Wednesdays Fall Apart

[evelyn_b]

Why is it taking five weeks to type up a list of the books I read in 2020? you may be wondering. Or not; you may have other things on your mind besides the Annual Past Year Books Retrospective at evelyn_b. Regardless, "by the end of January" still counts as the New Year, as far as I'm concerned.

What I've Been Reading

Wolf Hall:

The king says, you have a good arm, a good eye. He says disparagingly, oh, at this distance. We have a match every Sunday, he says, my household. We go to Paul's for the sermon and then out to Moorfields, we meet up with our fellow guildsmen and destroy the butchers and the grocers, and then we have a dinner together. We have grudge matches with the vinters. . .

Henry turns to him, impulsive: what if I came with you one week? If I came in disguise? The Commons would like it, would they not? I could shoot for you. A king should show himself, sometimes, don't you feel? It would be amusing, yes?

Not very, he thinks. He cannot swear to it, but he thinks there are tears in Henry's eyes. "For sure we would win," he says. It is what you would say to a child. "The vinters would be roaring like bears."

Quichotte:

To be a lawyer in a lawless time was like being a clown among the humorless: which was to say, either completely redundant or absolutely essential.

Both pretty good so far. Wolf Hall had me eyeing its writing style suspiciously in the first five pages, and by the first ten I was totally on board. Quichotte is a lot of Salman Rushdie being extremely Rushdie and maybe because it's been a while I'm completely on board for that, too.

New Books Appear in the Little Free Library

Some sort of cat-comics thing, an extremely fat Dragonlance novel, a Stephen King of medium thickness, a very battered true crime paperback called Blood and Money (I took this one home to check it out) and a few others have turned up over the past few days. I didn't put them there. This is an exciting development.

Next Week

A better post, I hope!

Comments

[osprey_archer]

It sounds like people are super engaged with the Little Free Library! That's amazing! Have they been taking books too, or just leaving them?

I've heard Wolf Hall is amazing, but every time I see an excerpt I, too, eye the writing style suspiciously. Do you really get used to it as the book goes on?

[evelyn_b]

Two copies of The Hunger Games, and now one other book has been taken.

I got used to it pretty quickly, then got suddenly un-used to it when it came time to type out a passage. Then very quickly I got used to it again. Your mileage may vary!

[thisbluespirit]

and a few others have turned up over the past few days. I didn't put them there. This is an exciting development.

Aw, that is exciting!

And I don't remember Wolf Hall being written quite like that, but clearly it worked for me as well.

[evelyn_b]

And no Jehovah's Witness pamphlets. . . yet!

I'm trying not to fill it too chock full & leave a little room for other people's books for now.

The writing style is a little like a weird smell that you don't notice until you've been out of the house for a while.

[chelseagirl]

I used to teach Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses, but I confess at some point I got all Rushdie'ed out. Maybe it was because after the divorce from Padma he got the reputation of being -- or attempting to be -- a bon vivant (aka, a jerk) on the New York party scene. Not the kinds of parties I get invited to, obviously. Anyway, whatever, he can be whoever he wants, but I started connecting it to the depictions of women in some of his books and got bored with him? I did make my way through that lengthy roman a clef about his time in hiding -- Joseph Anton -- and that was fascinating because the Rushdie Case was something I was very interested in at the time.

Just googled him to double check the title Joseph Anton and discovered that a) he lives not far from me and b) he supports Tottenham Hotspur, the same football club that my partner's family supports.

[evelyn_b]

The Moor's Last Sigh was a huge-deal favorite of my teenage years and the first book I ever bought immediately as it came out (because I fell in love with the excerpts in the local newspaper's book review), but I also got slightly Rushdied out after the second book of his I tried to read, and subsequently every time I tried to read a different Rushdie book. And then I reliably get Rushdie-refreshed and want to read another one every few years.

Maybe I'll read Joseph Anton sometime. TBH I've never read it, partly because I've long suspected he was kind of a jerk and didn't want to find out he was too much of a jerk. But now I think I'm old and cynical enough to weather any level of jerkiness.

[liadt]

Cool sounds like the free library is getting off to a good start:)

[evelyn_b]

So far, so good!