Wednesday reading — dribs and drabs
Nov. 25th, 2015 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayhapWhat I've been reading
Not that much, since I've mostly been trying to catch up on my NaNo effort for this year. (40,000 words and counting…)
I read The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island. Bill Bryson's work has always had a strong curmudgeonly vein—indeed, this was probably the strongest draw for me when I started reading his books in high school—but I felt like this effort crossed the line into old-man-yells-at-cloud territory for me. I mean, this is the man who introduced me to the amazing media frenzy surrounding the 1927 sash weight murders, something I recounted with great delight to everyone who would hold still long enough to listen; I feel that he could do better than following it up with a bunch of tired snark about how modern gossip rags signal the end of civilization. They're obviously deeply worthy of mockery, but try to have some perspective! The book still has some funny scathing bits, as well as some lovely appreciative bits, which are the other thing Bryson excels at, but I expected better on the whole.
Not that much, since I've mostly been trying to catch up on my NaNo effort for this year. (40,000 words and counting…)
I read The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island. Bill Bryson's work has always had a strong curmudgeonly vein—indeed, this was probably the strongest draw for me when I started reading his books in high school—but I felt like this effort crossed the line into old-man-yells-at-cloud territory for me. I mean, this is the man who introduced me to the amazing media frenzy surrounding the 1927 sash weight murders, something I recounted with great delight to everyone who would hold still long enough to listen; I feel that he could do better than following it up with a bunch of tired snark about how modern gossip rags signal the end of civilization. They're obviously deeply worthy of mockery, but try to have some perspective! The book still has some funny scathing bits, as well as some lovely appreciative bits, which are the other thing Bryson excels at, but I expected better on the whole.
