Wednesday readage memage
5 February 2014 07:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerWhat I've recently finished since my last post:
Jane of Lantern Hill, L.M. Montgomery - One of her last novels. Girl from an upper-crust Toronto family learns that her father is not dead, as she'd always assumed, and must spend the summer with him on (of course) rural Prince Edward Island. I think the detail that puts Jane over the top into just a little too perfect is having a green thumb without prior experience. Or maybe it was the lion. That said, an excellent depiction of a girl coming into her own as a strong young woman. Good stuff, despite Toronto.
Mahôka Kôkô no Rettôsei v12 - The start of the second year of high school replaces departing graduates with new characters from the next class. Not much really happens in this installment -- the few bits of plottiness are largely unrelated to the main protagonists, with the effect that this seems to exist entirely to set up the reconfigured cast for whatever happens next. (Presumably another summer tournament arc.)
Dragon Ship by Lee & Miller - Yes, sentient AIs are probably going to be brats until they grow up. I still didn't rush through this one. Once the action part of the plot suddenly kicked in, the story was more compelling.
Plus a lot of longform articles snaffled from various online best of the year lists. The integration of Pocket with a Kobo reader is pretty sweet, actually.
What I'm reading now:
100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda tr. by Stephen Tapscott - Part of a recently acquired at auction box of poetry from the library of Endicott West as it closed down. It's a bilingual edition, and while my Spanish is on the rusty side, as best I can tell the translation is pretty good -- and certainly reads well. The poems themselves are excellent. Also, hawt.
The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima (who is a nice person and if she has Google alerts set up, Hi there! -- Janni says Hi too) - The first volume of a YA contemporary fantasy trilogy aimed squarely at boys. Good adventure, good momentum, and good sneaking in of strong female characters without marking them as ETA remarkablesuch, at least within the restrictions of a teenage boy POV. Am approaching the climactic confrontation, which co-stars the scenic hills of Cumberland.
A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery - Another of her novels for adults, this with a cast of dozens, all members of the extensively intermarried Dark and Penhallow families, many of them maneuvering to inherit a clan heirloom from a cranky matriarch who loves to watch them squirm. Still just getting into this one, to the point that I'm not entirely sure yet who the protagonist is (or if there even is one).
What I officially Did Not Finish:
Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin - The POV bobbles and the dubiety of a Caucasian hero in Tang China made is easy to give up after one too many clunky transition. I'll stick to her more recent books.
What I might read next:
Either The Story Girl or Pat of Silver Bush are the next Montgomery on tap. And there's more poetry from that Endicott West box -- possibly an anthology of fairy-tale-based poems, as I'm eying those with interest.
---L.
Jane of Lantern Hill, L.M. Montgomery - One of her last novels. Girl from an upper-crust Toronto family learns that her father is not dead, as she'd always assumed, and must spend the summer with him on (of course) rural Prince Edward Island. I think the detail that puts Jane over the top into just a little too perfect is having a green thumb without prior experience. Or maybe it was the lion. That said, an excellent depiction of a girl coming into her own as a strong young woman. Good stuff, despite Toronto.
Mahôka Kôkô no Rettôsei v12 - The start of the second year of high school replaces departing graduates with new characters from the next class. Not much really happens in this installment -- the few bits of plottiness are largely unrelated to the main protagonists, with the effect that this seems to exist entirely to set up the reconfigured cast for whatever happens next. (Presumably another summer tournament arc.)
Dragon Ship by Lee & Miller - Yes, sentient AIs are probably going to be brats until they grow up. I still didn't rush through this one. Once the action part of the plot suddenly kicked in, the story was more compelling.
Plus a lot of longform articles snaffled from various online best of the year lists. The integration of Pocket with a Kobo reader is pretty sweet, actually.
What I'm reading now:
100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda tr. by Stephen Tapscott - Part of a recently acquired at auction box of poetry from the library of Endicott West as it closed down. It's a bilingual edition, and while my Spanish is on the rusty side, as best I can tell the translation is pretty good -- and certainly reads well. The poems themselves are excellent. Also, hawt.
The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima (who is a nice person and if she has Google alerts set up, Hi there! -- Janni says Hi too) - The first volume of a YA contemporary fantasy trilogy aimed squarely at boys. Good adventure, good momentum, and good sneaking in of strong female characters without marking them as ETA remarkable
A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery - Another of her novels for adults, this with a cast of dozens, all members of the extensively intermarried Dark and Penhallow families, many of them maneuvering to inherit a clan heirloom from a cranky matriarch who loves to watch them squirm. Still just getting into this one, to the point that I'm not entirely sure yet who the protagonist is (or if there even is one).
What I officially Did Not Finish:
Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin - The POV bobbles and the dubiety of a Caucasian hero in Tang China made is easy to give up after one too many clunky transition. I'll stick to her more recent books.
What I might read next:
Either The Story Girl or Pat of Silver Bush are the next Montgomery on tap. And there's more poetry from that Endicott West box -- possibly an anthology of fairy-tale-based poems, as I'm eying those with interest.
---L.
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