Recent reading

[troisoiseaux]

Read The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'Donnell, a historical mystery with a supernatural twist. It's set in Victorian London and follows parallel investigations - one by the sharp-witted and sharper-tongued Inspector Cutter and earnest Cambridge dropout Gideon Bliss, and the other by plucky journalist Octavia Hillingdon - into the death of a seamstress found with words stitched into her skin, and the disappearances of a number of working-class girls.

Read The Manningtree Witches by A.K. Blakemore, historical fiction about a witch hunt in 1640s England that is also, at its heart, a story about a young woman's complicated relationship with her single mother. Historical fiction about 17th century witch trials seems to be having a moment— this is the third such novel published in 2020-21 that I've read in the past few months, but definitely my favorite of the three.

Listening to Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea, which works really well as an audiobook! I'm really liking how it has different narrators for the book's different storylines - there are a few distinct but intertwining story-within-a-story arcs going on - and Morgenstern's writing style sounds great when read aloud.

Comments

[mme_n_b]

Morgenstern is an astounding writer. I keep her Flax Golden Tales bookmarked to re-read one or two at random when I'm feeling grey.

[troisoiseaux]

I fell hard for The Night Circus when I read it in high school, but The Starless Sea is even better, I think. I hadn't heard of her Flax Golden Tales before! I'll have to check those out.

[mme_n_b]

:)
http://erinmorgenstern.com/category/flax-golden/

[troisoiseaux]

My personal favorite source of weird little vignettes is relative-pronoun. (Sadly, this blog has long since stopped updating, but I still go back and re-read it sometimes.)

[mme_n_b]

It's... both very disturbing and very difficult to put aside. I feel like I just ate way too much of something bad for me - possibly very good blue cheese. Thank you!

[chestnut_pod]

I'm really liking how it has different narrators for the book's different storylines -- what a great idea! It brings me much pleasure that publishers are beginning to get properly creative with audiobooks and audiobook narration.

[troisoiseaux]

My library doesn't have it, sadly, but I've been recommended the audiobook for M.T. Anderson's Symphony for the City of the Dead for the way it utilizes music (Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7).

[chestnut_pod]

I only read the text, but I can definitely recommend the book for being a wonderful work of history, at least!