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What I've recently finished since my last post:
Sylvester: or, The Wicked Uncle, more comfort rereading of Georgette Heyer. This is the one with a duke made to acknowledge his own privilege (while still upholding the class system) by a heroine who wrote him into her Gothic roman a clef; distinguishing features include not one but two decampments/elopements ending with being trapped in an inn. What strikes me this time is that Phoebe's mix of confident energy and social anxieties is not entirely consistent, and indeed sometimes the anxieties come and go in ways that suggest the needs of the plot. Still quite enjoyable.
Poems of Places volume IV, being England's alphabetic fag-end together with Wales -- the former taking up somewhat more than half the volume. (For the record, Longfellow's estimate of the relative importance of the British Isles is England (3.5 volumes), Scotland (2.5), Ireland (1), then Wales (.5) -- with the last half-volume being filled out with Scandahoovia.) The Welsh part includes a generous helping of translations, though an awful lot of the rest is from Poly-Olbion or Southey. Ten more volumes to go!
What I'm reading now:
A Concise History of China by J.A.G. Roberts, started for the usual reasons. Given 300 pages to cover prehistory through Deng Xiaopeng, it uses very broad strokes -- making it largely a political/dynastic history. Handy overview, though, with frequent comparisons between traditional, Marxist, and contemporary Western scholarly interpretations of events. Am up to the Republican Era, which is even more dispiriting than trying to cross the Ming Dynasty without a camel.
Madan no Ô to Vanadis volume 8 - Continuing straight on from the cliffhanger of the previous volume, though only after a prologue that confirms the first title character did not actually die but is possibly in an even worse pickle than the rest of the main cast. (I find myself swinging back and forth as I read this series whether to understand Vanadis as singular, referring to the Bullet King's captor and partner, or plural for all seven of the kingdom.) I do find the tactical details of the opening naval battle a bit wearisome, possibly because neither protagonist is involved. But the book is still young.
What I might read next:
Biblia Koshodô no Jiken Techô ("casebook of the Biblia Used Bookstore") volume 1 by En Mikami, about a shy antiquarian book dealer in Kamakura who solves mysteries involving old books, which looks like it might be what the Classics Club/Hyouka series wasn't.
---L.
Sylvester: or, The Wicked Uncle, more comfort rereading of Georgette Heyer. This is the one with a duke made to acknowledge his own privilege (while still upholding the class system) by a heroine who wrote him into her Gothic roman a clef; distinguishing features include not one but two decampments/elopements ending with being trapped in an inn. What strikes me this time is that Phoebe's mix of confident energy and social anxieties is not entirely consistent, and indeed sometimes the anxieties come and go in ways that suggest the needs of the plot. Still quite enjoyable.
Poems of Places volume IV, being England's alphabetic fag-end together with Wales -- the former taking up somewhat more than half the volume. (For the record, Longfellow's estimate of the relative importance of the British Isles is England (3.5 volumes), Scotland (2.5), Ireland (1), then Wales (.5) -- with the last half-volume being filled out with Scandahoovia.) The Welsh part includes a generous helping of translations, though an awful lot of the rest is from Poly-Olbion or Southey. Ten more volumes to go!
What I'm reading now:
A Concise History of China by J.A.G. Roberts, started for the usual reasons. Given 300 pages to cover prehistory through Deng Xiaopeng, it uses very broad strokes -- making it largely a political/dynastic history. Handy overview, though, with frequent comparisons between traditional, Marxist, and contemporary Western scholarly interpretations of events. Am up to the Republican Era, which is even more dispiriting than trying to cross the Ming Dynasty without a camel.
Madan no Ô to Vanadis volume 8 - Continuing straight on from the cliffhanger of the previous volume, though only after a prologue that confirms the first title character did not actually die but is possibly in an even worse pickle than the rest of the main cast. (I find myself swinging back and forth as I read this series whether to understand Vanadis as singular, referring to the Bullet King's captor and partner, or plural for all seven of the kingdom.) I do find the tactical details of the opening naval battle a bit wearisome, possibly because neither protagonist is involved. But the book is still young.
What I might read next:
Biblia Koshodô no Jiken Techô ("casebook of the Biblia Used Bookstore") volume 1 by En Mikami, about a shy antiquarian book dealer in Kamakura who solves mysteries involving old books, which looks like it might be what the Classics Club/Hyouka series wasn't.
---L.