Angela > Recent Status Updates

This is a cheery (but necessary) read, recommended to me in the third year of my Phd. 👀

Rereading with a few online guides, chapter summary and notes because I have always wanted to understand this more.

Parking this one until early 2026.

I loved this book when I read it in the 1990s, but I have really been struggling with it, except for the initial few chapters which were a nostalgic return. Meta fictional elements maybe lose charm when we know the secrets of a book? So, I will park this for a while. I am not giving up on it, but I will return. Perhaps it was just too much of a leap to go from high fantasy into this.

Two of the novels that broke my heart when I was younger — Watership Down and The Last Unicorn ( not to mention Tarka the Otter trauma, Storm Boy sadness … I could go on).
I’m going back to Beagle first.
I think this is going to be difficult. 💔
But, I am very brave. 🗡️

Answer the compelling call to read this again …

auto-returned to library, back in hold queue for later.

It’s time. I read this in the 1990s (in my Enigma phase) and now a Gothic Book Club re-read for March. 😱

I'm back for the 🐺 🃏🛡️⚔️

A re-read.

Re-reading. I am hopeful this will be as magical as when I read this in my late teens.

This is the August pick for #gothicbookclub and even the blurb is scaring me. 😱

I know my brain isn’t ready for this, but here we go …..

Oh beautiful beans! I haven’t had coffee for nearly a year and I decide to read this book
now? With the scent of coffee described as “a warm earth memory” is there any hope for me? ☕

Jumping into this! It begins with a list of unusual things you will encounter, including books of spells, ornate doors, scrolls, ghosts, demons, hexes. Impossible to resist such dark enchantments!. I found this while quietly lurking in @colinjmccracken's gothic book club, reading way out of sync. This sounded so good that I've committed to keeping up with the May reading timeline and discussion.

I am enjoying this, but I am pausing to come back to it in June.

My eReader has forsaken me and keeps crashing 😢

Re-reading — illustrated edition

It wouldn't be Yule without reading my favourite tale. Just when I thought that I couldn't love this story more! I am throughly enjoying reading this translation. Although I have read this in Middle English and Tolkien's translation countless times over many years, this translation is particularly mesmerising to read. It would be a great place to start for anyone new to this story. Beautiful phrasing.

I am captivated by this next adventure into the Grishaverse but fate has conspired to simultaneously deliver three long-awaited tomes via mysterious and convoluted timelines of public inter-library loan waiting lists. I am left with no recourse but to momentarily pause this sojourn. I will return soon…
{*updates reading status whilst pretending I am a TVA analyst protecting the sacred reading timeline}.

I borrowed this ebook and then my eReader vanished (pirates, no doubt!) and now I must undertake a seemingly impossible side-quest first — to seek my long lost eReader in a voyage in the wilds of the deep dark caverns between and under all of the seats…I need great magic…

What magic is this? The ebook has suddenly returned to me again from the lost labyrinth of library holds. This poor wretched soul, tormented by a half-read book, is now freeeeeeeee!

Re-reading an wild favourite. 🌊 🏔️

I absolutely love this story, from the opening paragraph it grabbed me. I’m half way through, but I have to return my ebook to the library and it’s a four week estimated wait to get it against. It feels so cruel….I want to keep reading…

Book 3: The Ill-made Knight is astounding storytelling as Lancelot, Guenever, Arthur, the Grail Quest and the lofty ideals of Arthur’s Knight’s Round Table stumble and unravel into a new era.

Book 2: The Queen of Air and Darkness: This book explores Arthur as a new King. It lays the foundations of Arthur's future, introducing those who will result in his downfall. At first, this felt to be familiar territory like Malory's Le Morte d’Arthur, but it is brimming with White's deeply contextual modern references, through Arthur and Merlyn's discussions on the rights and wrongs of war. Wonderful writing!

Book 1 The Sword in the Stone: 25 years since I first read this medieval madness and it still makes me laugh. T H White’s capacity for silliness (Merlyn knitting his beard into his night-cap) contrasted with philosophical awe in of some of my favourite examples of nature writing in Wart’s (Arthur’s) time spent transformed into animals and his observations from those perspectives. Clever, witty and profound.