Wednesday is a little utopian
What I read
Finished KS Augustin. Assassin's Way - not bad, but seemed like an extended training-montage sequence before something else happened and the narrative got under way, but as far as I could see although it appears to book 1 in a series, there aren't any more. Might try something else by her I suppose.
DE Stevenson, The Two Mrs Abbotts (1941) - agreeable enough, except for the bit around evacuees, which made me cringe somewhat. In fact it's not that much about the 2 Mrs Abbotts, more presumably pitching a novel in which they appear to the existing Miss Buncle market.
Phyllis Bottome, Eldorado Jane (aka Jane) (1956). This was the one with the phonetically-rendered lower orders speech. It was quite a good read, even if it had less for a specific research purpose than I'd been led to believe: but it does have someone speaking up for the benefits of intense relationships between delinquent girls in a remand home.
HG Wells, Men Like Gods (1923) - strictly for research purposes, whereas I am at least somewhat more generally interested in Bottome's works.
On the go
HG Wells, A Modern Utopia (1905) moar research.
Seth Koven, The Match Girl and the Heiress (2014), which is really very good - very rich and nuanced social history focused on the relationship between an East End working girl and a middle-class reformer. I heard Koven speak on this research some years ago.
A bit bogged down in The Givenness of Things - partly because collected essays tend to be a bit repetitive, and partly because theology.
Anything else that was on the go, still is.
Up next
New (ish) Margaret Maron mystery.
Now have 2 unread Thirkells - the one that came out in ebook last week, and Love at all ages Among The Ruins (1948) picked up in a charity shop last weekend. Qu: should I save these for one of those times when I am in dire need of comfort reading? This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2443184.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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