelance writer (most of the chapters in this book were initially serialized in a magazine) who went to Europe to purchase folk costumes, so we get a LOT of folk costume detail, plus delicious food and fascinating historical tidbits. Absolutely charming. Now I want to go on a European tour too… What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun A Wizard of Earthsea! Attempting to impress his hated rival Jasper, Ged attempted a spell to summon the spirit of a dead person and accidentally also summoned a nameless shadow creature, which is now lurking somewhere in Earthsea waiting to possess Ged so as to use him as a puppet of evil. Well, Ged, maybe you should’ve just stayed with your first master Ogion instead of going to mage school, huh?
(Also relieved that I went into this knowing that Tehanu is going to unpack some of the patriarchal assumptions undergirding Earthsea, because WOW. “Weak as women’s magic, wicked as women’s magic,” huh? Strong words from a story about a boy who summoned a nameless horror from the deep!)
In Dracula, Lucy briefly regained her health… only to take a turn for the worse! Dr. Seward has summoned his mentor Van Helsing from the continent, but Van Helsing seems devastatingly averse to telling anyone what is actually wrong. VAN HELSING, MAYBE IF YOU WERE MORE FORTHCOMING IT MIGHT SAVE HER.
What I Plan to Read Next
Once I’m done with the Newbery Honor books of the 1970s (three left!!!) I’m going to devote myself to the books on my TBR shelf, with the intention of finishing them by November. Then on my Massachusetts trip I can splurge in the used bookstores guilt-free!
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Date: 2022-09-07 12:51 pm (UTC)And Jean and Company sounds wonderful! A folk costume-themed travelogue!
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Date: 2022-09-07 02:39 pm (UTC)Jean and Company was a delight! I only wished the illustrations had more folk costume detail.
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Date: 2022-09-07 01:22 pm (UTC)Van Helsing is the only one who knows they're in Dracula, but he's not telling anybody else!
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