Books read in February
Feb. 29th, 2012 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeFirst Term at Trebizon - Anne Digby
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carre
Second Term at Trebizon - Anne Digby
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Summer Term at Trebizon - Anne Digby
Sensational Melbourne: Reading, Sensation Fiction and Lady Audley's Secret in the Victorian Metropolis - Susan K. Martin & Kylie Mirmohamadi
Boy Trouble at Trebizon - Anne Digby
The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe
More Trouble at Trebizon - Anne Digby
The Bobbed Haired Bandit: A True Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York - Stephen Duncomb and Andrew Mattson
Babylon 5: In Valen's Name - J. Michael Straczynski and Peter David
More Trouble at Trebizon - Anne Digby
I unexpectedly managed the same number of books as January, although once again there was cheating -- those Trebizon books don't go more than a hundred pages, and the Babylon 5 comic took about half an hour to inhale.
The highlight of the month was The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe, which I spent much of last week raving about at anyone who stood still long enough to listen. It's a Canadian YA novel about an island off Nova Scotia that's struck down by a mysterious disease. As more and more people die, the island is quarantined, and people begin to take matters into their own hands. The premise alone had me sold, but the heroine is a socially awkward dork of colour, and there is not a melodramatic love triangle in sight. And I really loved the different kinds of female friendship depicted.
The Trebizon series is another ... well, it's just addictive. (I blameemilly for lending me the first one! And BookDepository for having the entire series in ebook form for $2.06 a book!) It's a boarding school series written in the late 1970s and early '80s, with all the cliches of Enid Blyton dragged kicking and screaming into the modern(ish) age. Girls have Walkmans and boyfriends, and older students have cars! And whereas Malory Towers' progressiveness went as far as having students from France and Spain, Trebizon has a third-tier character from Africa!
I'm kind of falling out of love with the series as I go -- the emphasis is increasingly on sport, and the plots are getting much sillier. And there's a growing gap between the author's description of the characters and the reality. The fair, justice-minded headmistress is the queen of jumping to conclusions and solving problems through mild psychological torture. And the lead's love interest goes on a really scary rampage when he thinks she has (a) attended a rough party and (b) in company with another boy. And there's a character whose defining aspect is that she's fat, and she loves food, and she can't stick to her diet, but she's always baking sweet treats. (I remember fat shaming being a big part of Jean Ure's Peter High series, which was written around the same time, as well. IT'S A BIT UNPLEASANT.)
But I keep reading because I really like the modern application of classic cliches, and also they take about forty-five minutes to read, so why not? Also, BOARDING SCHOOL STORIES. I've discovered the passion I had for the genre as a kid. It's pretty excellent. Even with all the sport. (One of the very earliest fics I ever wrote was a Malory Towers fic about Gwendoline redeeming herself, and the other girls learning that sport isn't actually all that exciting or interesting. I think I was about seven at the time.)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carre
Second Term at Trebizon - Anne Digby
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Summer Term at Trebizon - Anne Digby
Sensational Melbourne: Reading, Sensation Fiction and Lady Audley's Secret in the Victorian Metropolis - Susan K. Martin & Kylie Mirmohamadi
Boy Trouble at Trebizon - Anne Digby
The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe
More Trouble at Trebizon - Anne Digby
The Bobbed Haired Bandit: A True Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York - Stephen Duncomb and Andrew Mattson
Babylon 5: In Valen's Name - J. Michael Straczynski and Peter David
More Trouble at Trebizon - Anne Digby
I unexpectedly managed the same number of books as January, although once again there was cheating -- those Trebizon books don't go more than a hundred pages, and the Babylon 5 comic took about half an hour to inhale.
The highlight of the month was The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe, which I spent much of last week raving about at anyone who stood still long enough to listen. It's a Canadian YA novel about an island off Nova Scotia that's struck down by a mysterious disease. As more and more people die, the island is quarantined, and people begin to take matters into their own hands. The premise alone had me sold, but the heroine is a socially awkward dork of colour, and there is not a melodramatic love triangle in sight. And I really loved the different kinds of female friendship depicted.
The Trebizon series is another ... well, it's just addictive. (I blame
emilly for lending me the first one! And BookDepository for having the entire series in ebook form for $2.06 a book!) It's a boarding school series written in the late 1970s and early '80s, with all the cliches of Enid Blyton dragged kicking and screaming into the modern(ish) age. Girls have Walkmans and boyfriends, and older students have cars! And whereas Malory Towers' progressiveness went as far as having students from France and Spain, Trebizon has a third-tier character from Africa!I'm kind of falling out of love with the series as I go -- the emphasis is increasingly on sport, and the plots are getting much sillier. And there's a growing gap between the author's description of the characters and the reality. The fair, justice-minded headmistress is the queen of jumping to conclusions and solving problems through mild psychological torture. And the lead's love interest goes on a really scary rampage when he thinks she has (a) attended a rough party and (b) in company with another boy. And there's a character whose defining aspect is that she's fat, and she loves food, and she can't stick to her diet, but she's always baking sweet treats. (I remember fat shaming being a big part of Jean Ure's Peter High series, which was written around the same time, as well. IT'S A BIT UNPLEASANT.)
But I keep reading because I really like the modern application of classic cliches, and also they take about forty-five minutes to read, so why not? Also, BOARDING SCHOOL STORIES. I've discovered the passion I had for the genre as a kid. It's pretty excellent. Even with all the sport. (One of the very earliest fics I ever wrote was a Malory Towers fic about Gwendoline redeeming herself, and the other girls learning that sport isn't actually all that exciting or interesting. I think I was about seven at the time.)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 12:43 pm (UTC)Plus Megan is just a lovely person.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 03:32 pm (UTC)And there's a growing gap between the author's description of the characters and the reality. The fair, justice-minded headmistress is the queen of jumping to conclusions and solving problems through mild psychological torture.
This gap could make the stories EVEN AWESOMER were
Lemony Snicket narratingthe writer to do it on purpose.no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 07:54 pm (UTC)One of the symptoms is a terrible itch, as the virus makes changes to your neurology. So for the last week I've been going, OH GOD, I'M ITCHY! I HAVE A COUGH! I'M DYING AND I'M GOING TO TAKE EVERYONE DOWN WITH ME! ...wait, it's a mosquito. CARRY ON!
such an enabler
Date: 2012-03-01 11:17 am (UTC)The comment I meant to make, though, was increasingly about sport? really? isn't trebizon all about sport? until i remembered, the reason i liked them when i was a wee emilly was of course because of the Emily Dickinson. not really a girls-playing-sport thing at all!
i keep starting a paragraph about the things that annoy me about trebizon - the mara's bodyguard plot; the beginning of summer camp; robbie generally; the ending of summer camp; the swedish girl plot; the headmistress; the business with the film crew - oh. there are a lot of things about it that shit me! and i read it again EVERY YEAR. can't help reading all of them when i pick up one.
scuse me. am now spending the rest of the evening reading st trinians fic.
Re: such an enabler
Date: 2012-03-02 05:35 am (UTC)Re: such an enabler
Date: 2012-03-02 11:44 pm (UTC)Re: such an enabler
Date: 2012-03-02 11:52 pm (UTC)WHY IS REBECCA SO BLAND? I liked her in the first book, when she was melancholy and a bit awkward, and now she's like Darrell Rivers only with a Bad Idea Bear instead of the vicious temper! Why can't the series be about Tish?
Re: such an enabler
Date: 2012-03-03 12:51 am (UTC)Re: such an enabler
Date: 2012-03-04 07:17 am (UTC)