Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

James Ramsay Ullman’s Banner in the Sky, which brings me to the end of the Newbery books of the 1950s! An exciting adventure yarn of young Rudi, yearns to be a mountain guide in the Alps like his father. However, since his father’s tragic death when Rudi was a baby, Rudi’s mother has been trying to herd him into the safer alternative of hotel work. But the call of the mountains will not be denied, and soon Rudi is taking part in an attempt to conquer the last unconquered Alp - the mountain that killed his father - the Citadel…

Another exciting adventure yarn: W. E. Johns’ Biggles Fails to Return, evidently the first Bertie book, although he’s very casually introduced. An excellent ensemble piece! Mid-World War II, Biggles fails to return from a mission to rescue a princess in Monaco. Algy & Ginger team up with Bertie (who just happens to have spent the pre-war years racing yachts in Monaco) to find out if Biggles is still alive, and if possible bring him home.

What I’m Reading Now

Teresa Lust’s A Blissful Feast: Culinary Adventures in Italy’s Piedmont, Maremma, and Le Marche, a delightful food memoir which has filled me with the desire to run away and spend the next six months or so traipsing about Italy trying all the different cuisines. Perhaps a pause for a month at an intensive Italian language school first, and then away to try gnocchi alla bava and roasted roebuck and chestnut cakes…

What I Plan to Read Next

I was going to say “taking a break from Newbery books!”, but in fact I have one last trip to the Lilly planned on Friday, during which time I’m hoping to zip through two Newbery Honor books: Julia Davis Adams’ Vaino, A Boy of New Finland, and Eloise Lownsbery’s Out of the Flame. However, I am taking a breaklet: I won’t be starting the Newbery Honor books of the 1940s until after my birthday on July 2nd

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Biggles Fails to Return is so fun. Bertie is great but I also love Ginger getting really into selling onions.

Bertie's introduction is in an earlier book, Spitfire Parade, and it's very memorable. He's also in Biggles Sweeps the Desert, which is before Fails to Return, and is memorably nuts on that one too.

[osprey_archer]

Ginger and his suspicious English onions! If he hadn't gotten accused of murder, those onions might have done him in.

Is Spitfire Parade a short story collection?

[sholio]

You have mentioned Biggles and summoned me. :D

I really loved Fails to Return, and I think what I loved best about it was seeing how the whole dynamic changes when they find Biggles! It really impressed on me how *insane* his plans are (and also how much I love what he brings to their group dynamic), because up to that point everything was going along pretty normally and sensibly - the others are perfectly competent! - and then they find Biggles and 5 minutes later he's making COMPLETELY BONKERS plans while everyone else is like "Biggles, you can barely stand up."

[osprey_archer]

It's true, everyone else is making comparatively normal plans about following up leads to find Biggles, and then Biggles pops on the scene all "Let's steal an enemy aircraft. True this is insane, especially given that half of us can barely walk, but it's also our only chance!"

(I must confess I was just a bit sorry that the girl in the blue shawl writing messages on the walls was not Biggles in drag, although I did like the princess very much once we met her.)

[sholio]

Biggles actually being the girl in the blue shawl leaving messages would be 100% in character for him, I have to say. (Although yes, I also liked the princess; she's great!)

[osprey_archer]

Is there ever canonical Biggles cross-dressing? I sure hope it happens at some point. He would do it in a heartbeat if the mission required it!

[sholio]

Ginger definitely does it in at least one book, which I haven't read, but Philomytha has mentioned it.

[philomytha]

I'm glad you enjoyed Fails to Return! Biggles rising from his sickbed to steal airplanes and fly them in his underwear remains iconic Biggles <3

Bertie does first get introduced in Spitfire Parade, which is a collection of WW1 short stories that were rewritten with a find/replace job on the character names and airplane types to update them for WW2 (I think WEJ was on a tight deadline and also imminent threat of invasion to get it published...). The first couple of chapters are original and introduce Biggles's WW2 squadron including Bertie, who does have a memorably wonderful entrance :-D

[osprey_archer]

Anyone else might find it taxing to rise from their sick bed to swim across the bay and comandeer an airplane, but not Biggles! All in a day's work.

Maybe I'll read the first two chapters of Spitfire Parade and then see if the others are stories I already read in WWI form.

[asakiyume]

mmmm chestnut cakes sound good.

[osprey_archer]

Doesn't it! I've never had one, so maybe in actuality I wouldn't like it, but it sure sounds delicious.

[asakiyume]

Exactly! Same here on all counts/thoughts