If I were offered a chance to meet anyone in all of history, I would choose Oscar Wilde. If I were offered a chance to have a lifelong friendship with anyone in history, I might instead choose Oscar Wilde’s friend Ada Leverson. Ada Leverson had a beautiful name, gave good parties, liked her privacy, made bitchy-but-not-too-bitchy remarks, and was very good to Oscar Wilde even after he was Disgraced. He called her Sphinx because she was mysterious. She paid half his bail and went to meet him when he got out of prison. I love her. I also identify with…
25 CommentsReading the End Posts
My half-assed, unenthusiastic effort to make myself love books in translation continues apace. Yes, I am aware that it is a very very half-assed effort indeed. No, I would probably not have done anything about it had not Europa contacted me to offer me a copy of An Accident in August for review. (Hey FTC! There’s a disclosure encased in that last sentence, if you care to look for it.) On a late night in August 1997, Lou has a minor car accident. Minor for her: the car that sideswipes her crashes spectacularly, and Lou speeds off in terror. The…
24 CommentsHow long it took me to figure out that the reason I didn’t know what country the protagonist was from was that the country the protagonist was from was never named and may quite well have been intended to be fictional: Two-thirds. Two-thirds of the book. You know why that is? Because I am dumb. The Road Home was a gift from the lovely Fiona of The Book Coop. Fiona’s note said “It did cross my mind briefly to buy you Rose Tremain’s whole works”, and y’all, I have to say I am in great sympathy with this position. If…
25 CommentsIt turns out that a TBR shelf was the best idea I ever had. I’ve made the top section of my little bookshelf into a priority-reads shelf. Now when I am wondering what to read, and I think longingly of library books, my TBR shelf is like a stern little taskmaster going “Oh no you don’t, missy. You have all these books right here in your own very room.” And then I read those books instead, and honestly? I bought or asked for most of those books myself. There is no reason to suppose that I will like them any…
24 CommentsWhat now? 4th of July weekend was ages ago and I am the laziest book blogger ever for only getting around to posting about Rough Crossings: The Slaves, the British, and the American Revolution at the start of August? Fair point. In my defense, I read this book all in one weekend, and if you haven’t been carting a book around on the subway for several days, it hardly even feels like a book you read at all! So I forgot about it. And that’s really not my fault. Because of the subway thing. (No, you’re the lamest excuse ever.…
17 CommentsSoooooooooo. So. So. The Great Night. How shall I describe it? The Great Night is like if Neil Gaiman had written A Midsummer Night’s Dream. What’s that you say? He has written “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and it was nothing like this? Then give me a moment to find another analogy. It’s like if Lev Grossman (about whom more in a few days) wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Actually, that analogy is pretty solid. Lev Grossman and Chris Adrian occupy spaces in my head that are not terribly far apart: I might easily recommend either one of them to someone…
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