jacqui > Recent Status Updates

read half of this in one fell swoop while sitting in the park for the first time this year, and while it’s true that the sunshine probably made me euphoric, babitz’s prose definitely helped. she is always just such a PLEASURE to read!!

was struggling to focus on physically reading even things i really want to so decided to just try whatever audiobooks i could find on libby while crafting etc. this isn’t my usual thing but it’s cute so far!

ngl i’m reading this bc i actually want to read the christmas appeal and appaz there’s a huge spoiler for this in that, but it’s not like cosy mystery + am dram + epistolary DOESN’T intrigue, so

let’s see what all the fuss is about then

Time for some drastic measures to get the taste my last read out of my head and hopefully finally break the reading slump I’ve been in all month so far

time for august readathon’s only timed challenge: read a long book as quickly as possible (ideally over this weekend) let’s gooo

can already tell—could already tell around page four or so—i’ve made a terrible decision reading this at the very beginning of a month-long readathon. i’m not going to be able to think of anything else for ages, if the past two days are anything to go by

Listen, I’ve had several excellent conversations about Shakespeare with dear friends lately, so, I have to. I just have to.

“At dawn one still October day in the long ago of the world…”

weirdly GR doesn’t have my edition listed? so i’ve gone with this one as it’s got the same # of pages etc

reeeeaaalllly remembering how formative the phouka in particular was to my, well, everything with this reread

It’s absolutely miserable out there tonight—howling winds, icy rain, the lot—and I’ve had a disappointing enough reading month that I’m ending it by indulging in an old face

“The spectacle of Dr. Gairdner trying to make his facts fit his theory was the most entertaining thing in gymnastics that Grant had witnessed for some time.” Is a VERY funny thing for a Ricardian to write about anyone.

“Authors today wrote so much to a pattern that their public expected it. The public talked about ‘a new Silas Weekley’ or ‘a new Lavinia Fitch’ exactly as they talked about ‘a new brick’ or ‘a new hairbrush.’ They never said ‘a new book by’ whoever it might be. Their interest was not in the book but in its newness. They knew quite well what the book would be like.”

why is it still impossible to actually tag or respond to people on this stupid app. i don’t use desktop bc i find it even clunkier!!

still loving this so far, but i do wish that she hadn’t insisted on writing out the scottish accents—preferably at all, but definitely not as intensely as she does, especially since she likes to give her characters long uninterrupted speeches

it’s been far, far too long since i read any samatar; she makes language do the most beautiful things

Why must marriage involve a sacrifice? she cried now furiously and silently at the unheeding Mr. Dexter. We are not a lot of ancient Greeks! I am not Iphigenia, and what is more, I don’t intend to be.

“But that had been in the morning of the world, when miracles rose out of the wayside grass as easily as larks; it was not to be expected that such a thing would happen again.”

I’ve a tbr list longer than my arm, including the several books that I’m already partway through, but the heart wants what the heart wants

Didn’t intend to close out January with a Peters binge but I’ve been in a reading slump and the weather is horrid and I remembered yesterday that I have this whole series I’ve never read before so I thought I’d at least try the first. And it was fine but then I saw that this is set in Rome. So here we are. Andiamo!

Trying hard not to let yet another bout of illness send me into a reading slump again, so trying something I know will be readable and fast m-paced

seo taeji and the boys reference drop eyyyy

“It began two days after the winter solstice, as all stories begin: with light.”

“What does it mean to stay put?” —A question I have been trying to answer for myself.

One surefire way to fall back into reading… an afternoon on the couch on a chilly, foggy day; cuddling up under a heated blanket and a sleepy little cat and cracking open the latest in a classic mystery series that you’ve been saving bc you read them far, far faster than they can be translated.