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I skipped last week, because I hadn't read much, but now I have stuff to talk about.
The Nine Tailors, Dorothy Sayers. Finally finished it! The final scenes are evocative and well-written, but it might have taken me so long on this because I'm not as interested in fen drainage as I am in bell-ringing. (Too bad Peter Wimsey doesn't know Stedman, but as he says to Bunter, it's delightful to know there are things he cannot do.) It's also a very male-dominated book, with the notable exception of Hilary Thorpe -- poor Mary Thoday gets zero agency in the whole thing (and isn't even given any responsibility for the gossip that enables the diamond theft, because of course women will gossip -- to be fair, I'd have trouble resisting in that situation too).
Aestus: Book 1: The City, S. Z. Attwell. Book club book, and the author is a friend, and attended book club. Enjoyed this -- it's an entertaining, well-structured dystopian thriller, with plot twists that made sense (if sometimes guessable in advance). Really the first half of a novel, but it ends at a good breaking point. It gave off some YA-ish vibes to me even though the protagonist is in her mid 20s (but has been a career-focused loner up to the start of the novel, so it feels like she's going through more YA-ish stages of coming of age) -- but maybe I'm doing the thing where books by female authors get pigeonholed as YA? Also really fun to discuss in book club, especially with the author present. Will probably be reading book 2 next.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare. Read aloud because Midsummer. I'm probably never going to love this play as much as I did as a teenager, but that's OK. Pyramus and Thisbe is still gloriously bad poetry, though (I got to read Flute this time!). Plot point noticed this time around that would make a good fanfic hook: Lysander's dowager aunt who lives on the other side of the wood, who is mentioned and then dropped. I'd love to know more about her, as an antidote to the patriarch of the play -- I like to imagine she made it to the wedding and got to hang out with the girls (which is why Hermia and Helena don't talk during the play, they're hanging out with her).
The Nine Tailors, Dorothy Sayers. Finally finished it! The final scenes are evocative and well-written, but it might have taken me so long on this because I'm not as interested in fen drainage as I am in bell-ringing. (Too bad Peter Wimsey doesn't know Stedman, but as he says to Bunter, it's delightful to know there are things he cannot do.) It's also a very male-dominated book, with the notable exception of Hilary Thorpe -- poor Mary Thoday gets zero agency in the whole thing (and isn't even given any responsibility for the gossip that enables the diamond theft, because of course women will gossip -- to be fair, I'd have trouble resisting in that situation too).
Aestus: Book 1: The City, S. Z. Attwell. Book club book, and the author is a friend, and attended book club. Enjoyed this -- it's an entertaining, well-structured dystopian thriller, with plot twists that made sense (if sometimes guessable in advance). Really the first half of a novel, but it ends at a good breaking point. It gave off some YA-ish vibes to me even though the protagonist is in her mid 20s (but has been a career-focused loner up to the start of the novel, so it feels like she's going through more YA-ish stages of coming of age) -- but maybe I'm doing the thing where books by female authors get pigeonholed as YA? Also really fun to discuss in book club, especially with the author present. Will probably be reading book 2 next.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare. Read aloud because Midsummer. I'm probably never going to love this play as much as I did as a teenager, but that's OK. Pyramus and Thisbe is still gloriously bad poetry, though (I got to read Flute this time!). Plot point noticed this time around that would make a good fanfic hook: Lysander's dowager aunt who lives on the other side of the wood, who is mentioned and then dropped. I'd love to know more about her, as an antidote to the patriarch of the play -- I like to imagine she made it to the wedding and got to hang out with the girls (which is why Hermia and Helena don't talk during the play, they're hanging out with her).