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

Mabel Leigh Hunt’s Better Known as Johnny Appleseed a Newbery Honor winning biography of Johnny Appleseed from 1950, a time when half the book could be short stories featuring Johnny Appleseed in a bit part and they would still call it a biography. (I quite enjoyed the short stories, but I’m not convinced biography is the right word for it.)

The short stories are all named after old apple varieties, and I gathered these names like so many fallen jewels: I gathered up the names of the antique apples like so many fallen jewels: Fall Wines and Fallawaters, Russets and Rambos, Gillyflowers and Golden Pippins, Sweet Boughs and Seek-No-Furthers.

I finished Marisa G. Franco’s Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep Friends as an Adult a week ago, and I’ve already forgotten most of it, (self-help books are perhaps chewing gum for the brain?), but I liked this quote from W. H. Auden: “We’d rather be ruined than be changed.”

What I’m Reading Now

No Yellow Poppy this week, as I went a bit mad and started ALL my Irish books at one time. I’m working on R. A. MacAvoy’s The Grey Horse, Maeve Binchy’s Circle of Friends, Seamus O’Reilly’s Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?, AND an audiobook of Sally Rooney’s Normal People. In The Grey Horse, the horse has just turned into a man! Meanwhile, Circle of Friends is giving me some Neapolitan Quartet vibes.

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? includes an early chapter about What Not to Say to the Bereaved, which appears to include every possible thing that you could say to the bereaved, including saying nothing at all. A lot of memoirs about grief include this chapter, and there never seems to be a companion chapter about What You Can Say to the Bereaved Without Scarring Them For Life Or At Least Till They Get It Off Their Chest in a Memoir. However I powered through, and we are now on the more promising ground on the retail foibles of various shops in Derry.

What I Plan to Read Next

I will probably not finish all my Irish books in time, but IF I finish all my Irish books in time, [personal profile] troisoiseaux recommended Sarah Tolmie’s novella The Fourth Island, set off the coast of Ireland.

Date: 2023-03-08 12:48 pm (UTC)
asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)
From: [personal profile] asakiyume
So you read the Neapolitan Quartet? (I did not; I have not-read most things.)

I gathered up the names of the antique apples like so many fallen jewels --love that <3 Those names *are* jewels.

Also laughing at your remark about self-help books. They often have one or two interesting observations... which they then stretch and pull into a book. Though again, I say this mainly based on reading other people's reviews of self-help books, not based on my own experience, so maybe I need to withhold judgment.

Hoping (but is even saying this going to jinx it?) to start a letter to you today. I have ~ the best card ~

Date: 2023-03-08 01:46 pm (UTC)
black_bentley: (Default)
From: [personal profile] black_bentley
I haven't read Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? but I remember hearing Séamas O'Reilly talking about it on TV/a podcast and thinking I really should.

Partly because he's responsible for my favourite Twitter thread of all time (cw: accidentally going to work while on drugs).
Edited Date: 2023-03-08 01:47 pm (UTC)

Date: 2023-03-08 04:02 pm (UTC)
rachelmanija: (Default)
From: [personal profile] rachelmanija
I am literally weeping with laughter.

Date: 2023-03-08 04:14 pm (UTC)
black_bentley: (Default)
From: [personal profile] black_bentley
It might be the funniest thing I've ever read. He re-tweets it pretty much every year on the anniversary of it being posted and I ALWAYS read it again!

Date: 2023-03-08 04:15 pm (UTC)
copperfyre: (Default)
From: [personal profile] copperfyre
I have read this Twitter thread before but it makes me cry with laughter every time, it's so incredibly funny.
Edited Date: 2023-03-08 04:15 pm (UTC)

Date: 2023-03-08 04:16 pm (UTC)
black_bentley: (Default)
From: [personal profile] black_bentley
It's a masterpiece. "Sweating like microwaved bread" kills me every single time.

Date: 2023-03-09 12:14 am (UTC)
asakiyume: (nevermore)
From: [personal profile] asakiyume
That was most excellent--thank you!

Date: 2023-03-09 08:05 am (UTC)
sovay: (Cho Hakkai: intelligence)
From: [personal profile] sovay
Partly because he's responsible for my favourite Twitter thread of all time (cw: accidentally going to work while on drugs).

Oh, my God, I didn't realize the person behind that Twitter thread also wrote books.

Date: 2023-03-08 04:14 pm (UTC)
copperfyre: (Default)
From: [personal profile] copperfyre
I love those apple names so much, they're so magical.

Date: 2023-03-08 09:45 pm (UTC)
luzula: a Luzula pilosa, or hairy wood-rush (Default)
From: [personal profile] luzula
I have vague memories of having enjoyed The Grey Horse!

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