Wednesday Reading Meme
Jul. 19th, 2023 07:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Anne Lindbergh’s Travel Far, Pay No Fare, which I’m almost certain I somehow confused with Naomi Mitchison’s Travel Light, because a children’s portal fantasy is definitely the kind of book I expected Travel Light to be. This is not a promising expectation with which to begin Travel Light, but it’s exactly right for Travel Far, Pay No Fare, which is a frolic. Owen’s soon-to-be-stepsister Parsley (what a name!) has a magic bookmark that will take you into a book, and soon the two are bopping in and out of Alice in Wonderland and Little Women (Parsley has a crush on Laurie! Oh my God) and The Yearling.
I also finished John D. Billings’ Hardtack and Coffee, Or, The Unwritten Story of Army Life, a memoir about life in the Union Army during the Civil War. An excellent research resource! Loads of fascinating, detailed information, sprinkled with amusing anecdotes and plentiful illustrations (over 200 sketches by Charles W. Reed!), and I love that he included chapters about mule drivers and wagon trains, vital parts of army life that often get glossed over.
And James Herriot’s The Lord God Made Them All. All of Herriot’s books are like a warm bath, which is a bit ironic when Herriot spends so much time in each book delivering lambs shirtless in snow-flecked early-spring fields. It gives the books that delicious “reading by the fire while bad weather rages on the other side of the window” feel.
What I’m Reading Now
James Herriot’s Every Living Thing. Herriot has just acquired an assistant vet who goes everywhere with his pet badger riding on his shoulder! Oh to reach such a level of eccentricity.
Also Mary Beard’s SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, which is not so much a history of ancient Rome but a dissection of the historical sources we have to try to figure out how trustworthy any particular bit of information is. Absolutely delighted to learn that ancient Romans were just as apt as modern retellers to massage awkward bits of myth or history: Cicero, for instance, was so uncomfortable with the whole fratricidal business in the tale of Romulus and Remus that he just kind of lets Remus fade out of the story after the twins are suckled by the wolf. No need for Romulus to kill him if he just fades away!
She also tells a story during the Social War (that is, the war between the Romans and their Italian allies who felt they were being treated as possessions rather than allies), where a comedian makes anti-Roman jokes on stage, and the Romans in the crowd are SO mad that they murder him then and there - and then the next comedian comes on! No other choice! If he runs, they’ll probably hunt him down and kill him, and if he makes jokes they don’t like they’ll also kill him!
So on stage he goes, and he says, “I travel through Italy searching for favours by making people laugh and giving pleasure. So spare the swallow, which the gods allow to nest safely in all your houses!” And the crowd (part Roman, part non-Roman) is touched by this appeal, and he lives to tell jokes another day.
What I Plan to Read Next
One more Anne Lindbergh! I just couldn’t resist The People in Pineapple Place, in which a boy makes friends with children from another time. Possibly a bevy of other times? I’m not sure, but either way you know I’m weak for stories about children frolicking across the timeline.
Also might delve deeper in Mary Beard’s work. Does anyone have a favorite, or conversely one that you anti-rec?
Anne Lindbergh’s Travel Far, Pay No Fare, which I’m almost certain I somehow confused with Naomi Mitchison’s Travel Light, because a children’s portal fantasy is definitely the kind of book I expected Travel Light to be. This is not a promising expectation with which to begin Travel Light, but it’s exactly right for Travel Far, Pay No Fare, which is a frolic. Owen’s soon-to-be-stepsister Parsley (what a name!) has a magic bookmark that will take you into a book, and soon the two are bopping in and out of Alice in Wonderland and Little Women (Parsley has a crush on Laurie! Oh my God) and The Yearling.
I also finished John D. Billings’ Hardtack and Coffee, Or, The Unwritten Story of Army Life, a memoir about life in the Union Army during the Civil War. An excellent research resource! Loads of fascinating, detailed information, sprinkled with amusing anecdotes and plentiful illustrations (over 200 sketches by Charles W. Reed!), and I love that he included chapters about mule drivers and wagon trains, vital parts of army life that often get glossed over.
And James Herriot’s The Lord God Made Them All. All of Herriot’s books are like a warm bath, which is a bit ironic when Herriot spends so much time in each book delivering lambs shirtless in snow-flecked early-spring fields. It gives the books that delicious “reading by the fire while bad weather rages on the other side of the window” feel.
What I’m Reading Now
James Herriot’s Every Living Thing. Herriot has just acquired an assistant vet who goes everywhere with his pet badger riding on his shoulder! Oh to reach such a level of eccentricity.
Also Mary Beard’s SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, which is not so much a history of ancient Rome but a dissection of the historical sources we have to try to figure out how trustworthy any particular bit of information is. Absolutely delighted to learn that ancient Romans were just as apt as modern retellers to massage awkward bits of myth or history: Cicero, for instance, was so uncomfortable with the whole fratricidal business in the tale of Romulus and Remus that he just kind of lets Remus fade out of the story after the twins are suckled by the wolf. No need for Romulus to kill him if he just fades away!
She also tells a story during the Social War (that is, the war between the Romans and their Italian allies who felt they were being treated as possessions rather than allies), where a comedian makes anti-Roman jokes on stage, and the Romans in the crowd are SO mad that they murder him then and there - and then the next comedian comes on! No other choice! If he runs, they’ll probably hunt him down and kill him, and if he makes jokes they don’t like they’ll also kill him!
So on stage he goes, and he says, “I travel through Italy searching for favours by making people laugh and giving pleasure. So spare the swallow, which the gods allow to nest safely in all your houses!” And the crowd (part Roman, part non-Roman) is touched by this appeal, and he lives to tell jokes another day.
What I Plan to Read Next
One more Anne Lindbergh! I just couldn’t resist The People in Pineapple Place, in which a boy makes friends with children from another time. Possibly a bevy of other times? I’m not sure, but either way you know I’m weak for stories about children frolicking across the timeline.
Also might delve deeper in Mary Beard’s work. Does anyone have a favorite, or conversely one that you anti-rec?
no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 12:02 pm (UTC)Possibly up your alley at some point - Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay: The Enlisted Soldier Fighting the Indian Wars by Don Rickey. Cavalry Life in Tent and Field by Frances Boyd has been on my mental list for a while.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 06:08 pm (UTC)I really enjoyed The Invention of Jane Harrison (2000), which you may also enjoy because one of the things it deals with is the complexities of reading relationships in the past: "'Was Jane Harrison gay?' is a question that this book hopes to transcend."
no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 09:01 pm (UTC)It could provide a springboard for reading Hope Mirrlees!
(I can't remember if you actually read Lud-in-the-Mist or just planned to. If the former, never mind.)
no subject
Date: 2023-07-21 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-21 01:05 am (UTC)Oh, cool! I love that novel.
And now I'm going to read The Invention of Jane Harrison because I am weak and put through an ILL request.
Enjoy!
no subject
Date: 2023-07-20 04:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-20 11:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-20 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-21 12:25 am (UTC)