Recent reading
Dec. 27th, 2023 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaMostly reading Yuletide fic now (and hoping to make some recs later), but here are two books I read before the collection opened.
Unfit To Print by K J Charles (2018)
This was great! The author must have had a lot of fun with the Victorian porn, and I liked the characters. I found it warm and engaging, and not as tropey as some of her other books. It's not fluff, since the characters are carrying some baggage and emotional trauma. Unlike some other novellas, it didn't leave me feeling like it was too short: I thought it was just the right length both to wrap up the plot and to develop the relationship.
Letters of the Right Honourable Mary Wortley Montague (1724)
Subtitle: "WRITTEN DURING HER TRAVELS IN EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA, TO Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters, &c. in different PARTS of EUROPE. Which contain, among other curious Relations, ACCOUNTS of the POLICY and MANNERS of the TURKS. Drawn from Sources that have been inaccessible to other Travellers." I was actually more interested in reading about the details of her private life that I have learned about fromcahn's salon, which are sadly not in evidence in this volume, but this is what was available on Gutenberg, so. A lot of the letters are to her sister (married to the Earl of Mar who was in the '15; not a happy marriage). Her husband was an ambassador in Turkey, thus why she went there (and there is indeed a short note about variolation, which she was famous for bringing to England). I feel like she describes Muslim Turkey and Catholic Vienna as if they are about equally as foreign to her. There's also a sort of "we may be different, but we're all upper class and will be generously hospitable to each other" in her interactions wherever she goes. Here's a sample of her writing: My curiosity supplied me with strength to climb to the top of [the promontory], to see the place where Achilles was buried, and where Alexander ran naked round his tomb, in honour of him, which, no doubt, was a great comfort to his ghost. So yeah, she's both witty and erudite. Here is a poem about her to that effect.
Unfit To Print by K J Charles (2018)
This was great! The author must have had a lot of fun with the Victorian porn, and I liked the characters. I found it warm and engaging, and not as tropey as some of her other books. It's not fluff, since the characters are carrying some baggage and emotional trauma. Unlike some other novellas, it didn't leave me feeling like it was too short: I thought it was just the right length both to wrap up the plot and to develop the relationship.
Letters of the Right Honourable Mary Wortley Montague (1724)
Subtitle: "WRITTEN DURING HER TRAVELS IN EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA, TO Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters, &c. in different PARTS of EUROPE. Which contain, among other curious Relations, ACCOUNTS of the POLICY and MANNERS of the TURKS. Drawn from Sources that have been inaccessible to other Travellers." I was actually more interested in reading about the details of her private life that I have learned about from
cahn's salon, which are sadly not in evidence in this volume, but this is what was available on Gutenberg, so. A lot of the letters are to her sister (married to the Earl of Mar who was in the '15; not a happy marriage). Her husband was an ambassador in Turkey, thus why she went there (and there is indeed a short note about variolation, which she was famous for bringing to England). I feel like she describes Muslim Turkey and Catholic Vienna as if they are about equally as foreign to her. There's also a sort of "we may be different, but we're all upper class and will be generously hospitable to each other" in her interactions wherever she goes. Here's a sample of her writing: My curiosity supplied me with strength to climb to the top of [the promontory], to see the place where Achilles was buried, and where Alexander ran naked round his tomb, in honour of him, which, no doubt, was a great comfort to his ghost. So yeah, she's both witty and erudite. Here is a poem about her to that effect.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-12-29 05:56 pm (UTC)And I'm so glad you enjoyed The Oak and the Ash! : D I have passed on the feedback. I don't know about audiobook rights, but she's definitely working on another book, at least.