Kim @ Traveling in Books posted: " There was a death in my family last weekend, so I headed to my parents' house for a couple of days to attend the funeral. I got to see several of my cousins who I haven't seen for about twenty years, so seeing them again was interesting. We don't have a " Traveling in Books
There was a death in my family last weekend, so I headed to my parents' house for a couple of days to attend the funeral. I got to see several of my cousins who I haven't seen for about twenty years, so seeing them again was interesting. We don't have a lot in common, so had very little to talk about other than the "it's been too dry, we need rain" sorts of conversations that have grown very common over the last couple of years.
I'll be heading back to my parents' house for another couple of days this week since I'll have the time off for Independence Day. I doubt I'll get much reading done, but there will definitely be audiobook time, as it's a 2.5-hour drive each way.
Obligatory Mina Photo:
I asked a friend to stop by and check on Mina while I was gone last week, which she was happy to do. Mina did not make an appearance when my friend came over. I am not surprised by this. She has never been a bold cat and will run and hide if she hears anyone but me coming up the stairs to our floor.
When I got home, I thanked my friend again and asked if she'd actually seen Mina when she was here. Her answer was, "Not a whisker!"
I am not surprised. We'll probably have the same result when she comes over again this week.
Mina may be cute, but brave she is not.
What I Finished Reading Last Week:
Witch King by Martha Wells
The Mirror and the Light (Thomas Cromwell #3) by Hilary Mantel, audiobook narrated by Ben Miles
I finished Witch King last Sunday, and I had so much fun with this book. I actually enjoyed the dual timelines, as I was constantly wanting to know what happened to Kai during each one, and I thought the magic was interesting, too. What a change! I usually dislike it when a book has dual timelines, and I've never been terribly interested in complex magic systems, but Martha Wells had a way of describing events and intentions that kept me invested in it all. It probably helped that she didn't stop the narrative to explain how all the magic worked or have Kai explain what, exactly, the Rising World was or how the Hierarchs were awful or anything of the sort. Witch King's narrative is a deep third-person limited, so you know what Kai knows, and Kai isn't one to bother explaining things he's already aware of. So you're going to just have to pick things up based on context clues, and that's the sort of worldbuilding I appreciate. If I wanted a lecture about history or chemistry, I'd ask to sit in on classes at the local university. I want a story with fascinating characters, and Wells provides that yet again. I will definitely be reading Witch King again, and will read whatever else she writes in this world.
Thanks to five hours' worth of driving to my hometown and back again, I finished The Mirror and the Light, and the ending was just as devastating this time as it was the first time I read it back in 2020. But this time, I was better able to pick up the clues I didn't notice the first time around, as well as the subtle warnings that various characters had for Cromwell that I didn't pick up on the last time. The last fifteen percent or so of the book is so painful, as Cromwell has risen so high that he feels unstoppable- until, of course, he is stopped. I know a lot of readers and critics feel that The Mirror and the Light is too long (it is, after all, about 850 pages), but Cromwell's perspective is so fascinating, and Mantel's writing is so captivating that all 850 of those pages seem to run by without my noticing how many of them there are. And honestly, if I didn't have so many other books I wanted to read, I would just start reading the Cromwell books all over again from the beginning. I really need to find more historical fiction in this vein. Alas, so much of what is out there tries to mimic Philippa Gregory. . .
What I'm Currently Reading:
Between travel and DNF'ing two books this week, it looks like I read basically nothing, but I promise that I was reading. I just wasn't liking what I picked up. Except for my current, solo read.
Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine, ARC provided by NetGalley (30%)
Fifteen-year-old Luisa, a pupil and resident of the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice has only ever wanted one thing: To excel at the violin. She is a gifted student but has neither genius nor friends. Until Maddalena arrives. Maddalena is the daughter of a wealthy family who has been sent to the Pietà to protect her marriage prospects in the wake of a family scandal. She and Luisa are drawn to each other- and to the decadence of the world outside. As they start to explore more of their world, they must face the fact that every dream has its price. I'm about a third of the way through this book and am thoroughly enjoying it. Fine's writing has an impressionistic feeling to it that makes me think of the light on the waters of Venice's famous canals. Maddalena and Luisa are wonderfully rendered characters, too. They feel like young women existing in Venice in the 1710s, chafing against the restrictions they face because of their gender and social classes, but without feeling like modern teenagers in period costumes trying to "bring down the patriarchy". They're also as dramatic as I would expect a teenager to be, but not in the snarky/sassy way that teenagers are too often written. They react to their situations like young people who are developing a fascination with their world, testing their boundaries, and certain in the knowledge that no one has ever felt the way that they do. Maddalena and the Dark is fantastic so far, and I look forward to continuing it.
What I've Been Listening To:
I started listening to Alexandre Desplat's Academy Award-winning score for The Grand Budapest Hotel, but only got about halfway through it. I enjoyed what I heard and will make a concerted effort to listen to the whole thing and report back later.
Otherwise, the main thing I listened to was Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons, as Vivaldi is a side character in Maddalena and the Dark, so it felt appropriate to listen to it again. I do have the minor problem, in this instance, of being reminded of London rather than thinking of Italy. When I was in London in 2014, I went to a performance of The Four Seasons by the London Octave at St Martin-in-the-Fields. It was a fantastic venue for great music, so I have a lot of memories of it. But it was still an excellent choice to listen to while reading Maddalena and the Dark.
About that Writing Thing:
Today is my self-imposed deadline for starting to post the latest story in my ongoing fantasy series. This is the penultimate tale, and I've been looking forward to being done with it for so long. As of today, I'm right on schedule with the edits (I'm about seven weeks ahead of my posting schedule), so as long as I can fix the problems in Chapter 8 with relative ease, I'll be set for the rest of the story as Chapter 8 contained the bulk of my problems. It's going to be annoying, but I'm planning to get it wrapped up today so I can focus on the lesser issues of the final three chapters.
Once that's done, I can write the final- and much shorter- story in this series and be done with the whole thing. It's only taken me ten years!
Then I'll be able to focus on the new stories that are popping up in my head. They promise to be a lot of fun right now, but they're always fun in the planning stages. The actual writing is the hard part. It's fun, but also hard.
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