Wednesday Reading Meme
Jul. 26th, 2023 07:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
W. E. Johns’ Biggles Makes Ends Meet, in which Bertie lands on the bad guys’ island and manages to get back off again by pretending that he is merely a daffy collector of shark’s teeth. AMAZING. A strong adventure story, tightly plotted.
Also a couple of Newbery books. Carolyn Treffinger’s Li Lun, Lad of Courage is about a boy from a fishing village who fears the ocean and thus refuses to become a fisherman. His father, angry and ashamed, sends him to cultivate rice on a mountain top, which Li Lun manages with great travail. (Hard to carry enough water to grow rice on a mountain top!) A very Newbery tale about how courage comes in many forms.
I expected Genevieve Foster’s George Washington’s World to be about daily life in colonial Virginia, but in fact it’s about world history (mostly European history, although China gets a look-in) during his lifetime, including this amazing anecdote about the Russian admiral Alexei Orlov, who defeated the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Chesma. He was so thrilled by his success that he hired an Italian painter to paint a commemorative painting of the battle.
“But I’ve never seen a ship blow up,” objected the Italian painter.
“Is that all?” said Orlov. “I’ll have one blown up for you!”
And I wrapped up James Herriot’s Every Living Thing, the last of his memoirs about being a vet in Yorkshire. The end of an era… But not really the end; these are books that one could revisit again and again, and enjoy just as much each time.
What I’m Reading Now
Hana Videen’s The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English, a delicious geeky collection of Old English words, discussed in chapters according to theme: food and drink, time, animals, etc, with special discussion of words whose meanings are uncertain, often because they appear only once in the existing sources. A fascinating glimpse of a lost world!
What I Plan to Read Next
All the Worrals books are now available on fadedpage.com! So of course I downloaded the last one that I haven’t read yet, Worrals Goes Afoot, although I’m torn whether to read it now or save it for my road trip… Well, I have it for when I want it!
W. E. Johns’ Biggles Makes Ends Meet, in which Bertie lands on the bad guys’ island and manages to get back off again by pretending that he is merely a daffy collector of shark’s teeth. AMAZING. A strong adventure story, tightly plotted.
Also a couple of Newbery books. Carolyn Treffinger’s Li Lun, Lad of Courage is about a boy from a fishing village who fears the ocean and thus refuses to become a fisherman. His father, angry and ashamed, sends him to cultivate rice on a mountain top, which Li Lun manages with great travail. (Hard to carry enough water to grow rice on a mountain top!) A very Newbery tale about how courage comes in many forms.
I expected Genevieve Foster’s George Washington’s World to be about daily life in colonial Virginia, but in fact it’s about world history (mostly European history, although China gets a look-in) during his lifetime, including this amazing anecdote about the Russian admiral Alexei Orlov, who defeated the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Chesma. He was so thrilled by his success that he hired an Italian painter to paint a commemorative painting of the battle.
“But I’ve never seen a ship blow up,” objected the Italian painter.
“Is that all?” said Orlov. “I’ll have one blown up for you!”
And I wrapped up James Herriot’s Every Living Thing, the last of his memoirs about being a vet in Yorkshire. The end of an era… But not really the end; these are books that one could revisit again and again, and enjoy just as much each time.
What I’m Reading Now
Hana Videen’s The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English, a delicious geeky collection of Old English words, discussed in chapters according to theme: food and drink, time, animals, etc, with special discussion of words whose meanings are uncertain, often because they appear only once in the existing sources. A fascinating glimpse of a lost world!
What I Plan to Read Next
All the Worrals books are now available on fadedpage.com! So of course I downloaded the last one that I haven’t read yet, Worrals Goes Afoot, although I’m torn whether to read it now or save it for my road trip… Well, I have it for when I want it!
no subject
Date: 2023-07-26 01:22 pm (UTC)And Bertie truly is fantastic in Makes Ends Meet, I love him <3
Also that's a great story about the ship and the artist, but I guess blowing up a ship on command is not a big deal when you're the admiral...
no subject
Date: 2023-07-26 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-26 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-26 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-27 12:11 pm (UTC)Regarding Lu Lin, Lad of Courage, does he ever make some kind of peace with the sea, or is it enough that he's resolutely and stalwartly faced the adversities of the mountain? ... I feel like in nowadays stories, it's all well and good to demonstrate your courage in other realms, but it's almost like you're not allowed to just avoid the thing you fear. Like, maybe nowadays stories won't require you to become a fisherman, but you have to at least *face* the sea, if you get what I mean. But I guess a lot depends on the nature of the fear, etc.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-28 02:35 pm (UTC)And nope! Li Lun never makes any kind of peace with the sea! He's stalwartly faced the adversities of the mountain and reintroduced rice-growing to an island that has for years had to import all it's rice (is there some kind of message here about agricultural self-sufficiency? This was published not long after World War II), and he never has to face the sea at all.