Archive for October, 2008

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Books I am in the middle of (with explanations)

October 24, 2008

In roughly chronological order

Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures.

This is my favorite of the Ruth Fielding books, and the kind of thing I often pick up when there’s nothing in particular I want to read. But the most recent time I picked up this one was so long ago that I can’t remember where I got up to in the book, and I’ve poached its bookmark for something else. There’s no likelihood I’ll finish this unless I start it again, and it wouldn’t be on this list except that it’s still sitting on my bedside table.

Royal Escape, by Georgette Heyer.

I got this from a table on someone’s lawn. It was sitting next to a sign that said “free books” — the kind of sign I find it almost impossible to resist. And I like Georgette Heyer, most of the time. I mean, I like historical novels, and I like romances with a sense of humor, and Heyer’s books are kind of relaxing, in that there’s enough going on that you don’t get bored, but not enough that you actually have to think. What I do not like, I realized while reading this book, are historical novels with important historical figures as the main characters. It is for the same reason that, as much as I love Rafael Sabatini, I was never able to finish The Lost King. But I still intend to finish that, and I still intend to finish this.

The Economic Naturalist, by Robert H. Frank.

My parents gave this book to by grandmother a year or so ago, and when she was done with it she lent it to me. Frank offers practical, clear explanations of economic problems, and it is fascinating; I raced through half of it one afternoon, but somehow I haven’t had the urge to pick it up since.

The Stolen Train, by Robert Ashley.

Yes, I posted about it without finishing it. In my defense, when I published that post I thought I was going to finish it. Now I’m not so sure. Also, I know it so well that I didn’t really need to finish it.

Hildegarde’s Holiday, By Laura E. Richards.

I do intend to reread the entire Hildegarde series, and I started the second one right after finishing the first. Somehow I got stalled, but I still have the etext window open. I like these books a lot, but this is the least fun, and it doesn’t really pick up until nearly the end.

The Poems of John Donne, edited by Sir H.J.C. Grierson.

Or rather, the introduction. I tend not to read books of poetry straight through. But last week I was flipping through this book and realized I’d never read the introduction — and I like introductions. So I took it with me when I went away last weekend, and if I hadn’t been so busy, I might have finished it. I don’t know now whether I ever will.

The Hidden Staircase.

This was my favorite Nancy Drew book when I was younger, so I picked it up on Monday when I was looking for something easy and comfortable. This is one I will finish. There’s only about a third left, and it won’t take long. As I’ve been reading this, I’ve been thinking a lot about that fact that it was written to a detailed outline, and wondering how much of the content was in the outline and how much the author was able to improvise.

Four Faultless Felons, by G.K. Chesterton.

When I’m leaving the house and I want to take a book with me, and I’m not particularly invested in whatever I’m reading, or it’s too big to fit in my bag, I tend to pick up a book of G.K. Chesterton stories — The Club of Queer Trades or The Paradoxes of Mr, Pond, or Four Faultless Felons. If I had a copy of Tales of the Long Bow, it would fall in the same category. I don’t usually take Father Brown stories, partly because the Father Brown books I have aren’t as skinny as the others, which are Dover editions, and partly because I’m worried that if I read “The Sign of the Broken Sword” too many times, it will lose its effect on me and stop sending chills up my spine.

Anyway, Four Faultless Felons is a fun one, and very typically Chestertonian. I haven’t stopped carrying it around with me yet, so there’s a good chance that I’ll get through at least the first quarter.

The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan.

I only started this the night before last, and I’m finding it to be a lot of fun. I’d be more than halfway through if I hadn’t decided that I felt more like reading Nancy Drew last night. It’s very different from the movie, so much so that it helps not to think of them as the same story. And there’s something really nice and unpretentious about it.

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Queen Hildegarde

October 14, 2008

There are a few kinds of children’s stories you see over and over. One that I happen to particularly like is the one where a kid from a city goes to live in the country, or in a small town, and communes with nature and gets their priorities straight. Queen Hildegarde is one of those.

Hildegarde Graham is the spoiled fifteen-year-old daughter of rich parents. She lives in New York City, is very pretty, has beautiful clothes, and is the envy of all her friends. Her parents, though, are sensible people, so they get worried about her, and when they have to go off to California for a few months, they send Hilda to stay with her mother’s old nurse.

Hildegarde is completely horrified by the prospect. She’s basically like, “farmers, ew!” and she uses the word “intolerable” a lot. Read the rest of this entry ?

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Yesterday’s Acquisitions

October 11, 2008

Yesterday my father and I went to an auction of books and documents and prints and things. Because of the financial crisis, people weren’t bidding as high as expected, but even so the children’s books I was interested in buying were out of my reach. We did manage to get a folio of Japanese watercolors my mother wanted, though, and we bid on something signed by King James I, mostly because nobody else was, and it would have been kind of awesome if we had won.

But not getting anything at the auction gave me an excuse to buy a book of drawings by Charles Dana Gibson — The Social Ladder — that I’d been looking at last weekend. It’s in terrible condition — it’s literally falling apart — but the drawings themselves are intact, even if the pages they’re on aren’t completely. And I got it for less than half of the lowest price I’ve found online. And then I bought a copy of Louisa May Alcott’s Life, Letters and Journals, which I initially thought was signed by Alcott, but which in fact just has a facsimile signature below her photograph on the frontispiece. Fortunately, I was neither very surprised nor disappointed, and I’m still pretty pleased about the price I got it for.

The woman in the store where I bought both books also threw in a 60s paperback by Viola Rowe called Freckled and Fourteen. I plan on posting about all three books in depth, and if I can manage it, I’d like to photograph and post the whole of the Gibson book.

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The lost outlines of “Carolyn” “Keene”

October 8, 2008

I found this Nancy Drew parody the other day and I think it’s excellent. Cleolinda Jones has distilled the Nancy Drew books to their predictable and ridiculous, yet hugely enjoyable, essence.

“E. Stop meddling, Nancy Drew! We’re so dangerous that we

1. made a threatening call to your house!
2. left a threatening letter in your mailbox!
3. ran you off the road!
4. broke into your bedroom!
5. drugged and kidnapped you!
6. left you

a. tied up in a closet!
b. rolled up in a blanket! A really dangerous blanket!
c. locked up someplace where NO ONE WILL EVER FIND YOU!

1. (except that George totally does)
2. (except that Bess totally does)
3. (except that Ned totally does)
3b. (not that you’re going to put out, even so)”

Read the rest here.

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Books for Sale!

October 8, 2008

As of today, Redeeming Qualities has a new feature: books for sale through Amazon.

There are books I have multiple copies of, books I read and enjoyed but don’t feel I need to keep, and books I didn’t like that much but hope to match up with someone they’re better suited to. And, of course, I’m one of those people who can’t resist buying attractive copies of books I already have.

That adds up to quite a few books I don’t need to keep, and I could just cart them over the the nearest used book store, but I want to nudge them in the direction of good homes. My hope is that people will be able to read about a book here, decide it sounds interesting, and go straight to my store to buy it, because really, this blog is all about gtting people to read books that I’ve enjoyed.

I’m started by putting up seven Patty Fairfield books that I have multiple copies of. The Patty Fairfield Reference Page is consistently the most-visited page here, and although most of the people who have commented about Patty already have the complete collection, that only shows how well-loved they are.

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The Merryweathers

October 5, 2008
I'm guessing the girl on the cover is Gertrude, but really, I have no idea.

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I finally got a chance last week to read The Merryweathers, the last book in the Three Margarets series (thanks to Elizabeth’s prompting — I’m not sure when I would’ve gotten around to looking for it again on my own).

This one requires a bit of explanation. The Margaret series is sometimes considered to be the second half of the Hildegarde-Margaret series, because while the Hildegarde and Margaret series are each capable of standing on their own, they each feature the Merryweather family pretty prominently in their later books. In the Hildegarde books, the oldest Merryweather daughter, Bell, becomes Hilda’s best friend, and Hilda ends up marrying Mr. Merryweather’s younger half-brother Roger. Meanwhile, the rest of the family, especially the oldest boys, twins Gerald and Philip, inject some much-needed lightness into Hilda’s too-serious world-view.

Margaret Montfort is even more serious-minded than Hilda, and therefore even more in need of Gerald Merryweather, so it’s fitting that he falls in love with her. Peggy, on the other hand, is thoughtless and scattered, so when she goes off to boarding school, sheet meets Gertrude Merryweather, AKA the Snowy Owl, whose ideals are higher than Peggy’s and whose personality is more down-to-earth. Read the rest of this entry ?