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what i'm reading wednesday 14/5/2025
What I finished:
+ Westmark by Lloyd Alexander. I read the Chronicles of Pyrdain a couple of times when I was a kid and also The Iron Ring, but I completely missed this series. Several people with good (read: my) taste had it on their 100 books list, so I ordered it through interlibrary loan.
I see why people imprinted on it! I did not imprint on it, being not the right age for it, but it went directly to my "wish I'd discovered it as a kid" shelf on GoodReads. Alexander is better at the prose level than I realized as a kid, and it was a joy to read his writing. I liked our main character Theo, who is a person who always tries to do the right thing but is not always sure what that is (relatable) and is surrounded by people with different ethical frameworks than he has. I hate to be all "the publishing industry has gone downhill!" but honestly, very few authors (Hardinge, as always, is a big exception) are doing this level of nuanced morality and prose on even the YA level, much less the MG one. It's a joy to read "old school" YA/MG books and be so totally trusted by the writer. That said, it is very much a book for kids, so every time I wanted the writing to really dig into a particular idea or feeling, it didn't, but, like, that's a me problem. It's perfect for a MG reader!
I also think it's interesting how his worldbuilding looks at a glance like Generic Medieval European Fantasy, but it's clearly not--this is actually Reformation-era fantasy with the importance of printing presses and a Cromwell-esque villain, and it reminded me that your worldbuilding doesn't have to be complex to be good and distinctive. Just a few details make things feel realistic.
Also, this is an aside, but I was looking at Alexander's GoodReads page, I do not think I'd ever seen a picture of him before, and I am so taken by his face, especially his nose. He looks like a Froud illustration! Exactly what a children's fantasy author should look like! What a wonderful face!!!
+ Also, Everything Is Tuberculosis again. I had long ago put both the book and the audiobook on hold at the library and then ended up buying a copy of the book instead, so I read it right after it came out, but the audiobook hold finally arrived last week so I listened to it again. I still think it's great; I still wish it was longer; I still understand why it isn't.
What I'm currently reading:
+ Still working on City of Stairs. I might not finish it before it's due back at the library and then I will probably have to wait for it to come around again!
+ I also finally started Tendencies by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. This is my first time reading more than short excerpts of queer studies icon Sedgwick and damn, that woman could construct a sentence. This book is a collection of essays and I am reading one essay at a time. It'll take me a while to get through it but she is not a writer that you rush through! Many of her insights seem even more relevant now than they did in the early 90s when she was writing.
+ Westmark by Lloyd Alexander. I read the Chronicles of Pyrdain a couple of times when I was a kid and also The Iron Ring, but I completely missed this series. Several people with good (read: my) taste had it on their 100 books list, so I ordered it through interlibrary loan.
I see why people imprinted on it! I did not imprint on it, being not the right age for it, but it went directly to my "wish I'd discovered it as a kid" shelf on GoodReads. Alexander is better at the prose level than I realized as a kid, and it was a joy to read his writing. I liked our main character Theo, who is a person who always tries to do the right thing but is not always sure what that is (relatable) and is surrounded by people with different ethical frameworks than he has. I hate to be all "the publishing industry has gone downhill!" but honestly, very few authors (Hardinge, as always, is a big exception) are doing this level of nuanced morality and prose on even the YA level, much less the MG one. It's a joy to read "old school" YA/MG books and be so totally trusted by the writer. That said, it is very much a book for kids, so every time I wanted the writing to really dig into a particular idea or feeling, it didn't, but, like, that's a me problem. It's perfect for a MG reader!
I also think it's interesting how his worldbuilding looks at a glance like Generic Medieval European Fantasy, but it's clearly not--this is actually Reformation-era fantasy with the importance of printing presses and a Cromwell-esque villain, and it reminded me that your worldbuilding doesn't have to be complex to be good and distinctive. Just a few details make things feel realistic.
Also, this is an aside, but I was looking at Alexander's GoodReads page, I do not think I'd ever seen a picture of him before, and I am so taken by his face, especially his nose. He looks like a Froud illustration! Exactly what a children's fantasy author should look like! What a wonderful face!!!
+ Also, Everything Is Tuberculosis again. I had long ago put both the book and the audiobook on hold at the library and then ended up buying a copy of the book instead, so I read it right after it came out, but the audiobook hold finally arrived last week so I listened to it again. I still think it's great; I still wish it was longer; I still understand why it isn't.
What I'm currently reading:
+ Still working on City of Stairs. I might not finish it before it's due back at the library and then I will probably have to wait for it to come around again!
+ I also finally started Tendencies by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. This is my first time reading more than short excerpts of queer studies icon Sedgwick and damn, that woman could construct a sentence. This book is a collection of essays and I am reading one essay at a time. It'll take me a while to get through it but she is not a writer that you rush through! Many of her insights seem even more relevant now than they did in the early 90s when she was writing.