summer reading ~

[lookingland]

i've read a lot of books this summer (some of which have been surprisingly fun like last week's Brief Honors: a Romance of the Great Dividable, which was a morality tale about the evil of big corporations ~ written in 1877!). as i have been reading this summer, i have thought it would be fun to share some of these books in more depth (i wish i had journaled more about Montmorency because those books are so much fun and the plots are so twisty). so i thought i would like to blog a book in august ~ just for fun, give a blow-by-blow of my impressions for each chapter. i can't decide which book to choose and since i am no longer a paying lj peep, i cannot make the pretty poll thing, but feel free to express yourself in the comments if you have an opinion.


these are the candidates on the docket:

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Dalquist ~ at 725 pages this is quite the tome, but less daunting than Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (which i am still mulling through). also, i love the chapter format (had to send away to Ireland for it special). It's a fantasy adventure, but what if it sucks and then i will spend all my energy quibbling? that isn't a good thing. or i might challenge myself to not quibble, which would be fabulous.

Loveless by Azarrello ~ okay, it's a graphic novel, but it has twenty four parts, so it would be substantial enough to report on, i think. grim western, mature themes, probably lots to enjoy and/or criticize, and it's not as huge an investment as a "real" novel.

Oh Please Read Something New out of Your Vast S. Weir Mitchell Collection! ~ because i still have a handful of books i have been saving and you know how i love to go on about this guy's work, complete with side stories on obscure post-Civil War minutiae. of the books of his that i haven't read i would probably choose John Sherwood, When All the Woods are Green, or In War Time. I'm leaning toward In War Time because it opens with an army hospital post-Gettysburg and i am a ghoul for that sort of thing.

or, if none of these ideas seem fun to you, feel free to suggest something completely different ~ on the understanding that i rarely actually read book recommendations because my tastes are entirely too flaky. so if you want to increase the chances that i might actually look at something you suggest, just make sure the plot doesn't rely on telephones, cars, or understanding the least bit about the 21st century ~ because all of that might be too much of a challenge to my enfeebled antiquarian brain.

my idea is to read this book in August and just do a periodic update on its progress in an impressionistic sort of way (not necessarily a blow by blow, though spoilers would definitely be included, so consider that).

by the way i do have three other books on my reading list this summer, which i will probably be taking with me on vacation at the end of the month (so they aren't good blogging prospects, i don't think, it being hard to blog on the beach): The Birth House by ami mcKay, The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, and The Year of Jublio by howard bahr.

opinions, oh flist of mine?

: D