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Wednesday reading — traumas and fix-its
May. 20th, 2015 10:49 pmWhat I've been reading
I read Whipping Boy: The Forty-Year Search for My Twelve-Year-Old Bully. I'd previously read a novel by the author, The Grand Complication, which is notable to me for being perhaps the only book that involves a competitive cataloguing scene, although I have forgotten the actual main plot. When he was young he spent a year at a Swiss boarding school, where he crossed paths with the aforementioned bully. After years of obsessing about this guy and what happened to him, he lucks out, as he turns out to have been convicted for his involvement in a particularly glitzy ring of fraudulent bankers, who make for fairly entertaining reading.
I read Lock and Key because I was going back to see which of Sarah Dessen's books I hadn't read.
I reread Jane of Lantern Hill, because it was mentioned in the introduction to The Annotated Anne of Green Gables and I realized that I didn't really remember it (and on rereading, what I thought I remembered was a different book or just wrong). ( spoilers )
I read The Price of Salt because of the buzz about the movie version with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, which looks like it is going to be, at minimum, absolutely gorgeous, although I think The Price of Salt is a more evocative title than Carol. ( spoilers )
I read A Garland for Girls, a collection of Louisa May Alcott's short stories for children, which are generally much preachier than her novels for children. I'd always wanted to read this particular collection though because my library had a copy of it but it was noncirculating and I never read it.
I read How to Write a Thesis, which is roughly the MLA Handbook as written by Umberto Eco, available for the first time in an English translation. Even though it contains a lot of material that is quite specific to its original time (it was written in 1977) and place (until quite recently all Italian undergraduates had to write theses that were closer to what is elsewhere masters-level work to get degrees), I still would have found it more useful in high school and college than the MLA Handbook. It's very engaging, empathetic and funny.
I read Seveneves, Neal Stephenson's latest book, which my brother and I have been taking turns getting each other excited about for a while now. I really enjoyed it, although I expect the people who get annoyed about Stephenson being unable to end a book will have more or less the same complaint. (I tend to feel like they are all basically acceptable endings, so what do I know?) ( spoilers )
What I'm reading now
I'm still reading The Annotated Anne of Green Gables.
I read Whipping Boy: The Forty-Year Search for My Twelve-Year-Old Bully. I'd previously read a novel by the author, The Grand Complication, which is notable to me for being perhaps the only book that involves a competitive cataloguing scene, although I have forgotten the actual main plot. When he was young he spent a year at a Swiss boarding school, where he crossed paths with the aforementioned bully. After years of obsessing about this guy and what happened to him, he lucks out, as he turns out to have been convicted for his involvement in a particularly glitzy ring of fraudulent bankers, who make for fairly entertaining reading.
I read Lock and Key because I was going back to see which of Sarah Dessen's books I hadn't read.
I reread Jane of Lantern Hill, because it was mentioned in the introduction to The Annotated Anne of Green Gables and I realized that I didn't really remember it (and on rereading, what I thought I remembered was a different book or just wrong). ( spoilers )
I read The Price of Salt because of the buzz about the movie version with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, which looks like it is going to be, at minimum, absolutely gorgeous, although I think The Price of Salt is a more evocative title than Carol. ( spoilers )
I read A Garland for Girls, a collection of Louisa May Alcott's short stories for children, which are generally much preachier than her novels for children. I'd always wanted to read this particular collection though because my library had a copy of it but it was noncirculating and I never read it.
I read How to Write a Thesis, which is roughly the MLA Handbook as written by Umberto Eco, available for the first time in an English translation. Even though it contains a lot of material that is quite specific to its original time (it was written in 1977) and place (until quite recently all Italian undergraduates had to write theses that were closer to what is elsewhere masters-level work to get degrees), I still would have found it more useful in high school and college than the MLA Handbook. It's very engaging, empathetic and funny.
I read Seveneves, Neal Stephenson's latest book, which my brother and I have been taking turns getting each other excited about for a while now. I really enjoyed it, although I expect the people who get annoyed about Stephenson being unable to end a book will have more or less the same complaint. (I tend to feel like they are all basically acceptable endings, so what do I know?) ( spoilers )
What I'm reading now
I'm still reading The Annotated Anne of Green Gables.
