kateoftheangels

We have a Goat. It has been steadily mowing the lawn for quite a lot of the day.

It is not, in fact, a living, breathing Goat, snacking happily on grass, vegetables and my T-shirts alike, it is a mechanical beastie which only mows lawns. Beast spent much of last week seizing the moments between showers (few) to instal an outdoor electrical socket for its charging pad, and this morning 'teaching' it the boundaries and exclusions in the lawn. It's fun watching the little chap trundle up and down, and it is very clear, watching it, just how lumpy and bumpy the lawn is.

I await with interest the day Sable ventures out and encounters it while it is mowing. Wonder if it will deter a muntjak?

I think I'll call it William.

*

My BIL is visiting us at the moment, and I am once again struck by the difference between the way Beast thinks and the way I think. He thinks in Physics, as does his brother. I have learned much from this, but I do not think in Physics. It is nice for him to have someone to talk to who understands the world in the same way!

regshoe

Book meme borrowed from

phantomtomato.

General Questions

This week I'm reading: Just finished The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, about which I have mixed feelings. I'm not sure what to start next; options are a femslashy boarding school book, a(nother) non-fiction book on women sailors and Michelle Paver's Wakenhyrst.
My favourite book of all time is: Oh, you know... :)
My current favourite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months): Best book of the last three months was The Celestial Omnibus by E. M. Forster, and I am pleased to remember I have The Eternal Moment still to read at some point.
The last book I bought was: The Persian Boy by Mary Renault. I don't know why I keep doing this to myself.
The first book I bought with my own money: I do not remember; thinking of my taste around the time I started buying things independently, it may well have been one of the twentieth-century domestic middlebrow-type authors.
The first book I received as a gift: Definitely too long ago for me to remember!
The last book I received as a gift was:

edwardianspinsteraunt surprised me with A Schoolgirl Adventurer: A Story of the '45 by Dorothea Moore, which is a very funny concept. Interested to see if this is the het version of White Cockades which it kind of looks like.
The last book I borrowed from the library: The above-mentioned Wakenhyrst. I live near a county boundary and am therefore fortunate to have access to two local library systems; one of them said it was on the shelves at the branch nearest me, but I couldn't find it there, so I reserved it in the other one.
The book physically closest to me right now: On the floor on either side of my chair are Concise Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Martin Townsend, Paul Waring and Richard Lewington and From Cabin 'Boys' to Captains: 250 Years of Women at Sea by Jo Stanley.
Do you read bookfic, and if so what is your favourite bookshop fic? I don't think so. Books set in bookshops always seem a bit suspiciously cutesy-sounding to me, but perhaps I'm being unfair.

This or that

Physical book or e-book: Physical book for the reading experience. Ebooks are a good way of getting to read obscure out-of-copyright books for free.
Used or new: I know 'second-hand' isn't always strictly accurate (I own some books bearing evidence of having been sold more than once before I bought them, as well as a few old enough to be virtually certain to have had more than one previous owner), but I don't like the term 'used' applied to books. Books aren't tools. Anyway, second-hand.
Fiction or non-fiction: Fiction.
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: Coffee shop. I will get distracted by natural history at the park.
Paperback or hardcover: My ideal book format is a hardback, but it's a very rare and now virtually extinct type of hardback (I have three perfect examples on my shelves, none much less than a hundred years old, and maybe a dozen 'almost's). I prefer the average paperback to the average hardback.
Romance or Crime: *E. W. Hornung voice* Why not both? ;) (Serious answer, I'm not particularly into either genre, though I occasionally enjoy both gay historical romance and murder mysteries.)

Yes or no

Stream of consciousness? No.
Poetry? Yes to the old-fashioned kind with some structure and metre (one stereotypically says 'the kind that rhymes'; rhyme is good, but I don't need it—I like Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon-style alliterative poetry and Shakespeare's non-rhyming iambic pentameter—I do need metre). No to more modern free verse, which can be very beautiful in its language but which my literal-mindedness struggles to keep up with.
Memoirs? Not really.
Philosophy? I like a bit of philosophy in fiction, and sometimes read sort of philosophical-theological religious books, but not philosophy books as such, no.
Thrillers? Usually no.
Chronicles? Like, the kind of fantasy books that have 'The Chronicles of...' in the series title? Yeah, OK. I have not read the actual Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or anything like that.
Dialogue heavy? All right, but I prefer more narration.

vysila

Thank you to everyone who responded to my previous post some weeks ago with such grace and kindness. Since then I have been working to stabilize my emotions about various things and do feel more cheerful and hopeful at long last. As someone noted in their comments, I need to give myself some grace too. So I'm working on that. Sorry for my absence from here for such a long time, I needed the break.

- Today's title is courtesy of my son, who called me a few days ago and said exactly that. Turns out in his travels last week he picked up a bad cold and woke up the day after he got back home feeling miserable. Since his wife was still traveling he called on mom. And mom responded, of course. He is feeling better now.

- My son turned 40! I do not know how this is possible, I really don't. We went to the park and then lunch as an outing.

- I had my first 'grandma' chore while the kids were traveling. I catsat my grandkitty, an adorable and pudgy (but tiny!) all black kitty with big golden eyes. He was friendly and happy at first but as the days went on I saw him get quieter and sadder, even though I spent a couple of hours every day with him, petting and talking and playing (and of course feeding). Some people think cats are too independent and detached from their people, but that is so not the reality!

- Kayden has his safe enclosed porch now! Got that done several weeks ago and now he spends much of his time on the back porch. It doesn't get any direct sun so there is no basking in the sun but he still enjoys it. I need to upload some photos for y'all.

- Visited the local Farmer's Market a couple of times and do have some photos to share. Enjoy! It's a very nice and fun market, with lots of food trucks. I have to try the crepes next time I go.

The flower stalls at the market.

The totem pole.

Giant bubbles.

Doggies at the market. Love the mohawk on the little one!

- Finally got some medical appointments scheduled. It is hard getting in as a new patient, especially a Medicare patient. But I am thankfully now on blood pressure medication, a mere 8 months after I had that bad episode last autumn.

- Also got in with an eye doctor. She seems capable and nice, but delivered some more bad news. I now am showing signs of iris atrophy, undoubtedly caused by the long term glaucoma issues. Hopefully it can be well managed going forward.

- Our weather is still in spring season for the most part. We had one really nice day a week or so ago, sunny and 80/26 but then went back to cool and wet. Today is nice, though, will head out for a walk in a bit. And then this weekend summer hits at long last! Sunny and around 90/32. Maybe I can finally peel off a few layers of clothing.

That's about it for right now. ~waves at all my friends~ I'll try to keep more of a presence here going forward.

Current Mood: calm

osprey_archer

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Tamar Adler’s Feast on Your Life: Kitchen Meditations for Every Day, which is a collection of 365 brief kitchen meditations. Most of them are bitty and ultimately I felt that the book seemed fairly bitty too, but we’ll see how I feel about it in the long run - I’ve had Adler books sneak up on me before.

I also read Caroline Dale Snedeker’s The White Isle, in which a young Roman girl travels to her family’s new home in Britain. First third of the book is road trip (Snedeker does a great landscape description), second third is settling down in Britain (more beautiful landscape), we’re getting near the end and no suitable suitors have appeared… but then Lavinia and her mother travel to Cornwall to visit a friend and they are kidnapped by Durotrigs, only to be rescued by a band of Christians!

Lavinia instantly gives herself up for dead, because as we all know the Christians sacrifice human beings in order to drink their blood. Except apparently? This is not actually true?? Which is convenient, because Govan (the leader of the band that rescued Lavinia and her mother) is just SO handsome.

“I cannot believe you are conversion narrativing at me,” I griped at Snedeker. Then we got to the part where Govan is comforting Lavinia after a death, and I unexpectedly burst into tears. So grudgingly but with feeling, I must say well-played.

What I’m Reading Now

“Then the Prussian general Blucher, a gnarled cavalryman who shared Alexander’s bellicosity, defeated Napoleon and was ready to advance - till he suffered a nervous breakdown and went blind, convinced he was pregnant with an elephant (fathered by a Frenchman). The advance faltered. Had a septuagenarian cavalryman pregnant with an elephant saved Napoleon?”

When I got to this part in The Romanovs, I laughed so hard I cried. Obviously Blucher got it together to help put Napoleon on Elba (and then help defeat Napoleon again after he got off Elba), but WOW.

I have also continued China Mieville’s Three Moments of an Explosion - making better progress once I concluded these stories are too stressful to read at bedtime. I just read the one about the people who live in a settlement where they can see ships passing, and sometimes the ships sink, but the ships never land and sailors never wash ashore after the sinking… also a character dies who MIGHT not be a woman, but Gam never gets a pronoun so it could go either way.

I’m also reading Marie Kondo’s Letter from Japan. More about this later, but for now, it has definitely inspired me in some tidying! (Not a full KonMari, but smaller scale tidying of things that have accreted on flat surfaces.)

What I Plan to Read Next

I’m off to Bloomington this weekend to be a bridesmaid(bachelorette party tomorrow in fact!) so I don’t expect to have much time to read. But I’ve got Rosemary Sutcliff’s Flowers of Adonis along, and I DO intend to snatch some time to visit my four favorite used bookstores in town.

osprey_archer

Even people who do not approach the Hornblower and Aubrey-Maturin books by reading the two series concurrently more or less inevitably end up drawing comparisons between the two. The general consensus seems to be that the Aubrey-Maturin books are better, and in terms of literary quality and depths of research I do not disagree; but at the same time there is no one in the Aubrey-Maturin books I want to stick a pin through and study like a bug like I want to study Horatio Hornblower.

Four books into the Hornblower series chronologically, we have arrived at the first book in publication order: Beat to Quarters, otherwise known as The Happy Return. (

littlerhymes’ review here.) Hornblower’s neuroses, which spent the first four books slowly growing, here appear on the page fully formed.

Hornblower has an ideal of a perfect captain: firm, decisive, unsurprised by any contingency, in complete command of himself at all times, and completely without human weakness. He yearns to be RoboCaptain, and as he is instead a mere human being of flesh and blood, he is constantly disappointed with himself for such crimes as betraying to his steward the wicked and detestable fact that he’s hungry after not eating for hours upon hours of battle.

He’s constantly analyzing himself for any infraction of these self-imposed rules, but this constant self-analysis is combined with a crushing inability to understand himself at all. For instance, partway through the book, the aristocratic Lady Barbara Wellesley seeks passage on the ship, and Hornblower spends the next three chapters or so throwing a series of controlled but deeply felt temper tantrums about the situation.

She is so independent and intelligent, just like a man, and Hornblower prefers a woman to be a helpless clinging vine. (I think this is Hornblower’s desperate attempt to convince himself that his wife Maria, the original clinging vine, is the perfect woman for him.) She might be thinking that his clothes are shabby. (As far as I can tell she gives not a single hoot about Hornblower’s clothes, but she MIGHT.) She interrupted his sacred morning walk on the quarterdeck to ask him to breakfast. HOW VERY DARE.

( spoilers )

I’m glad we decided to read the series chronologically rather than in publication order, because I’m not sure I would have warmed to Hornblower if this was the first time that I met him. But maybe like Bush I would have seen the lonely wounded animal beneath the desperately constructed Perfect Captain front, and yearned to commit the audacity of putting a hand on his shoulder.

thisbluespirit

Before I had the cold (which is not entirely over, but is much better now) I had a few things I was going to put into a post. They are now extremely random, mostly belated, and not equal, so apologies for a motley post, but I did want to note:

1.

beccadg is having a lot of health issues and has a GoFundMe.

2. I saw two posts about Small Prophets, one talking about the influence of all the stopmotion children's animation in it, and another person saying that whatever you'd call the exact inverse of English folk horror, that's what Mackenzie Crook's work is. All of which smashed together in my head to make me go: OMG, he made Bagpuss for adults! (I mean, it's not, but also it is. And Bagpuss is also some sort of exact inverse of 70s folk horror, too. Artisanal children's TV in terms of being literally crafted by hand and its simple but beautiful storytelling structure.)

3. Before I got too ill to do such radical things as watch TV on my PC again, I managed to actually watch ep1 of Miami Medical (with Jeremy Northam and Lana Parrilla), and discovered that when you watch a full ep instead of just Lana clips, what's up with Jeremy Northam's accent is much clearer, in that it was never meant to be a US accent, just that his character had been working in Maryland for 10 years and the "I'm from Maryland, as you can tell by the accent" was actually ironic. Someone calls him "Mr Tea and Biscuits" in the next scene. (Most of the eps are there. Hopefully I shall be able to watch them sometime and all will become clearer than the random Lana snippets.)

4.

sovay pointed me to uploaded episodes of The Expert on YouTube, including 2 from 1971 that I had managed to miss featured... James Maxwell! \o/ I was even too ill to manage watching this on my tablet for ages, too.

In true JM form he was very nervy and awkward and also unfortunately too gentle and unmanly to survive a small push in the 1970s. Alas. He is such a delicate 6"3 baritone flower, lol. He fell over in the beginning of part 2 and next thing I knew they were doing an autopsy on him and now I'm too worried about where this is going to watch the rest (yet). (The channel also seems to have a lot of rare stuff - this is a never released on DVD or repeated item, so they must have a collection of their own, presumably.)

5. Bookending this, Michael Keating, better known to me as Vila from Blake's 7 died when I was too numbed from the cold to really comment on it - and then yesterday, the news broke about Anthony Head, too, and I was very sad to hear both & both by all accounts, lovely people too. Michael had apparently had dementia for some years and after B7 worked mainly in theatre, and also got very into rambling, but he didn't need to do more TV to leave an impact: Vila was iconic, someone he made a very likeable and relatable figure in the midst of all the rebels vs. Federation struggles. I'm watching Sesskasays react to B7 for the first time and, in these early stages, Vila is her favourite. Mine too. I love all the characters, and adored Jacqeline as Servalan, but Vila is my favourite. He's the 'small man' archetype out of a fantasy story, living in a snarky fascist space universe. How could he not be?

I was late to the party with Buffy (although I remember watching the Gold Blend ads as a child!) but as a newbie librarian, I borrowed the VHS tapes from our library, and Giles was of course immediately my favourite, and then Anthony Head was always marvellous in everything. I hadn't dreamed we weren't going to get a few more years yet of unexpected bonus ASH in random TV or radio. He was in DW (audio and visual), Jonathan Creek's pilot, Cabin Pressure, but 3 things other than Giles I'll remember him for, particularly:- his first TV appearance in Enemy at the Door, where he played the Martels' son Clive, trapped on the island after a misguided raid by the British army goes wrong; an outstanding performance in s1 of Spooks, where he played Tom Quinn's mentor, jaded and screwed up, in a tragic crash-and-burn guest turn (N.B. warning for all the things, this is Spooks); and at the other end of the scale, being absolutely marvellous and hilarious every episode of 5 series of Bleak Expectations as the villainous Mr Gently Benevolent, whether exercising his trademark evil laugh, reincarnated as a pigeon, reformed, unreformed, or cheeseboarding Pip (with a break for tea and biscuits). It got me through a rough summer in 2013. Washing up badly is not the same as washing up evilly.

pensnest

I discovered Overnight Oats last Saturday morning (Waterstones café, Blueberry, delicious), and have since started making my own. This morning's is based on my home-developed keffir (semi-skimmed dairy) with blueberries and raspberries, plus a few broken walnuts, and it is excellent!

*

Have today and yesterday been baking again, although perhaps a Tiffin, which never goes near the oven, does not count. I found a recipe for two-ingredient peanut butter cookies (the other is icing sugar) and made a half quantity. Not unexpectedly they taste of sweet peanut butter, but they seem to cohere reasonably and if you like peanut butter, they're quite good. And very easy. But getting them to rehearsal intact may be quite the challenge.

*

A Muntjac has been getting into the garden. I darkly suspect it of being able to teleport, because it—or they—will run, when challenged, to the ivy hedge at the far end of the garden and then... disappear. I have many new plants in the garden, most of them food, and I do not wish them to be eaten by rogue deer. But we cannot find the hole in the fence!

*

It has been raining! Every day for several, in fits and starts. Right now the sky is bright, but an hour from now it may be pouring again. At rehearsal last night we were singing Til I Hear You Sing and as the voices crescendoed, suddenly the rain came down *hard*. Very dramatic.

*

I see I am showing off my punctuation today.

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Elizabeth Weir, Carson Beckett, Miller, et al
Rating: Gen
Length: 00:03:45
Content Notes: no AO3-type warnings. Rapid cuts, flashing lights esp. at 3 min mark, canon-typical violence.
Creator Links: randommindtime on YouTube, and on AO3. The song's by Tom Odell.
Themes: Just like canon, Action/adventure, Families of choice, Friendship, Teams

Summary: "I guess that's love. I can't pretend. I can't pretend."

Reccer's Notes: This is one of the best of randommindtimes' fanvids, and it's about the intense connection between John and Rodney in canon, through all their dramas, losses and vicissitudes. It doesn't matter if they're very close friends, or lovers - the intensity's the same and both are natural extensions of canon. It's a powerful distillation of the show - one of my favourites, and very much worth watching.

Fanwork Links: Can't Pretend on AO3, and Can't Pretend on YT

susieboo posting in

fancake

Fandom: Hatchetfield
Pairings/Characters: Wilbur Cross/Charlotte Sweetly, mentioned Charlotte/Ted and Zoey/Sam
Rating: Mature
Length: 2,150 words
Creator Links: AO3 profile.
Theme: just like canon

Summary: The Honey Festival is supposed to be the best night of the year in Hatchetfield. Unfortunately for Charlotte Sweetly, her husband ditched her, Ted Spankoffski left with another woman, and Bill delivered some bad news. Her night just kept getting worse—and then it got weird. After all, the Honey Festival is a time when things from the Black and White can walk the streets of Hatchetfield, and Wiley's got plans of his own.

Reccer's Notes: Charlotte is a thoroughly underutilized character in the Hatchetfield canon, and this fic reads exactly like how a Charlotte-centric episode of Nightmare Time might play out - down to using the script formatting. This has also really gotten me interested in Charlotte/Wiley as a pairing.

Fanwork Link: AO3

(Please add the Hatchetfield fandom tag! Thank you!)

bluerosekatie posting in

fancake

Fandom: Keeper of the Lost Cities
Pairings/Characters: Fitz Vacker, Sophie Foster, Keefe Sencen, Biana Vacker, Dex Dizznee, Maruca Chebota, Wylie Endal, Marella Redek, Tam Song, and Linh Song
Rating: Teen
Length: 366,049 Words
Creator Links: bookwyrminspiration on Ao3
Theme:
Just Like Canon (Featured), Epic Works, Gen, Friendship, Wings, AU: Fork in the Road
Summary:
When the world begins to crawl with unnaturally made monsters, the Keeper crew continue to fight like they always have. But a wrench is thrown in those plans when they themselves become less than human.
Reccer's Notes:
Although this is a complete AU in that it's a wingfic, the author's writing style is very familiar to canon and I genuinely mix up scenes from this fic with canon because I love it so much! The focus on the friendship dynamics between all the crew is excellent.
Fanwork Links:
Shattered Upside Down on Ao3

bluerosekatie posting in

fancake

Fandom: Minecraft: Story Mode
Pairings/Characters: Male Jesse & Petra
Rating: Gen
Length: 1,521 words
Creator Links: Pinky G. Rocket on Ao3
Theme:
Just Like Canon (Featured), Gen Works, Friendship
Summary:
As Jesse and Petra go on new adventures throughout the world and visit new lands, they come across a village- but not with the usual inhabitants that they've come to expect from villages and towns. But even in these new lands, remnants of a crisis one thought long past linger.
Reccer's Notes:
A super sweet little oneshot that incorporates a fun Minecraft mod and newer Minecraft versions near-seamlessly into a continuation of the main characters' adventures. Fits into post-canon and has callbacks to the first season.
Fanwork Links:
Sproing! on Ao3

bluerosekatie posting in

fancake

Fandom: Tron (Movies)
Pairings/Characters: Rinzler & OCs, Sam Flynn/Quorra in the background
Rating: Teen
Length: 71,293 words
Creator Links: badgerwitch on Ao3
Theme:
Just Like Canon (Featured), Robots Androids & AI, Science Fiction, Alternate Universe: Fork in the Road
Summary:
Their entire world lay subject to Kevin Flynn's rules, except for the Sea of Simulation. There, there are no boundaries to the outside laws of the modern, connected world. ...Rinzler isn't done just yet. Post-Legacy. Unfinished.
Reccer's Notes:
A story starting off from the ending of Tron: Legacy, which follows Rinzler journeying across networks and being discovered by some human hackers in the process. Serves as an alternate canon continuation with a great premise and some fun Sam/Quorra in the background near the end. Although this fic is marked as complete, it is abandoned/discontinued, so if you hate cliffhangers, be warned.
Fanwork Links:
Outer Limits on Ao3

bluerosekatie posting in

fancake

Fandom: Mega Man (Cartoon 1994)
Pairings/Characters: Mega Man & Roll & Dr. Light, Dr. Wily & Proto Man
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 4,075 words
Creator Links: jackalopez on Ao3
Theme:
Just Like Canon (featured), Science Fiction, Robots Androids & AI, Gen, Siblings
Summary:
Mega Man and his sister, Roll, face their toughest enemy yet! And it just so happens to be… Mega Man?!
Reccer's Notes:
A fun genfic recreating the canon's monster-of-the-week episode structure, including a cameo from another classic Rockman character, the Copy Robot. Super canon-accurate and an enjoyable read!
Fanwork Links:
Double Trouble on Ao3

bluerosekatie posting in

fancake

Fandom: The Protomen
Pairings/Characters: Megaman & Protoman & Thomas Light
Rating: Unrated, estimate Teen
Length: 3,997 words
Creator Links: N/A, Author is anonymous
Theme:
Featured (Just Like Canon), Gateway Fanworks, Old Fandoms, Siblings, Robots Androids and AI, Science Fiction
Summary:
A spotlight thrums to life, its beam illuminating a bare-bones stage.
Reccer's Notes:
A script format retelling of Act 1 of the Protomen as a stage play, packed with references to the Orestia and Act 2 of The Protomen. Deals heavily with themes of generational trauma, cyclical revenge, and family issues, while following the canon story. As heartbreaking and beautiful, if not more, than the original album, plus, there's a great video podfic version also available on the Archive!
Fanwork Links:
How to Draw a Circle on Ao3

osprey_archer

Like a meteor, an instance of Books I’ve Abandoned flashes across the sky. I could have enjoyed the human-size cats who sometimes turn into people who run the pop coffee shop (serving coffee and solutions to your life problems) in Mai Mochizuki’s The Full Moon Coffee Shop), but the in-depth pages-long analysis of the heroine’s horoscope was a deal breaker. A closer look at the cover might have clued me in, but I was distracted by the adorable cat batting at a star.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Sara Jeannette Duncan’s A Voyage of Consolation, the sequel to An American Girl in London. At the end of An American Girl in London, our heroine Mamie Wickreturns to America to marry her fiance. In the sequel, we begin the story with the breaking of that engagement in a quarrel over the English accent that Mamie picked up over her months in England, thus leading the Wick family to embark for Europe on A Voyage of Consolation.

The title is ironic. As Mamie says, going to Europe for consolation after a broken engagement is so old-fashioned. “Except for my literary intention, I should be ashamed to go to Europe at all—under the circumstances. But that, you see, brings the situation up to date,” she explains.

As often with sequels, this book is not as good as the original. In An American Girl in London, Mamie spends months in London, getting an in-depth inside view of English society, whereas in A Voyage of Consolation Mamie and co spend less than six weeks taking in France, Italy, and Switzerland, which would barely give them time to skim the surface even if they did speak any of the local languages, which they do not. A more superficial book, but still some very funny moments and great setpieces. I love the chapter where Mamie gets lost in the Catacombs with her childhood friend Dickie Dod and her battleaxe English aunt, who gets drunk on the medicinal eucalyptus wine she bought from the monks at the entrance.

Also Jacqueline Woodson’s Remember Us. Our heroine Sage is growing up in Bushwick in the 1970s, a neighborhood the newspapers have taken to calling “the Matchbox” because so many houses have burned down recently, and indeed Sage’s own father was a fireman who died in a fire. This may sound like a recipe for bleakness, like that other recent novel about a girl named Sage (Newbery winner All the Blues in the Sky), but somehow no matter how bleak Woodson’s novels sound in summary there is almost always hope and light and beauty shining in around the darkness.

Many of Woodson’s novels have autobiographical elements, but they seemed especially strong in this one, perhaps unsurprisingly given the title. There’s a wistful nostalgia, which is perhaps not what you would expect from a book about a neighborhood that is frequently on fire - but despite the fires, it’s where Sage grew up, where her friends lived, where she learned to play basketball and met her first best friend Freddy and got her first crush on a girl. (The book is about Sage’s confusion about her gender and sexuality the same way it’s about her father’s death: those are both important elements in the story, but it’s a story with layers and layers of elements. Sage is still grappling with these questions at the end, and that’s okay.)

What I’m Reading Now

No progress on The Romanovs this week. However, I have started China Mieville’s short story collection Three Moments of an Explosion. I’m three stories in and we’re three for three on a woman dying in every story.

What I Plan to Read Next

I saw M. T. Anderson’s Nicked on the Pride display at the library and simply couldn’t resist.

sweetsorcery

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

selenak posting in

rheinsberg

Report on Heinrich’s death by his niece, Ferdinand's daughter Luise von Preußen (Princess Radziwill).

From her memoirs, "Fünfundvierzig Jahre aus meinem Leben (1770 - 1815); the excerpt about Heinrich's death and the aftermath is reprinted in Nieman, Karin: "Der Bruder. Prinz Heinrich von Preußen", a booklet currently on sale in Rheinsberg. Ziebura's Heinrich biography quotes from this description, but I had not read it in its entirety before, and I bet nor has anyone else, so here it is. (As detailed as FW3's description of Fritz' death earlier.)

Reminder: „Louis“ = usually referred to by historians as Louis Ferdinand, Ferdinand’s son, Heinrich’s favourite nephew. Is destined to become the sole Hohenzollern to die in battle against Napoleon after Heinrich’s death.
August: Ferdinand’s other, surviving son and heir.
The King: FW III, i.e. Heinrich’s grand nephew. Would go on to be defeated by Napoleon.
Monsieur de la Roche-Aymon – Heinrich’s last boyfriend, aka „the last beam of the setting sun“, so use Fontane’s phrase
Bellevue: Where Ferdinand and his family resided in Berlin. Today seat of the President of Germany.

( Heinrich: The Final Days )