Post-Trip Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

I am returned from Massachusetts! As I was busy visiting Louisa May Alcott’s house, eating lobster rolls, plundering the bookstore at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art etc., I didn’t do a whole lot of reading on the trip, but I thought I would go ahead and post about what reading I did.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Delighted to inform you that in Concord (at Barrow Books, a delightful bookshop) I did indeed find one of Jane Langton’s Hall Family Chronicles - moreover, one I’ve never gotten my hands on before, The Swing in the Summerhouse! Happily I informed the bookseller that I had just that morning recreated Georgie’s walk from her house (based on an actual ornate Victorian house in Concord, 148 Walden Street!) to Walden Pond, (actually I did it backward, starting at Walden Pond and working my way in), and she gave me $10 off the purchase price and also a cup of tea.

This series is so variable. As a kid I loved and reread over and over The Diamond in the Window and The Fledgling, and although I didn’t find The Fragile Flag till after college, I remember it very well. Yet twice I’ve read books in this series and then entirely forgotten them: The Time Bike and The Astonishing Stereoscope (the book I was so pleased to find a few weeks ago!) completely slipped out of my head.

I suspect that The Swing in the Summerhouse might fall into this category, although on the other hand I may remember it because of the unforgettable tale of its acquisition.

I also listened to Ursula K. Le Guin’s Tehanu on audiobook! I understand that the main pairing in this book is controversial, but as littlerhymes can attest, I started calling Ged “dungeon boyfriend” the moment he showed up in The Tombs of Atuan, so all in all I was delighted by this turn of events.

Last but assuredly not least! My long Dracula journey is over, as Dracula Daily has come to an end. (It turns out that the ending is a trifle anticlimactic when you stretch it out over a week, but IIRC I found the ending abrupt in high school too, so perhaps it’s just like that always.) I am pining slightly, but I’ve signed up for Whale Weekly (a three-year odyssey through Moby-Dick) AND regular installments of Sherlock Holmes in 2023, so perhaps those will fill the Dracula Daily hole in my heart.

What I’m Reading Now

skygiants gave me Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair, and I’ve gotten just a few chapters into it, so I’m still sorting out the quirkily elaborate worldbuilding. Our hero has just had a chat with a toy that he accidentally brought to life, an incident that seems to encapsulate the atmosphere of the book in miniature.

And at Commonwealth Books, genarti recommended Ruth Goodman’s The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything, one of those fascinating nonfiction books with a subtitle completely at odds with the book’s actual thesis! Goodman is in fact writing about the introduction of coal into homes in Elizabethan London, and her argument is that Londoners’ familiarity with coal as a domestic product helped kickstart the Industrial Revolution; coal did of course eventually reach the rest of England (and thence the world), but the part that changed everything is way before the Victorian era. I suppose the publishers couldn’t stand to put the word “Elizabethan” in the title of a book about coal.

What I Plan to Read Next

I’ve figured out how to get my paws on the final two books in the Hall Family Chronicles, The Mysterious Circus and The Dragon Tree, and I’ve decided I owe it to myself to finish up the series.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

skygiants gave me Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair, and I’ve gotten just a few chapters into it, so I’m still sorting out the quirkily elaborate worldbuilding.

Oooooh, I look forward to your thoughts!

I'm glad you had a great trip! I hadn't heard of the Eric Carle Museum, but it sounds delightful.

[landofnowhere]

Wow, your experience at Barrow Books sounds amazing! :-D

[cyphomandra]

There are some fantastic moments in The Swing in the Summerhouse. I agree with you that stereoscope & bike are forgettable (likewise tree) but Fledgling and Fragile Flag are so good! And I love Paper Chains (not a Hall book).

[littlerhymes]

DUNGEON BOYFRIEND makes a middle-aged comeback!! I love the idea of travelling as a kind of an extended book gathering and book discussing venture before one returns to one's domicile with the fruits of one's travels (more books).

[brigid]

I'm very interested in the Goodman book and surprised that the title is so different from the subject matter. I wonder if that was an editorial decision? I'm going to see about getting that book, although I have so much I'm in the middle of reading right now.

And welcome home from your journey! It sounds awesome.

[asakiyume]

Why do publishers stick those subtitles on books when they're so off base? Mind boggling. But the book sounds fascinating.

[genarti]

Every time I remember that The Domestic Revolution's subtitle mentions Victorian England it makes me want to bite things; I think my brain mentally revises it into 'Elizabethan' or 'Tudor' when I'm not paying attention. Because the whole point of the book is that this didn't start in the Victorian era, actually! (Well, no, there are several points of the book, but that's a core one.) Come ON, publishers! But I guess they felt that the Victorian era was what would get people picking up the book.

[superborb]

Whale Weekly! I did love Dracula Daily, and its abrupt ending has left me feeling like it shouldn't be over yet!