Recent reading
Dec. 17th, 2020 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaSing for the Coming of the Longest Night by Katherine Fabian and Iona Datt Sharma (2018)
For book club. This is a quest where the two romantic partners of a third person team up to find him when he's gone. In a way it reminded me weirdly of The Dark is Rising, though it's really very different: a magical quest during winter, set in Britain. I did appreciate that the main characters are the two tips in a V-relationship, you don't see that often in fiction! I had complicated thoughts on the ways in which it did and didn't agree with my own experiences in such relationships.
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
I listened to the Librivox audiobook. This was a fun adventure, though David made a number of, uh, bad decisions--although I guess there would've been less story if he hadn't. And he was only 18. I noped out of the sequel, because the male narrator of that one made the artistic choice to read women with a sort of high, falsetto voice, which I dislike. I don't like it any better when women narrators try to make their voices low when they read men--much better to differentiate voices by the character's personality. Also, given that Kidnapped is partly set in Appin in 1751, I wish Isobel Haldane had been in it! Heh, maybe I just wanted to read a novel about her instead.
Small Farm Future by Chris Smaje (2020)
Written by the author of the blog of the same name; it's about how in the future, due to various crises, we might many of us have to be involved more with agriculture to survive.
Sea-Green Ribbons by Naomi Mitchison (1991)
About a girl growing up in a Leveller family in 17th century London, and her further life. I liked it--I mean, I like pretty much anything Mitchison wrote. It's interesting to me how ideas are associated, or not associated, with each other in different time periods. Like, how strongly the idea of economic equality was associated with a certain kind of Christianity at that time, which is certainly not the case today.
For book club. This is a quest where the two romantic partners of a third person team up to find him when he's gone. In a way it reminded me weirdly of The Dark is Rising, though it's really very different: a magical quest during winter, set in Britain. I did appreciate that the main characters are the two tips in a V-relationship, you don't see that often in fiction! I had complicated thoughts on the ways in which it did and didn't agree with my own experiences in such relationships.
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
I listened to the Librivox audiobook. This was a fun adventure, though David made a number of, uh, bad decisions--although I guess there would've been less story if he hadn't. And he was only 18. I noped out of the sequel, because the male narrator of that one made the artistic choice to read women with a sort of high, falsetto voice, which I dislike. I don't like it any better when women narrators try to make their voices low when they read men--much better to differentiate voices by the character's personality. Also, given that Kidnapped is partly set in Appin in 1751, I wish Isobel Haldane had been in it! Heh, maybe I just wanted to read a novel about her instead.
Small Farm Future by Chris Smaje (2020)
Written by the author of the blog of the same name; it's about how in the future, due to various crises, we might many of us have to be involved more with agriculture to survive.
Sea-Green Ribbons by Naomi Mitchison (1991)
About a girl growing up in a Leveller family in 17th century London, and her further life. I liked it--I mean, I like pretty much anything Mitchison wrote. It's interesting to me how ideas are associated, or not associated, with each other in different time periods. Like, how strongly the idea of economic equality was associated with a certain kind of Christianity at that time, which is certainly not the case today.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-17 08:12 pm (UTC)I'd be interested to hear more about your thoughts on if Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night works on a craft and emotional-engagement level, if you feel like giving them. I've been going back and forth on whether I think I should read it based on my own respective experiences in that kind of relationship, and the reviews I've read have mostly just noted what the relationship is, rather than how it is written.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-19 10:07 pm (UTC)As for my own experience, I've had one great relationship with a partner's partner, and one terrible, relationship-ending one. So on the one hand I'd love to see warm friendship and shared experience between the tips of the V, and the book didn't quite give me that since it ended when they were just getting to know each other! OTOH, I would also like to see acknowledgement that if the relationship between the tips of the V doesn't work, it can potentially wreck the whole thing. And the book seems like it cheerfully assumes it's fine if they dislike each other.
Obviously I'm not actually expecting the book to cater to my personal experiences! I'm just explaining my reaction to it. : )
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-19 10:44 pm (UTC)