osprey_archer | Entries tagged with author: jane langton

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Some blessed soul posted the next Worrals books on fadedpage: Worrals of the Islands: A Story of the War in the Pacific! I don’t know who is responsible for the steady uploading of Worrals books, but they are a gentleman and a scholar.

Top notch adventure (involving a SECRET ISLAND BASE and one particularly DARING RESCUE), but one of the more racist Johns books that I’ve read, as tends to happen in Johns’ books set in far flung locations.

Jane Langton’s The Mysterious Circus and The Dragon Tree, the last two books in the Hall Family Chronicles, a series of offbeat novels set in Concord, Massachusetts and liberally bedecked with quotations from Thoreau, plus occasional references to Emerson and Alcott (Louisa, not Bronson). Enjoyable, but didn’t reach the heights of some of the earlier books in the sequence. Still, I’m glad that I’ve finally read the whole series!

I also finished Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk, which is one part hawking memoir about Macdonald’s hawk Mabel, one part nonfiction book about T. H. White, The Loneliest Man in the World, and yet another part memoir about Macdonald’s grief for her father, which was harrowing enough that I took some time to make it through the audiobook. Macdonald reads it herself; I loved the hawking and the landscape descriptions.

What I’m Reading Now

New developments in The Lightning Conductor! Shockingly, Molly’s wonderful new car is in fact a horrible car that breaks down at the slightest provocation, but FORTUNATELY, she has acquired a new chauffeur who is in fact a Gentleman in Disguise, who had taken on the position because Molly is so fetching. Clearly THIS is the love interest and perhaps at some point he will pop the Gorgeous Man in the nose for selling Molly such a wreck of a car.

Meanwhile, no news of Ishmael from Whale Weekly. Apparently the name is not quite accurate: “the pace will vary - some weeks you’ll get multiple emails and others you’ll get none.”

What I Plan to Read Next

littlerhymes is a bad influence and clued me in to the existence of a Christmas Carol readalong, which will deliver Christmas Carol snippets to the comfort of your inbox - a mere two pages a day, every day from December 1-26! A literary advent calendar! HOW COULD I REFUSE.

I am returned from Massachusetts! As I was busy visiting Louisa May Alcott’s house, eating lobster rolls, plundering the bookstore at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art etc., I didn’t do a whole lot of reading on the trip, but I thought I would go ahead and post about what reading I did.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Delighted to inform you that in Concord (at Barrow Books, a delightful bookshop) I did indeed find one of Jane Langton’s Hall Family Chronicles - moreover, one I’ve never gotten my hands on before, The Swing in the Summerhouse! Happily I informed the bookseller that I had just that morning recreated Georgie’s walk from her house (based on an actual ornate Victorian house in Concord, 148 Walden Street!) to Walden Pond, (actually I did it backward, starting at Walden Pond and working my way in), and she gave me $10 off the purchase price and also a cup of tea.

This series is so variable. As a kid I loved and reread over and over The Diamond in the Window and The Fledgling, and although I didn’t find The Fragile Flag till after college, I remember it very well. Yet twice I’ve read books in this series and then entirely forgotten them: The Time Bike and The Astonishing Stereoscope (the book I was so pleased to find a few weeks ago!) completely slipped out of my head.

I suspect that The Swing in the Summerhouse might fall into this category, although on the other hand I may remember it because of the unforgettable tale of its acquisition.

I also listened to Ursula K. Le Guin’s Tehanu on audiobook! I understand that the main pairing in this book is controversial, but as

littlerhymes can attest, I started calling Ged “dungeon boyfriend” the moment he showed up in The Tombs of Atuan, so all in all I was delighted by this turn of events.

Last but assuredly not least! My long Dracula journey is over, as Dracula Daily has come to an end. (It turns out that the ending is a trifle anticlimactic when you stretch it out over a week, but IIRC I found the ending abrupt in high school too, so perhaps it’s just like that always.) I am pining slightly, but I’ve signed up for Whale Weekly (a three-year odyssey through Moby-Dick) AND regular installments of Sherlock Holmes in 2023, so perhaps those will fill the Dracula Daily hole in my heart.

What I’m Reading Now

skygiants gave me Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair, and I’ve gotten just a few chapters into it, so I’m still sorting out the quirkily elaborate worldbuilding. Our hero has just had a chat with a toy that he accidentally brought to life, an incident that seems to encapsulate the atmosphere of the book in miniature.

And at Commonwealth Books,

genarti recommended Ruth Goodman’s The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything, one of those fascinating nonfiction books with a subtitle completely at odds with the book’s actual thesis! Goodman is in fact writing about the introduction of coal into homes in Elizabethan London, and her argument is that Londoners’ familiarity with coal as a domestic product helped kickstart the Industrial Revolution; coal did of course eventually reach the rest of England (and thence the world), but the part that changed everything is way before the Victorian era. I suppose the publishers couldn’t stand to put the word “Elizabethan” in the title of a book about coal.

What I Plan to Read Next

I’ve figured out how to get my paws on the final two books in the Hall Family Chronicles, The Mysterious Circus and The Dragon Tree, and I’ve decided I owe it to myself to finish up the series.

I’m leaving for my trip to Massachusetts tomorrow! So I’m posting my Wednesday Reading Meme today to sweep the decks clean before I go.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

littlerhymes and I finished Mary Stewart’s The Last Enchantment, the final book of the original Merlin trilogy, although Stewart went ahead and published a fourth book a few years later. The Last Enchantment nonetheless feels like a conclusion - I’d be certainly very surprised if Merlin narrates the next book - for it takes us through the end of Merlin’s story, and indeed beyond the usual end: he’s buried alive in his crystal cave, as is his usual end, but here he’s rescued and at the end of the book is living in retirement, an old man tired yet content, frequently visited by the king.

We were particularly interested in the book’s ambiguous treatment of Nimue. Is she truly in love with Merlin? Pretending to love him to steal his power? Not stealing his power at all, but learning all his skills so she can take up his mantel as Arthur’s sorcerer, just as Merlin bade her?

Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road, the third book in the Regeneration trilogy, alternates between Billy Prior, who is headed back to the front now that he’s been released from Craiglockhart, and his counselor Rivers, who spends most of the book ill to the point of delirium, recollecting his fieldwork among the headhunters of Melanesia. The colonial rulers of Melanesia had forbidden headhunting, and because their entire culture had been organized around the headhunt, they were basically pining away in despair.

Rivers doesn’t draw a direct parallel, but there’s clearly a meditation here about war as a bearer of cultural meaning - whose cultural meaning is perhaps divorced from anything that a reasonable person might consider a “war aim.” The point of the headhunt is the headhunt. It’s not meant to win territory or settle a point of politics by other means or Defeat Autocracy; the point is to take heads. We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.

( Spoilers )

Nghi Vo’s When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain is a sequel to The Empress of Salt and Fortune, also featuring a cleric who travels the countryside collecting knowledge/stories, also very concerned with how stories change depending who tell them. In this case, Chih is telling the story of a human-tiger romance to a trio of tigers who may eat them… or might leave Chih alive to go home and correct the record with what the tigers consider the real version, although they are grumpily aware that Chih will probably just put it down as a competing version, equal in weight with the clearly incorrect human story!

Finally, there’s a new Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel out! Jessi’s Secret Language is one that I read as a kid (in general I read all the Very Special Episode books about disabilities), and it was fun to revisit it now, especially because I’ve actually seen a production of Coppelia, the ballet that Jessi stars in. In fact, I think my desire to see that ballet stems from this book! (Almost all my other ballet feelings come from Princess Tutu. Someday I WILL see Swan Lake and Giselle.)

What I’m Reading Now

In Dracula, Dracula has end-run our heroes! They have now split up to chase him, one team by land and one by waterway… Will they be able to kill him before he reaches his castle stronghold??

What I Plan to Read Next

To my distress, I have discovered that I weeded Jane Langton’s The Diamond in the Window from my collection! So I’ll only be taking The Fledgling and the recently-acquired The Astonishing Stereoscope to Massachusetts with me.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I finished The Railway Children!

asakiyume had acquired a copy of the most recent movie for us to watch, which gave me extra impetus, but it was a real pleasure to read so I probably would have galloped through it anyway. Highly recommended if you like early twentieth-century children’s books.

Also highly recommended: the 2000 film version of The Railway Children, which is quite faithful to the book - it cuts a couple of scenes (and one of the cut scenes is the one tragically sexist scene in the book, which is otherwise so good about letting the girls be just as heroic as their brother) but doesn’t add much, which IMO is generally where adaptations go wrong, adding in scenes that don’t suit at all. The biggest addition, I think, is that the film draws out some of the stuff about class relations which is latent in the book - but it doesn’t become overbearing or anything; it’s still quite secondary to the fun adventures.

Also Jerry, by Jean Webster - who is most famous for writing Daddy-Long-Legs - and this is definitely a case where I can see why that’s the book she’s remembered for, although Jerry is not without charms. A young American man - and, as a side note, his name is Jerymn, which I have never seen before and would be inclined to take as a misspelling of Jermyn except Webster spells it that way every single time. Has anyone else run across this name? How do you pronounce it?

Anyway, Jerry - to give him his easily pronounceable nickname - Jerry is vacationing in a dull Italian country town when he meets a beautiful American girl. To get closer to her (and enliven his dull days), he masquerades as an Italian tour guide. She sees through him at once, but doesn’t let on, and the rest of the book consists of the two of them gleefully upping the ante of the masquerade.

What I’m Reading Now

I’m almost done with Jane Langton’s The Astonishing Stereoscope, which sadly I think is not nearly as good as either The Fragile Flag or The Fledgling, although also not nearly as bad as The Time Bike. A good middling Langton! And I will continue to search for The Swing in the Summerhouse, which is about, I think, a magical swing, which I think is just perfect and delightful and I hope the book lives up to it.

There are also a couple of post-Time Bike books in this series, but I am a little leery about reading them. Still, if I do run across them…

What I Plan to Read Next

My next reading challenge is coming up! It is “a book published before you were born,” and the only challenging part of this will be fixing on just one. The library has kindly purchased Kate Seredy’s The Chestry Oak for me (this is the first time I have made a purchase request at a library! I feel so powerful!), so perhaps that; but there is also the possibility of reading more Nesbit...

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Pierrepont Noyes’ My Father’s House: An Oneida Childhood, which I liked very much; although of course I would, being fond of a) childhood memoirs (I tend to agree with C. S. Lewis that “I never read an autobiography in which the parts devoted to the earlier years were not far the most interesting”), b) memoirs about cults (really anything about cults), and c) the nineteenth century.

But even if you are interested in only one of those things, this is an engaging book; much recommended. The one thing it will not give you is a clear description of the Oneida Community’s collapse: Noyes was ten at the time and found the whole thing ominous but fuzzy.

I also finished rereading A Wrinkle in Time. I’m glad I reread it because I no longer feel that vague gnawing sense that I just didn’t get it - but at the same time, it’s a bit sad to reread it and realize that I’m just never going to love that book the way that some people do.

What I’m Reading Now

Kidnapped! I only intended to begin it, but somehow I ended up halfway through the book already. It’s such a cracking good adventure yarn, it’s very hard to put down!

I have begun Jane Langton’s The Astonishing Stereoscope! It’s early days yet, but I have high hopes that it will live up to the other books in the series - or at least the early books in the series; I hold a real grudge against Time Bike for being so dreadful that it stopped my exploration of the Hall Family Chronicles, even though I adored both The Diamond in the Window and The Fledgling. But fortunately the good books in the series are the kind that are just as good if you read them first as an adult.

What I Plan to Read Next

The Railway Children, which I also intended to read next last week, but I bought Noyes’ memoir at the museum and it simply had to take precedence, so… But this week I am quite determined! Railway Children or bust! Unless I find something simply irresistible in Amherst.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I finished Jane Langton’s The Fragile Flag, and aaaaaaaah, I really liked this book, you guys. Young Georgie (also the heroine of Langton’s The Fledgling) finds an old American flag in the attic, which gives people visions if it wraps around them; she decides to march on Washington with it, in hopes of convincing the President not to launch the Peace Missile (for which read Reagan’s Star Wars; the book was published in 1984).

Naturally the march swells to enormous size as it continues on, and George manages to meet the president in the end, etc. etc. Of course it’s escapism, but it’s really nice escapism in the current political climate. And the book is beautifully constructed, too, all the pieces of the plot (it’s more complicated than I’ve made it sound here) all come together like clockwork, and strike like midnight at just the climactic moment.

I also finished Warren Lewis’s The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV, which I read because the Inklings book I read recently praised it (Warren Lewis is C. S. Lewis’s brother) and also because I’ve long meant to learn more about France, and indeed it is a pleasant and readable introductory work to seventeenth century France.

And, for the Unread Book Club: I reread William McCleery’s Wolf Story, which in our youth my brother and I liked so much that we importuned our father to read it multiple times. I think he got bored and started making up new twists in the story to amuse himself, although I can’t be sure because the father in the book (who is telling a story to his child in the book) also gets bored with the story he is telling and keeps trying to come up with twists to end it quickly. It’s very meta.

What I’m Reading Now

I’m slogging through Margaret Stohl’s Black Widow: Forever Red, which I am not liking nearly as much as I expected sadly. I think this is partly the fault of my own expectations - I thought this would be about Natasha’s childhood or at least give us large lumps of backstory, perhaps flashbacks!, but it really does not. But it’s also not very strongly written.

Really not feeling this one. Maybe I’ll just give it up.

I’m also working on Gary Paulsen’s The Island, which is an oddly poetic book - I mean, not odd really, or only because my main association with Paulsen is Hatchet which is more of a survival story. This one involves a lot of our hero sitting on the island, contemplating nature.

And I continue to chug along in Tolkien’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight!

What I Plan to Read Next

Norah of Billabong is winging its way through the mail to me as we speak! So definitely that.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Jane Langton’s The Time Bike, one of the Hall family chronicles, her series of books about the loosely connected magical adventures of the three Hall children: Eleanor, Eddy, and Georgie. I’m almost certain I’ve read this book before, which is an extra-odd experience when the book you’re rereading is about time travel.

This is not, as you might gather from my confusion over whether I’ve read it before, a very memorable book. The Hall family chronicles are uneven like that, which makes me feel leery about searching out the rest of them, especially given that some of them are quite out of print. Then again, my mom has been asking what I want for my upcoming birthday…

What I’m Reading Now

Mary McCarthy’s The Stones of Florence. I got interested in McCarthy’s work because she was great friends with Hannah Arendt, whose Eichmann in Jerusalem I admire greatly, but so far I’m not really feeling The Stones of Florence.

I've also started Eva Ibbotson's A Song for Summer. This is clearly going to be the summer of All the Ibbotson.

What I Plan to Read Next

I have no specific plans at this time.

Yesterday I dropped by the library to pick up a hold, only to notice that it was the last day of their book sale.

"I do not need any more books," I told myself firmly. "I will only need to pack them up in a few months when I move, and anyway I shouldn't be spending money."

Then I saw that the book sale was no longer a book sale, but in fact a book giveaway. They wanted to get rid of their overstock so badly that on the last day, they made the books free.

Reader, the flesh is weak. I could not restrain myself from going in to see their selection. The pickings were rather slim, but I found Hilary McKay's Indigo's Star and Jane Langton's The Time Bike, and have given them a new home on my shelves.

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osprey_archer

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A Certain Slant of Light

otherwise known as Jin's journal

Entries tagged with author: jane langton

Wednesday Reading Meme

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May 2025

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