Six Degrees of Separation – from Orbital to Ender's Game

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. This month’s starting point is the 2024 Booker winner, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, which follows six fictional astronauts over 24 hours on an orbiting space station.

Spell the Month in Books – November

Spell the Month in Books is hosted by Reviews From the Stacks and occurs on the second Saturday of each month or maybe a few days later!

N    The Nowhere Man by Gregg Hurwitz (2017). Evan Smoak is a reluctant assassin. Once, he was Orphan X, a child plucked from an orphanage and turned into a killer.

From Spare Oom to War Drobe by Katherine Langrish

Title: From Spare Oom to War Drobe: Travels in Narnia with my Nine-Year-Old Self
Author: Katherine Langrish
Publication: Darton, Longman and Todd, hardcover, 2021
Genre: Literary Criticism

Description: Langrish is a British fantasy writer who loved the Narnia books as a child. Definitely more obsessed than the average fan. She drew pictures of Aslan. She wrote poems and crafted maps. The endpapers of this book display her own Narnia fan fic.

My May 2022 Reads

A busy month of reading - I expect June will include more visits to libraries and bookstores and less reading, but those are equally delightful pastimes!

Mystery/Suspense

She Shall Have Murder by Delano Ames (1948) – Everyone tells Jane Hamish she should write a book about the goings-on at her London law firm but when a client is murdered, she finally starts writing and her boyfriend enthusiastically takes on the investigation.  This is the first of a 12-book series; enjoyable but I am not sure I will pursue it because mostly out of print.  My review.

The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis #Narniathon21

Title: The Magician’s Nephew
Author: C.S. Lewis
Publication: Collier, paperback, originally published in 1955
Genre: Juvenile fantasy/series

Description: Digory is staying with his uncle and aunt in London so they can look after his mother, who is very ill. Luckily, there's a girl his age, Polly Plummer, next door, and the summer holidays are enlivened for both with indoor exploration when the weather is bad.

My April 2022 Reads

Historical Fiction

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn (2021) – Historical fiction set at Bletchley Park during WWII which follows three unlikely friends during the war and beyond. I had been saving this for months, so was pleased when my book group decided to read it. For once, everyone seemed to enjoy our choice!  I did not review this because many had already done so very eloquently!

The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis #1954Club #Narniathon21

Title: The Horse and His Boy
Author: C.S. Lewis
Publication: Puffin, paperback, originally published in 1954
Genre: Juvenile fantasy/series
Setting: South of Narnia

Description: Shasta, a poor fisherman’s son in Calormen, Narnia’s traditional frenemy, is used to the abuse he gets from his alleged father, Arsheesh, but when a Tarkaan (great lord) demands hospitality and offers to purchase Shasta, he is afraid it might be out of the frying pan, into the fire.

My March 2022 Reads

Children’s Books

Which Way is Home by Maria Kiely (2020) - A debut novel about a family escaping Czechoslovakia after the 1948 Communist takeover, based on the experience of the author's mother who was the co-master of Adams House at Harvard when I was in college.

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

Title: The Silver Chair
Author: C.S. Lewis
Illustrator: Pauline Baynes
Publication: Puffin, paperback, originally published in 1953
Genre: Juvenile Fantasy/Series
Setting: Narnia

Description: Eustace Scrubb, cousin of the better-known Pevensie children from the earlier Narnia books, was introduced in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace attends a progressive co-ed boarding school (clearly despised by Lewis, although it is hard to tell which horrifies him more, coeducation or progressive education; maybe it’s a tie) with Jill Pole.

My February 2022 Reads

Seven of my nineteen February books were rereads, a much higher percentage than usual; indicating some comfort reading, I suppose. Sometimes with Elizabeth Cadell and D.E. Stevenson, one can’t tell if it was read before until halfway through as both were prolific and the titles sometimes sound interchangeable even when the stories are distinctive.  But my favorite new-to-me read was Dead Wake by Erik Larson, the story of the Lusitania’s last voyage, which I highly recommend.

King Cake

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

Title: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Author: C.S. Lewis
Illustrator: Pauline Baynes
Publication: Puffin paperback; originally published in 1952
Genre: Children’s fantasy
Setting: Narnia

Description: When Edmund and Lucy Pevensie are forced to spend the summer holidays with their dreaded cousin, Eustace Scrubb, they try to avoid him by hiding out in Lucy’s room and talking about Narnia, the country they have visited twice.

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

Title: Prince Caspian
Author: C.S. Lewis
Illustrator: Pauline Baynes
Publication: Puffin paperback, originally published in 1951
Genre: Juvenile Fantasy/Series
Setting: Narnia

Description: In the second Narnia book, the four Pevensie children are on their way back to boarding school when they are catapulted back to Narnia. Unfortunately, Narnia has changed since they left it as Kings and Queens and they are horrified to realize they are in the ruins of their former palace of Cair Paravel – with nothing to eat but apples.

Five Things

One of my favorite mystery authors is Julia Spencer-Fleming, who writes about an Episcopalian minister/former helicopter pilot in small-town Millers Kill, NY.  My mother and I met her a couple years ago at a Brookline Library event, which was really fun.   Spencer-Fleming is doing a virtual Mystery Night event on Wednesday, 9/16 at the Maynard Library with Paula Munier (whose books I recently discovered but which made my Best of 2019 List), also Archer Mayor, and Sarah Stewart Taylor.  You can register here.  

Six Degrees of Separation: from Normal People to Over Sea, Under Stone (Modern Dublin to the Holy Grail)

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where one ends up.   This month’s starting point is Normal People by Sally Rooney (2018):

 

I read Rooney’s first book Conversations with Friends last year but found the lack of quotation marks pretentious and the characters unlikable.  I doubt I would have finished if it hadn’t been for my book group.  However, this one seems more interesting and the new miniseries is getting great reviews (except from the Bishop!) so I suspect I will try it some time. 

Can you think of instances where a movie or miniseries is significantly better than the book? 

Dryads but no Naiads

Inexplicably, there were dryads wandering around the lobby of my building today, and one posed for a picture with me:
Mr. Tumnus told her about the midnight dances and how the Nymphs who lived in the wells and the Dryads who lived in the trees came out to dance with the Fauns; about long hunting parties after the milk-white stag who could give you wishes if you caught him . . .

Pauline Baynes

Pauline Baynes, who died recently, had been one of my favorite illustrators since I first picked up the boxed set of Narnia books my mother had brought back from England and (she thought) hidden securely for Christmas. It was the summer between first and second grade so my reading skills were not well developed, nor was my sneakiness (both improved over time). I had not previously seen the delightful casing that boxed sets come in but unerringly pulled The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe out of the box and started reading. It was appealing but just too difficult. I put it back after a chapter or so, but kept thinking about it, and foolishly asked my mother later that day or the next, "What is Turkish delight?"