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A meme from Should Be Reading.
Jan. 3rd, 2013 01:52 pmTo play along, answer these three questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
I'm reading Unquiet Souls: A Social History of the Illustrious, Irreverent, Intimate Group of British Aristocrats Known as "The Souls" by Angela Lambert. They were a group similar to the Prince of Wales' Marboro House Set, but a little more intellectual. They similarly had a lot of semi-open affairs with one another but nobody ever divorced. Margo Tennant Asquith was one of the central members. It's a gossipy, frivolous read that I'm enjoying.
Before that I read Claire Tomalin's biography of Thomas Hardy. I liked it, and here's the review I put on Goodreads:
I read this now because at the end of Streets of Laredo, one of the characters picks up a copy of Tess of the D'Urbervilles at a railway station bookstore because of her adopted daughter Tess. I've read a lot of Hardy, though not recently, and like him a lot - his descriptions of rural life are so striking and his characters so compelling. This book is quite interesting, with a lot about his first marriage, which started out happily. Emma Hardy was an aspiring writer and helped him with copying and so forth, but as the years went by he turned to her less, which she deeply resented. They became estranged to the point where she had moved to an attic bedroom at the time she died. He had flirtations during this period, and married again, but that marriage doesn't seem to have been satisfying either. There’s a lot of good stuff about his rise in class and how that affected his writing and relationships, with his family and with other writers.
I think next I'm going to read either Swamplandia! or Humphrey Carpenter's biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, which I've heard is good. I'm not a fan, but am very curious about him and how he came to write his books.
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
I'm reading Unquiet Souls: A Social History of the Illustrious, Irreverent, Intimate Group of British Aristocrats Known as "The Souls" by Angela Lambert. They were a group similar to the Prince of Wales' Marboro House Set, but a little more intellectual. They similarly had a lot of semi-open affairs with one another but nobody ever divorced. Margo Tennant Asquith was one of the central members. It's a gossipy, frivolous read that I'm enjoying.
Before that I read Claire Tomalin's biography of Thomas Hardy. I liked it, and here's the review I put on Goodreads:
I read this now because at the end of Streets of Laredo, one of the characters picks up a copy of Tess of the D'Urbervilles at a railway station bookstore because of her adopted daughter Tess. I've read a lot of Hardy, though not recently, and like him a lot - his descriptions of rural life are so striking and his characters so compelling. This book is quite interesting, with a lot about his first marriage, which started out happily. Emma Hardy was an aspiring writer and helped him with copying and so forth, but as the years went by he turned to her less, which she deeply resented. They became estranged to the point where she had moved to an attic bedroom at the time she died. He had flirtations during this period, and married again, but that marriage doesn't seem to have been satisfying either. There’s a lot of good stuff about his rise in class and how that affected his writing and relationships, with his family and with other writers.
I think next I'm going to read either Swamplandia! or Humphrey Carpenter's biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, which I've heard is good. I'm not a fan, but am very curious about him and how he came to write his books.
