What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Robert McCloskey’s Homer Price, which I imagine I might have liked more if I read it as a kid. As it was it all felt a bit too goofy to me: the first story involves Homer defeating four burglars with a skunk, for instance.

I also finished Jennifer Ackerman’s The Genius of Birds, which was moderately interesting ( Read more... )

The 1940 Caldecott winner, Ingri and Edgar d'Aulaire's Abraham Lincoln, is... well, it's not the d'Aulaire book I would have picked for a Caldecott winner. I would have gone with their beautiful illustrated book of Greek myths.

I don't have a lot of thoughts about this book itself, but fortuitously just yesterday rachelmanija sent me a link to an article ( Read more... )

I finished Chris Jennings' Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism, and I think I was far too harsh in my earlier criticism of it. The problem with the book is not that Jennings is a boring writer; it's that he's bored by the Shakers, or possibly is drawing his chapter on the Shakers from a very thin source base, so it's not as interesting ( Read more... )

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Constance Fenimore Woolson’s Anne! Yes, I am free of this book forever! Actually it became much less irritating later on; or maybe I just became inured to it through long exposure ( Read more... )

We've reached the first war section in War and Peace, and my progress has slowed down accordingly: I have never been all that interested in battles ( Read more... )

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Quite a lot of things! I have allergies or possibly a cold, and therefore have spent as much of the week as possible reclining on the sofa and reading.

First, though, a book I dropped: Victoria Thompson’s Murder on Astor Place, a murder mystery in turn-of-the-century New York. How could that go wrong, I thought? ( Read more... )

I've been reading Alfred Habegger's My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson, and you guys, it's kind of a hoot. You don't really expect an academic biography to be snarky, and it's not like Habegger is snarking all over the place, but - and I think he's taking some inspiration from Dickinson herself here, because she could ( Read more... )

What I’ve Finished Reading

Ruth Goodman’s How to Be a Tudor, which I ended up purchasing - in hardcover, no less! - because I enjoyed her book How to Be a Victorian so much. Again, full of fascinating (and potentially useful for writing) tidbits about everyday life in history; Goodman is particularly good at teasing out the way that practices that ( Read more... )

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Olivia Laing’s The Trip to Echo Springs: On Writers and Alcohol, which I wrote about before. My remarks on it remain pretty much the same, except to note that Raymond Chandler did in fact appear in the last couple of chapters, just in time to prove that he was an enormous fucking jackass. He wrote - and this was ( Read more... )

I've been reading Olivia Laing's The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking, which I picked up on the promise of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, and it does indeed give some quality Fitzgerald and Hemingway - though more Hemingway than Fitzgerald; and also some really quality stuff about Tennessee Williams. I really must see one of his plays one ( Read more... )