![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseHello, book friends! Today I went to Sculpt for the first time since traveling and recovering from a cold. (I hit a class last Saturday but realized ten minutes in that I was not recovered, and ended up sitting a good chunk of it out.) I was pleased to discover I could make it all the way through with minimal modifications; it's definitely tougher than it was three weeks ago but getting back to where I was shouldn't be too difficult of a climb. For the moment, though, I'm rather glad I don't need to raise my arms over my head anytime in the next several hours.
What I've just finished reading
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, by Ian Mortimer. Not a bad little trip, on the whole, although the criticisms about its sexist outlook are not without merit. Still, I learned a few things and laughed a few times, so on the whole I'll take it. I appreciated the picture sections with tapestries and manuscripts from the era; many of them I'd seen before, but it was cool to examine the fashions and art styles and whatnot just after reading about them.
The Ruin of a Rake, by Cat Sebastian. I've read a few of Sebastian's romances now, and unfortunately, all three have come up basically...not-quite. The dialogue feels not-quite-natural, the characters don't quite spring off the page, the chemistry never quite clicks. Which is a shame, because her setting and her plot both work beautifully. But especially with romance and especially-especially with sex, the interest is in how the characters get from civilized-and-guarded-with-defenses-firmly-in-place to primal-and-intimate-and-terrifyingly-open. And I don't think she's quite mastered that segue yet.
What I'm currently reading
The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea. I'm having an interesting relationship with this one. When I think about it objectively, I feel like not a lot is happening, so I end up drifting off to this or that new book...but then I finish that book, pick this one back up again, and am immediately absorbed in its colorful depiction of late-nineteenth-century Mexican life. So I can't say I'm not enjoying it, but I'm really wondering where it's all going, or if it's actually just a 528-page vignette.
What I plan to read next
I'm thinking it's time I pulled up Google Translate and Bara roligt i Bullerbyn - I got bogged down about 2/3rds through and never got around to finishing it. But man, it's hard to read in a second language - I'm so used to being able to look at a paragraph and pick up its meaning almost effortlessly, so having to work it out word by word is humbling. I know learning to read English was hard, because my mother tells me that I struggled with it, but I wanted to be able to read books for myself so badly that I was strongly motivated. But I don't remember any of that - I literally can't remember a time when I couldn't read. So the exercise in humility is probably good for me, heh.
What I've just finished reading
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, by Ian Mortimer. Not a bad little trip, on the whole, although the criticisms about its sexist outlook are not without merit. Still, I learned a few things and laughed a few times, so on the whole I'll take it. I appreciated the picture sections with tapestries and manuscripts from the era; many of them I'd seen before, but it was cool to examine the fashions and art styles and whatnot just after reading about them.
The Ruin of a Rake, by Cat Sebastian. I've read a few of Sebastian's romances now, and unfortunately, all three have come up basically...not-quite. The dialogue feels not-quite-natural, the characters don't quite spring off the page, the chemistry never quite clicks. Which is a shame, because her setting and her plot both work beautifully. But especially with romance and especially-especially with sex, the interest is in how the characters get from civilized-and-guarded-with-defenses-firmly-in-place to primal-and-intimate-and-terrifyingly-open. And I don't think she's quite mastered that segue yet.
What I'm currently reading
The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea. I'm having an interesting relationship with this one. When I think about it objectively, I feel like not a lot is happening, so I end up drifting off to this or that new book...but then I finish that book, pick this one back up again, and am immediately absorbed in its colorful depiction of late-nineteenth-century Mexican life. So I can't say I'm not enjoying it, but I'm really wondering where it's all going, or if it's actually just a 528-page vignette.
What I plan to read next
I'm thinking it's time I pulled up Google Translate and Bara roligt i Bullerbyn - I got bogged down about 2/3rds through and never got around to finishing it. But man, it's hard to read in a second language - I'm so used to being able to look at a paragraph and pick up its meaning almost effortlessly, so having to work it out word by word is humbling. I know learning to read English was hard, because my mother tells me that I struggled with it, but I wanted to be able to read books for myself so badly that I was strongly motivated. But I don't remember any of that - I literally can't remember a time when I couldn't read. So the exercise in humility is probably good for me, heh.
