Wednesday Reading
Sep. 6th, 2017 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cloudsinveniceJust finished:
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson - I'd heard about this for years and found it enjoyable, if a little stressful in terms of how on-the-nose it was about small town viciousness, paranoia, and how people become monsterised by communities.
The best part was when I was casually telling my mum about it and she got all animated when I mentioned Merricat - turned out she'd read it decades ago and had forgotten about it until I mentioned the name, then it all came flooding back. I have a biography of Shirley Jackson that I grabbed on sight ages ago, so it'll be interesting to read that now...
Currently reading:
Oh boy. There's a lot. What I'm reading depends on where I am, and possibly the time of day.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde - I'm reading this at bedtime and enjoying it a lot. I often hold off on reading 19th century books because I assume the prose will be more challenging than it actually is - easy to forget that there's a 50-year gap between this and some of the difficult prose of the earlier part of the century. I have the Penguin Classics edition and the notes about what Wilde changed in different versions really add some interesting context.
I got into it after reading a biography in books, and because of a writing project involving Wilde. We now have all our books about him organised in one place, and I want to ultimately get all the 19th century stuff together for ease of research...
The Art of Being Normal, by Lisa Williamson - one of my relaxing-in-the-library books. Very engaging so far, with great characterisation for both protagonists.
Strangford: Portrait of an Irish Lough, by Ian Hill - My other winding-down-in-the-library book. This has been lent a particular retrospective irony because the introduction is by that great environmentalist, the DUP's Arlene Foster - yep, she of the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal. So far, though, the rest of the book is an enjoyable look at a beautiful part of the country.
Blackout (Newsflesh trilogy #3), by Mira Grant - My current Kindle app book for waiting rooms and bus stops. This is a great series about a team of bloggers covering life in the decades after the outbreak of an infection that turns people into zombies. I practically inhaled the first book, but the second one was so depressing (albeit well written) that it's taken me a long time to get around to this one. I'm enjoying it more so far, though to get into the reasons would be very spoilery.
The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles, #1), by Anne Rice - "This time, with werewolves." This is the book I read when the (pa)insomnia's so bad that I have to go downstairs and distract myself from spiralling thoughts or pain with a hot water bottle, some tea and a good book. And this, well, it's not a GOOD book, but it's the right combination of bad and just-fun-enough to be helpful for situations where I'm trying to read myself out of stress/back to sleep/both. I'm not very far into it yet.
Giving up on:
The Birthgrave (The Birthgrave trilogy #1) by Tanith Lee. I started reading this because R had a theory about it - he thought the lead character might have inspired Dany in ASOIAF, but couldn't find any discussion about that online. I'm inclined to think it's just that commonality of certain tropes - albinism is popular in fantasy, hence this character's white hair; running away with/being kidnapped by bandits is another oldie; surviving something most people couldn't (in this case, apparently, her own death) is a common chosen-one trope. My problem so far is that I just don't care about anyone in the book, so I'm inclined to give up on it.
Reading next:
The Flame Bearer (The Saxon Stories #10), by Bernard Cornwell - I needed a bit of a break after reading three of them in a row, but I'll be coming back to this soon because I really can't praise this series enough.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson - I'd heard about this for years and found it enjoyable, if a little stressful in terms of how on-the-nose it was about small town viciousness, paranoia, and how people become monsterised by communities.
The best part was when I was casually telling my mum about it and she got all animated when I mentioned Merricat - turned out she'd read it decades ago and had forgotten about it until I mentioned the name, then it all came flooding back. I have a biography of Shirley Jackson that I grabbed on sight ages ago, so it'll be interesting to read that now...
Currently reading:
Oh boy. There's a lot. What I'm reading depends on where I am, and possibly the time of day.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde - I'm reading this at bedtime and enjoying it a lot. I often hold off on reading 19th century books because I assume the prose will be more challenging than it actually is - easy to forget that there's a 50-year gap between this and some of the difficult prose of the earlier part of the century. I have the Penguin Classics edition and the notes about what Wilde changed in different versions really add some interesting context.
I got into it after reading a biography in books, and because of a writing project involving Wilde. We now have all our books about him organised in one place, and I want to ultimately get all the 19th century stuff together for ease of research...
The Art of Being Normal, by Lisa Williamson - one of my relaxing-in-the-library books. Very engaging so far, with great characterisation for both protagonists.
Strangford: Portrait of an Irish Lough, by Ian Hill - My other winding-down-in-the-library book. This has been lent a particular retrospective irony because the introduction is by that great environmentalist, the DUP's Arlene Foster - yep, she of the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal. So far, though, the rest of the book is an enjoyable look at a beautiful part of the country.
Blackout (Newsflesh trilogy #3), by Mira Grant - My current Kindle app book for waiting rooms and bus stops. This is a great series about a team of bloggers covering life in the decades after the outbreak of an infection that turns people into zombies. I practically inhaled the first book, but the second one was so depressing (albeit well written) that it's taken me a long time to get around to this one. I'm enjoying it more so far, though to get into the reasons would be very spoilery.
The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles, #1), by Anne Rice - "This time, with werewolves." This is the book I read when the (pa)insomnia's so bad that I have to go downstairs and distract myself from spiralling thoughts or pain with a hot water bottle, some tea and a good book. And this, well, it's not a GOOD book, but it's the right combination of bad and just-fun-enough to be helpful for situations where I'm trying to read myself out of stress/back to sleep/both. I'm not very far into it yet.
Giving up on:
The Birthgrave (The Birthgrave trilogy #1) by Tanith Lee. I started reading this because R had a theory about it - he thought the lead character might have inspired Dany in ASOIAF, but couldn't find any discussion about that online. I'm inclined to think it's just that commonality of certain tropes - albinism is popular in fantasy, hence this character's white hair; running away with/being kidnapped by bandits is another oldie; surviving something most people couldn't (in this case, apparently, her own death) is a common chosen-one trope. My problem so far is that I just don't care about anyone in the book, so I'm inclined to give up on it.
Reading next:
The Flame Bearer (The Saxon Stories #10), by Bernard Cornwell - I needed a bit of a break after reading three of them in a row, but I'll be coming back to this soon because I really can't praise this series enough.
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Date: 2017-09-07 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-07 09:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-07 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-07 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-07 03:24 pm (UTC)I've been reading Frank Tayell's series on and off for a while. I stopped when I decided to go to Australia cause I plan to buy the next five or six to have me set for travelling. Kind of itching to go read one now though. It isn't like my kindle is short on books.
My friend may or may not have had a CD with a lot of files on that may or may not have found their way onto my kindle. ...
no subject
Date: 2017-09-07 04:14 pm (UTC)