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Wednesday Reading Meme
Dec. 28th, 2022 07:32 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
This holiday weekend was SO cold that I basically spent it ensconced in a chair under a blanket, reading. In no particular order, I read:
Elisabeth Kyle’s Girl with a Pen, a 1963 children’s biographical novel of Charlotte Bronte’s life, lightly fictionalized (nothing to the excesses of many modern“biographical” novels, however) and wholly absorbing. I picked it up on a whim and zoomed right through in a day. It begins with a visit from Bronte’s school friend Ellen Nussey, to whom Bronte shyly admits she would like to write, and ends just after Bronte arrives at the publisher’s office to announce she is the author of the blockbuster hit Jane Eyre. An unusually triumphal arc for Bronte’s life! The secret of a happy ending is simply where you stop.
I also greatly enjoyed Carol Ryrie Brink’s Louly, a companion piece to Two Are Better than One, about a pair of best friends in early 20th century Idaho. In Louly, Chrys and Cordy are a little older and have expanded their friendship to include lively neighbor girl Louly, who is always coming up with fun ideas for pretend plays - especially after her parents go east to visit relatives, leaving the children to look after themselves for six weeks… Just a really fun mid-twentieth century novel about children having good times (mostly) without adults.
And I finished Rafael Sabatini’s Scaramouche, a lengthy historical novel set during the French Revolution, which I cribbed off a list of “slashy books on gutenberg.org” many years ago. I didn’t think it was actually that slashy (your mileage may vary; maybe “main character motivated by best friend’s brutal premeditated murder-by-duel” does it for you), and Andre-Louis is an omnicompetent trickster figure always ready with a quip, which is a character type that I’ve soured on in my old age… but darn it if I didn’t like him! The book details his adventures in early Revolutionary France, as he moves from revolutionary orator to actor in an improvisational theater group (playing, of course, Scaramouche) to assistant at a fencing school, all strung together on the thread of Andre-Louis’s thirst for vengeance against the villainous nobleman who killed his best friend AND ALSO wants to marry Andre-Louis’s beloved Aline.
Last but not least, I went into a brief period of mourning when the daily Christmas Carol email came to its end on December 26th. Simply the perfect read-along experience. Excerpts just the right size to enjoy of a morning. The perfect infusion of holiday cheer. Plus the continuing enjoyment of comparing the original to The Muppet Christmas Carol, which is quite a faithful adaptation considering that it is full of Muppets.
What I’m Reading Now
I have decided that life is too short to read Moby-Dick twice, so I’ve dropped Whale Weekly, but I’m still trucking with The Lightning Conductor (a couple of installments behind however! Sorry Molly…) and quite enjoying Letters from Watson, which kicked off with a couple of chapters from The Study in Scarlet.
What I Plan to Read Next
Letters from Watson is focused on the Holmes short stories, and only did the first couple of chapters of A Study in Scarlet because they detail Watson and Holmes’ first meeting, but I’ve decided to read the novels off my own bat as we come to them in the timeline. So I’ll be finishing up the rest of A Study in Scarlet.
This holiday weekend was SO cold that I basically spent it ensconced in a chair under a blanket, reading. In no particular order, I read:
Elisabeth Kyle’s Girl with a Pen, a 1963 children’s biographical novel of Charlotte Bronte’s life, lightly fictionalized (nothing to the excesses of many modern“biographical” novels, however) and wholly absorbing. I picked it up on a whim and zoomed right through in a day. It begins with a visit from Bronte’s school friend Ellen Nussey, to whom Bronte shyly admits she would like to write, and ends just after Bronte arrives at the publisher’s office to announce she is the author of the blockbuster hit Jane Eyre. An unusually triumphal arc for Bronte’s life! The secret of a happy ending is simply where you stop.
I also greatly enjoyed Carol Ryrie Brink’s Louly, a companion piece to Two Are Better than One, about a pair of best friends in early 20th century Idaho. In Louly, Chrys and Cordy are a little older and have expanded their friendship to include lively neighbor girl Louly, who is always coming up with fun ideas for pretend plays - especially after her parents go east to visit relatives, leaving the children to look after themselves for six weeks… Just a really fun mid-twentieth century novel about children having good times (mostly) without adults.
And I finished Rafael Sabatini’s Scaramouche, a lengthy historical novel set during the French Revolution, which I cribbed off a list of “slashy books on gutenberg.org” many years ago. I didn’t think it was actually that slashy (your mileage may vary; maybe “main character motivated by best friend’s brutal premeditated murder-by-duel” does it for you), and Andre-Louis is an omnicompetent trickster figure always ready with a quip, which is a character type that I’ve soured on in my old age… but darn it if I didn’t like him! The book details his adventures in early Revolutionary France, as he moves from revolutionary orator to actor in an improvisational theater group (playing, of course, Scaramouche) to assistant at a fencing school, all strung together on the thread of Andre-Louis’s thirst for vengeance against the villainous nobleman who killed his best friend AND ALSO wants to marry Andre-Louis’s beloved Aline.
Last but not least, I went into a brief period of mourning when the daily Christmas Carol email came to its end on December 26th. Simply the perfect read-along experience. Excerpts just the right size to enjoy of a morning. The perfect infusion of holiday cheer. Plus the continuing enjoyment of comparing the original to The Muppet Christmas Carol, which is quite a faithful adaptation considering that it is full of Muppets.
What I’m Reading Now
I have decided that life is too short to read Moby-Dick twice, so I’ve dropped Whale Weekly, but I’m still trucking with The Lightning Conductor (a couple of installments behind however! Sorry Molly…) and quite enjoying Letters from Watson, which kicked off with a couple of chapters from The Study in Scarlet.
What I Plan to Read Next
Letters from Watson is focused on the Holmes short stories, and only did the first couple of chapters of A Study in Scarlet because they detail Watson and Holmes’ first meeting, but I’ve decided to read the novels off my own bat as we come to them in the timeline. So I’ll be finishing up the rest of A Study in Scarlet.
