What I'm Reading Wednesday
Still being a bad LJ-er and not updating very often. We've got quite a lot going on at the moment, which is taking up a large chunk of my mental energy (plus the evil lure of my getting more and more overloaded by the day TiVo).
What I Just Finished Reading
A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Still as wonderful as the first time I read it more than 30 years ago. 18-year-old Patrick Leigh Fermor sleeps in barns, Salvation Army hostels and castles as he walks from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople and meets just as great a variety of people. This first book in the trilogy describes his journey through the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in the winter of 1933/34. It is, of course, written by a man in his 60s looking back on his younger self but I still got a great impression of the part-sophisticated, part-naive young man that he was. There are wonderful descriptions of the winter countryside, musings on art, history and linguistics but very little on the political happenings of the time. The author admits his total ignorance of politics when he arrives in Vienna during a riot but totally fails to understand what is happening. From the perspective of his older self he berates his younger self for this but I thought it gave the book an innocence and freshness that too much mention of politics would have lost. A vivid, erudite and charming book which opens a window on the vanished world of central Europe in the 1930s.
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor. What my dad would have called "a rattling good yarn". The concept of time-travelling historians is not a new one but the voice of the narrator Madeleine Maxwell totally makes the book. She's funny, feisty and a total disaster magnet. Working at St Mary's Institute of Historical Research she and other members of the team career from disaster to disaster and the book takes some unexpectedly dark turns at times. My criticisms of it would be that the narrator was so strong that most of the subsidiary characters weren't a match for her and there were times when it was a little difficult to follow what was going on. I also misplaced four years somehow but in a book about time-travel I suppose that isn't difficult. A very enjoyable, entertaining read.
What I'm Reading Now
Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Rather than leave the poor lad stranded mid-Danube where the last book ended I've followed him into Hungary where he's already gate-crashed an Easter Saturday celebration conducted by a Cardinal. Again I've read this book before and I remember it as a meander through Hungary staying in various country houses, but I'll see if I remember correctly.
In other news: my mother's birthday trip went better than expected. She wanted to go to a Radio Times Reader Event which was a private view of The First Georgians at the Queen's Gallery. I dutifully booked tickets, roped J in to accompany us and we all had a good time. The exhibition was very interesting as I don't know much about the early Georgians. I came away with a greater appreciation of the taste and influence of Queen Caroline though nothing can really make George I and II interesting. The main attraction for my mother was, I think, the free glass of wine in the shop afterwards. As J said "wine and shopping is pretty much your mother's idea of heaven". Then we went for a meal and all managed to get home in one piece.
Still on the subject of art Amanda Vickery's TV series about women artists has been fascinating. We've only watched the first two episodes (the last is sitting on our faithful TiVo) so far but both of us found it enthralling.
What I Just Finished Reading
A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Still as wonderful as the first time I read it more than 30 years ago. 18-year-old Patrick Leigh Fermor sleeps in barns, Salvation Army hostels and castles as he walks from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople and meets just as great a variety of people. This first book in the trilogy describes his journey through the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in the winter of 1933/34. It is, of course, written by a man in his 60s looking back on his younger self but I still got a great impression of the part-sophisticated, part-naive young man that he was. There are wonderful descriptions of the winter countryside, musings on art, history and linguistics but very little on the political happenings of the time. The author admits his total ignorance of politics when he arrives in Vienna during a riot but totally fails to understand what is happening. From the perspective of his older self he berates his younger self for this but I thought it gave the book an innocence and freshness that too much mention of politics would have lost. A vivid, erudite and charming book which opens a window on the vanished world of central Europe in the 1930s.
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor. What my dad would have called "a rattling good yarn". The concept of time-travelling historians is not a new one but the voice of the narrator Madeleine Maxwell totally makes the book. She's funny, feisty and a total disaster magnet. Working at St Mary's Institute of Historical Research she and other members of the team career from disaster to disaster and the book takes some unexpectedly dark turns at times. My criticisms of it would be that the narrator was so strong that most of the subsidiary characters weren't a match for her and there were times when it was a little difficult to follow what was going on. I also misplaced four years somehow but in a book about time-travel I suppose that isn't difficult. A very enjoyable, entertaining read.
What I'm Reading Now
Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Rather than leave the poor lad stranded mid-Danube where the last book ended I've followed him into Hungary where he's already gate-crashed an Easter Saturday celebration conducted by a Cardinal. Again I've read this book before and I remember it as a meander through Hungary staying in various country houses, but I'll see if I remember correctly.
In other news: my mother's birthday trip went better than expected. She wanted to go to a Radio Times Reader Event which was a private view of The First Georgians at the Queen's Gallery. I dutifully booked tickets, roped J in to accompany us and we all had a good time. The exhibition was very interesting as I don't know much about the early Georgians. I came away with a greater appreciation of the taste and influence of Queen Caroline though nothing can really make George I and II interesting. The main attraction for my mother was, I think, the free glass of wine in the shop afterwards. As J said "wine and shopping is pretty much your mother's idea of heaven". Then we went for a meal and all managed to get home in one piece.
Still on the subject of art Amanda Vickery's TV series about women artists has been fascinating. We've only watched the first two episodes (the last is sitting on our faithful TiVo) so far but both of us found it enthralling.