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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Mar 21 2023, 3:07pm
Post #1 of 6
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It's the occasional reading thread!
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A happy equinox to you all, no matter if it's spring or autumn. We're having one last gasp of winter here in Texas, so cold and damp I've had to get my favorite Scottish tartan wool blanket out of the closet where I stored it during several week's preview of summer. (It's not only a lovely blanket in itself, it was given to me by lovely friends, so has accordingly lovely vibes.)
After I finished listening to Ruth Downie's Terra Incognita, I saw the next book in the series right there on my MP3, so I segued into it. In Persona Non Grata, Ruso is called home to southern Gaul and takes Tilla with him. Of course they find themselves involved in a murder case, but this time Ruso himself is a suspect. I'm enjoying meeting Ruso's family and seeing their reaction to "British barbarian" Tilla, as well as Tilla's reaction to them.
On my old cell phone I listened to A Duty to the Dead, first in a second series by Charles Todd, author(s) of the Ian Rutledge series. Unlike the Rutledge series, which takes place a few years after World War One, the Bess Crawford series starts in the midst of the war. Also unlike Rutledge, Crawford isn't (yet) suffering from PTSD, although as a combat nurse she's had some very trying experiences. In this installment, she fulfills a promise to a dying soldier to take a message to his family, only to find herself involved in family scandal/murder from some years earlier. Like the Rutledge books, the story starts relatively slowly and then moves along in a deliberate pace revealing its plot points until the rather too quick wrap-up.
I'm now listening to a non-fiction book, Consider the Fork, A History of How We Cook and Eat, by Bee Wilson. She considers the history of food technology, from our primitive ancestors throwing chunks of meat into an open fire to the microwave oven and cappuccino machines of today. I never thought of all the technology involved in cooking in a fireplace, for example, nor have I thought about how the cooking methods we have available to us affect the preparation and consumption of our food. Wilson writes clearly and with a nice sense of humor.
I recently re-read Kerry Greenwood's Devil's Food, third in the Corinna Chapman series, and since number four, Trick or Treat, was right there on my e-reader (I sense a trend here  ) I segued into that. I'm enjoying the re-read, even as I remembered very quickly that this is the book in the series where I spotted an important maguffin right off the bat. Still, the Chapman books are highly entertaining reads.
On paper I read An Irish Country Practice by Patrick Taylor. This is the first one I've read in his series---starting with An Irish Country Doctor---which takes place in rural Northern Ireland in the 1960s. Despite this installment being far into the series, Taylor does a good job referring to earlier incidents without leaving me baffled, not that there are any intricate plots! It's a series of quiet anecdotes about the town and its people and is so generally positive in outlook I forgave Taylor the frequent mini-info dumps about medical procedures.
The current issue of Smithsonian has a charming story about children on the small Iceland island of Heimaey collecting pufflings, young puffins who've been confused by the lights of the town, and making sure they make it out to sea in good health.
So what have you been reading?
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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Annael
Immortal
Mar 21 2023, 4:39pm
Post #2 of 6
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pufflings - what a lovely word
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I've been reading books about words, mostly. First The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, who was fascinated by the women who also worked on the first OED and inserted a fictional woman who grew up in Murray's "Scriptorium," where her father worked, and became intrigued by words that weren't deemed worthy of inclusion in the OED, primarily because they were either used by women or referred to women. From there I went to The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine, about twin sisters who are obsessed with language. A dictionary--the second edition of Webster--also features heavily, but Schine's book is also about family dynamics and the tension between wanting to be like others and wanting to be unique.
Magrat turned me on to Sunshine by Robin McKinley, a book lauded by Neil Gaiman as being "pretty much perfect." McKinley usually writes YA books but this one, about a young woman who discovers she has unique powers against vampires (and no sparkly vampires here; McKinley's are SCARY), is very much for adults. McKinley creates a world that is still reeling from a nearly-apocalyptic war against the Others (vampires, demons, etc.). Although the humans nominally "won," pretty much everyone has PTSD and the Others are still out there. The heroine herself finds her powers bring her no sense of security; instead, they mean she must force herself to confront evil when all her instincts tell her to run and hide. I liked that, the idea that even if you have power and know how to use it, your mind & body might not always be with the program, and the things you have to do can scar you even so. I liked it so well, I read it twice in a row. There's a lot of very cool secondary characters and a lot of the story takes place while the heroine is at her day job as a baker for what sounds like the coolest coffeehouse ever.
And then there's Persuasion in French; going slowly as I have to look up stuff constantly. But fun.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
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NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
(This post was edited by Annael on Mar 21 2023, 4:40pm)
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Ataahua
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Mar 21 2023, 8:06pm
Post #3 of 6
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I may have to hunt that one out.
Celebrimbor: "Pretty rings..."
Dwarves: "Pretty rings..."
Men: "Pretty rings..."
Sauron: "Mine's better."
"Ah, how ironic, the addictive qualities of Sauron’s master weapon led to its own destruction. Which just goes to show, kids - if you want two small and noble souls to succeed on a mission of dire importance... send an evil-minded beggar with them too." - Gandalf's Diaries, final par, by Ufthak.
Fantasy novel - The Arcanist's Tattoo
My LOTR fan-fiction
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Greenwood Hobbit
Valinor
Mar 22 2023, 9:56am
Post #4 of 6
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such a wide variety of recommendations! I've just finished 'A Year of Marvellous Ways' by Sarah Winman, lent to me by my daughter. It's quite a strange book, but draws you in. The cover notes state: 'This is a story about Marvellous Ways, an eighty-nine-year-old woman who sits by a creek in Cornwall, wearing a battered yellow oilskin and peering through a telescope. And it's about Francis Drake, a young soldier who washes up in her creek, shattered by war and broken-hearted. It's about the magic in everyday life and the lure of the sea, the healing powers of storytelling and sloe gin, love and death, and how we carry on when grief comes snapping at our heels'. It's unusual, quite raw in places and conjures up a vivid sense of place. There's a lot of to-and-fro dialogue in which the author has dispensed with inverted commas, which I found odd at first but adapted to quite quickly.
I enjoy books about words; two I own are 'The Word Book' by Gyles Brandreth, a light and readable book that first came out in 1988, so I don't know if it's still available. The second is 'The World of Words', an illustrated history of western languages; my edition is from 1999. It's full of maps and diagrams explaining clearly how languages spread and changed.
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Annael
Immortal
Mar 23 2023, 5:49pm
Post #5 of 6
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that "World of Words" sounds fascinating. I loved the series "The Story of English" that came out years ago and bought the book, but no longer have it (and I believe some of the theories in it have been disproved, but it was still fun to read).
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Greenwood Hobbit
Valinor
Mar 24 2023, 10:09pm
Post #6 of 6
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It's a bit like family history -
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you want to dig down through the years and find out how things came to be the way they are. English is a very mixed language, with words from all sorts of different countries, so it's very interesting.
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