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Mar. 16th, 2020 03:43 pmI had a lovely weekend, and in these anxiety-mandatory times, feel quite guilty about having done so? Never mind. I was supposed to be in Dublin and ended up in Bowness on Windermere in the south Lakes. It's savagely cold and quite lovely. I am on my way back to London now and wish I weren't.
( observations on coronavirus, nothing here is panicky )
I read a lot while I was in the Lakes! If these trying times continue much longer, I think I shall make a point of writing up proper reviews of everything I read and pushing people at things I think they might like. I just read a 1940s murder mystery called Smallbone Deceased, about a firm of somewhat-eccentric London solicitors who find a dead guy in one of their deed boxes. I read it because I thought it would be moderately diverting and it turned out to be utterly delightful. I also read a short novella - Just In Case, Chrissie Manby - which killed a pleasant hour with its amazing low-stakes plot. (Rosie and Clare are twins. One of them is straitlaced, rigid, uncompromising; the other is a drippy hippie who likes the booze a bit much. On their way to a wedding and an overseas conference respectively, they accidentally SWAP SUITCASES. Gasp.) And now I'm on Turning Darkness Into Light, by Marie Brennan, which is natural history with dragons. it's a very enjoyable book so far despite the fact that nothing at all has happened.
The best book I've read just recently though is The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley, the sequel to The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. It's so good I'm actually kind of wordless about it. It's complex and detailed and beautifully written and just, devastating. I read most of it in a weekend and then had a good old-fashioned book hangover.
edit I don't know why my irrepressible family have decided the Hindi for "coronavirus" is "koroni", but I'm into it.
( observations on coronavirus, nothing here is panicky )
I read a lot while I was in the Lakes! If these trying times continue much longer, I think I shall make a point of writing up proper reviews of everything I read and pushing people at things I think they might like. I just read a 1940s murder mystery called Smallbone Deceased, about a firm of somewhat-eccentric London solicitors who find a dead guy in one of their deed boxes. I read it because I thought it would be moderately diverting and it turned out to be utterly delightful. I also read a short novella - Just In Case, Chrissie Manby - which killed a pleasant hour with its amazing low-stakes plot. (Rosie and Clare are twins. One of them is straitlaced, rigid, uncompromising; the other is a drippy hippie who likes the booze a bit much. On their way to a wedding and an overseas conference respectively, they accidentally SWAP SUITCASES. Gasp.) And now I'm on Turning Darkness Into Light, by Marie Brennan, which is natural history with dragons. it's a very enjoyable book so far despite the fact that nothing at all has happened.
The best book I've read just recently though is The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley, the sequel to The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. It's so good I'm actually kind of wordless about it. It's complex and detailed and beautifully written and just, devastating. I read most of it in a weekend and then had a good old-fashioned book hangover.
edit I don't know why my irrepressible family have decided the Hindi for "coronavirus" is "koroni", but I'm into it.