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Wednesday reading — mysteries and not
May. 27th, 2015 09:23 pmWhat I've been reading
I finished The Annotated Anne of Green Gables, which I would recommend. It has a decent set of annotations, and I thought the introduction and appendices were very good.
I read Frankly, My Dear: Gone With the Wind Revisited. I was hoping for something a little more critical—in the scholarly sense, I mean. In spite of being published by an academic press, it seemed more like a personal account by someone who happened to be an academic. She thinks the movie is much better than the book, so already we disagree. Her account of the writing of the book and filming of the movie is more readable although less extensive than some of the more amateurish GWTW stuff I've read.
I read The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. I was a chorus member in a community theatre production of Damn Yankees once and until I got sucked into following the Royals last October that was where I learned most of what I knew about baseball. My mom gave me a copy of the book as a closing night present, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it until now. (I think this was a bad idea. The Royals had previously won two out of three games they played against the Yankees this season, and then they got curbstomped at Yankee Stadium.) It is essentially the same narrative as the musical that was adapted from it, told in an unadorned manner, and with no songs.
I read The Franchise Affair. I loved the mystery in this one; it's positively fiendish and a good example of how much scope there can be in a mystery that doesn't have a murder. I also love the lawyer who gets sucked into leading the investigation, even though it means that Inspector Grant recedes into the background and I miss him.
I read A Shilling for Candles, which comes chronologically before The Franchise Affair, but I had initially grabbed the wrong book and I got sucked into it. More of a classic murder mystery, although I loved how Erica handled her sidequest with the coat.
I read Miss Pym Disposes. I loved it as a portrait of the setting and the characters who inhabit it and almost hated for the mystery to eventually intrude. And I also kind of wanted to shout at the book at the very ending.
I read The Singing Sands, which along with the preceding A Daughter of Time is my favorite of the Alan Grant books, I think. I think the recuperation plotline is even better in this one, although A Daughter in Time still has the best version of the Grant-falls-a-bit-in-love-with-a-dead-man plot.
I read P.S. I Still Love You, the sequel to To All the Boys I've Loved Before, and resisted the urge to get into shipwars with teenagers on Goodreads because they seem to all be firmly Team Peter and I'm definitely on Team John, or at least Team Peter was disappointing as a boyfriend, no, don't get back together with him, at least give John a chance. I had feelings about this, okay. I know the first book was originally supposed to be a standalone title and now I really want it to bud out into a trilogy because I am so unsatisifed with Peter's behavior.
I read the middle volume of March, John Lewis's graphic memoir. This book covers from the Freedom Rides through to the I have a dream speech and the violence is practically unrelenting. I also think these books do a good job depicting the planning and discussion behind the movement, when pages of people talking could easily be boring and static.
What I'm reading next
My library doesn't have The Man in the Queue or To Love and Be Wise, not even in (boo! hiss!) large print, so I've placed interlibrary loans. (Incidentally, the large print Teys were riddled with typographical errors, but earlier readers had corrected nearly all of them. This is the one kind of writing in library books that I approve of.)
I finished The Annotated Anne of Green Gables, which I would recommend. It has a decent set of annotations, and I thought the introduction and appendices were very good.
I read Frankly, My Dear: Gone With the Wind Revisited. I was hoping for something a little more critical—in the scholarly sense, I mean. In spite of being published by an academic press, it seemed more like a personal account by someone who happened to be an academic. She thinks the movie is much better than the book, so already we disagree. Her account of the writing of the book and filming of the movie is more readable although less extensive than some of the more amateurish GWTW stuff I've read.
I read The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. I was a chorus member in a community theatre production of Damn Yankees once and until I got sucked into following the Royals last October that was where I learned most of what I knew about baseball. My mom gave me a copy of the book as a closing night present, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it until now. (I think this was a bad idea. The Royals had previously won two out of three games they played against the Yankees this season, and then they got curbstomped at Yankee Stadium.) It is essentially the same narrative as the musical that was adapted from it, told in an unadorned manner, and with no songs.
I read The Franchise Affair. I loved the mystery in this one; it's positively fiendish and a good example of how much scope there can be in a mystery that doesn't have a murder. I also love the lawyer who gets sucked into leading the investigation, even though it means that Inspector Grant recedes into the background and I miss him.
I read A Shilling for Candles, which comes chronologically before The Franchise Affair, but I had initially grabbed the wrong book and I got sucked into it. More of a classic murder mystery, although I loved how Erica handled her sidequest with the coat.
I read Miss Pym Disposes. I loved it as a portrait of the setting and the characters who inhabit it and almost hated for the mystery to eventually intrude. And I also kind of wanted to shout at the book at the very ending.
I read The Singing Sands, which along with the preceding A Daughter of Time is my favorite of the Alan Grant books, I think. I think the recuperation plotline is even better in this one, although A Daughter in Time still has the best version of the Grant-falls-a-bit-in-love-with-a-dead-man plot.
I read P.S. I Still Love You, the sequel to To All the Boys I've Loved Before, and resisted the urge to get into shipwars with teenagers on Goodreads because they seem to all be firmly Team Peter and I'm definitely on Team John, or at least Team Peter was disappointing as a boyfriend, no, don't get back together with him, at least give John a chance. I had feelings about this, okay. I know the first book was originally supposed to be a standalone title and now I really want it to bud out into a trilogy because I am so unsatisifed with Peter's behavior.
I read the middle volume of March, John Lewis's graphic memoir. This book covers from the Freedom Rides through to the I have a dream speech and the violence is practically unrelenting. I also think these books do a good job depicting the planning and discussion behind the movement, when pages of people talking could easily be boring and static.
What I'm reading next
My library doesn't have The Man in the Queue or To Love and Be Wise, not even in (boo! hiss!) large print, so I've placed interlibrary loans. (Incidentally, the large print Teys were riddled with typographical errors, but earlier readers had corrected nearly all of them. This is the one kind of writing in library books that I approve of.)
