A Certain Slant of Light

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I finished Dorothy Gilman's The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax, which wrapped up a little abruptly - I suspect Gilman ran up against the limits of her word count and thought, “Well, gotta put a bow on this one” - but an outing with Mrs. Pollifax is always a pleasure even if it ends sooner than you expect.

I also zoomed through Barbara Hambly’s Cold Bayou, which is a particularly strong Benjamin January book even though tragically Rose and Hannibal exit stage right about a third of the way through and only show up again at the denouement. However, this does free up space to focus on January’s other family: his mother, his sister Dominique and her protector Henri Viellard, and Henri’s wife Chloe, without whom it’s pretty clear the entire extended Viellard clan would collapse because between the lot of them, they don’t have the common sense that God gave a cat.

We get to witness this fact for ourselves, because the premise of the book draws together a large proportion of the extended Viellard clan and their connections - both the white side of the family and the “shady” side, the planter’s placees (mixed-race mistresses) and their children - to celebrate, or rather wrathfully witness, the union of septuagenarian Uncle Veryl with his blushing bride Ellie Trask, an Irish tavern girl.

All of this gives Hambly ample opportunity to unravel the way that societal power dynamics can warp and poison family relationships, which is something that she’s particularly good at. There’s a particularly fiendish surprise in this book, which is worth it for its sheer revealing shock factor even though it’s the reason that Rose and Hannibal head for New Orleans so early on.

What I’m Reading Now

Years ago I enjoyed Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls series, so I couldn’t resist her latest book, Not If I Save You First. Maddie, the daughter of a senior Secret Service agent, is best friends with Logan, the president’s son… until Maddie’s father is injured thwarting a kidnapping attempt on the first lady and afterward moves himself and his daughter to the Alaskan wilderness. Maddie wrote to Logan every week, and Logan never sent a single letter.

Maddie is filled with rage about Logan’s total failure as a correspondent, and honestly this is the kind of grudge that I can get behind. However, she’s had to put it aside for now because Logan has just been kidnapped by a Russian,

I’ve also started E. M. Delafield’s Gay Life (in the old sense of swanky or hifalutin) which so far is introducing us to the inhabitants of a hotel on the coast in the south of France. Are there going to be several ill-advised illicit affairs that somehow all manage to work out happily in the end? Almost certainly.

And I’m taking another crack at Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: a chapter a day each day at work. Why do I find it so hard to pay attention to this book? I’ll be reading along about water bugs and suddenly my brain skates off the book and I’m staring into space thinking about nothing.

What I Plan to Read Next

I’ve got Ben Macintyre’s Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies waiting for me.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

The first five books of Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girl series, which is about a boarding school for spy girls. BOARDING SCHOOL FOR SPY GIRLS, you guys. So many of my favorite things packed in those five words!

It’s basically literary candy, but it is my kind of literary candy, and I enjoyed it immensely. The only problem is - the sixth and last book doesn’t come out till September! Ugh, waiting is so hard.

What I’m Reading Now

Susan Cooper’s The Grey King. I will probably have to hand in my geek card for saying this, but Will Stanton is powerfully boring.

Also, we’re reading Voltaire’s Candide for French class. There’s an annotated version here which makes reading it virtually painless if you have a little background in French.

Well, painless as far as the language part goes. The plot is full of pain. So far Candide has been chased from his home and ladylove, press-ganged into the army, beaten to death, narrowly escaped a battle and wandered through harrowingly destroyed villages, had a chamber pot dumped on his head, and met up with his old teacher who is covered with pulsating syphilitic sores.

And this is just the first four chapters!

Still better than the story about the horse being marched off to the abattoir, though. Or the one about the guy turning his head.

What I Plan to Read Next

For once I don't have any definite plans for this. I am getting a pile of academic books from the library today, and I really should make some headway on those...