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landofnowhereI've been distracted by various stuff and not reading that much for the last few weeks, but here's an update!
Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir. That was a strange ending -- but I enjoyed spending time with the characters. Will definitely be reading Alecto the Ninth when it comes out, and probably rereading the rest of the series first for clues.
The Mendelssohn Family (1729-1847): Volume 1: From Letters and Journals by Sebastian Hensel, translated by Carl Klingemann. This is a really nice book to dip into here and there, letters of a smart, caring family -- when I picked it up earlier I was most interesting in young Felix and Fanny, so started from there, but this time I started from the beginning -- I got maybe a bit more of Hensel's editorializing and Jewish respectability politics ("we're the nice enlightend Jews, not like *those Jews*") than I needed, but still an interesting perspective and an enjoyable read.
It recently occured to me that Mendelssohn family RPF / Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell crossover would be really interesting, and this has sparked many ideas, which I'm not sure I'm up to writing. But JS&MN is just such a very British-centric book, that I'm curious to take the view on it all from Germany. (mrissa just recommended two books by Andrea Wulf, on the origins of German Romanticism and on Alexander von Humboldt, which both seem relevant to this project).
Related: my favorite Mendelssohn family member of the moment is Dorothea Mendelssohn-Veit-Schegel, who divorced her first husband to marry Friedrich Schlegel, prominent Romantic man of letters whose brother translated Shakespeare into German, and became a novelist and translator in her own right. Particularly intrigued by her "Geschichte des Zauberers Merlin", a German translation of the Merlin legends, and the first modern version of the Merlin myth to include Niniane/Nimue -- this article makes it sound very interesting!
Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir. That was a strange ending -- but I enjoyed spending time with the characters. Will definitely be reading Alecto the Ninth when it comes out, and probably rereading the rest of the series first for clues.
The Mendelssohn Family (1729-1847): Volume 1: From Letters and Journals by Sebastian Hensel, translated by Carl Klingemann. This is a really nice book to dip into here and there, letters of a smart, caring family -- when I picked it up earlier I was most interesting in young Felix and Fanny, so started from there, but this time I started from the beginning -- I got maybe a bit more of Hensel's editorializing and Jewish respectability politics ("we're the nice enlightend Jews, not like *those Jews*") than I needed, but still an interesting perspective and an enjoyable read.
It recently occured to me that Mendelssohn family RPF / Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell crossover would be really interesting, and this has sparked many ideas, which I'm not sure I'm up to writing. But JS&MN is just such a very British-centric book, that I'm curious to take the view on it all from Germany. (
mrissa just recommended two books by Andrea Wulf, on the origins of German Romanticism and on Alexander von Humboldt, which both seem relevant to this project).Related: my favorite Mendelssohn family member of the moment is Dorothea Mendelssohn-Veit-Schegel, who divorced her first husband to marry Friedrich Schlegel, prominent Romantic man of letters whose brother translated Shakespeare into German, and became a novelist and translator in her own right. Particularly intrigued by her "Geschichte des Zauberers Merlin", a German translation of the Merlin legends, and the first modern version of the Merlin myth to include Niniane/Nimue -- this article makes it sound very interesting!