what I’ve been reading lately:
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A String in the Harp by Nancy BondMargaret K. McElderry Books, 1984 (originally 1976)
A time-travelling magical book, set in Wales, full of a sense of place and a sense of history and altogether pleasing because of that. At first, I wasn’t sure if I could get past the sometimes stiff dialogue, but the story soon grabbed my attention, as did the landscape, the sea and the rivers and
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Figgs and Phantoms by Ellen RaskinE.P. Dutton & Co., 1974
Raskin’s books are always smart and lots of fun, full of wordplay and absurdity. This one, which is about a teenager who’s embarrassed by her eccentric vaudevillian family, wasn’t as endearing to me as The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) or The Westing Game, but it was still quirky and pleasing. Also, I
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The Story of the Amulet by E. NesbitDell, 1987 (originally T. Fisher Unwin, 1906)
Adventures in time and in space, this time: ancient Egypt, Babylon, Atlantis. In this book, Nesbit’s politics are more obvious than in the previous two (the children visit a future utopian London, where the Thames runs clean and children choose their own areas of concentration in school, and workers are no longer poor and miserable).
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The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. NesbitPuffin Books, 1994 (orginally T. Fisher Unwin, 1904)
This is the second book of the trilogy that begins with Five Children and It, and this one is my favorite. The children find an egg wrapped inside a cheap carpet that their mother’s bought, and the egg turns out to be a phoenix, and the carpet turns out to be a magic carpet. Adventures
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Five Children and It by E. NesbitBooks of Wonder, 1999 (originally T. Fisher Unwin, 1902)
Part of what is so pleasing about E. Nesbit’s books is the way that her children navigate through the world, and the world they navigate through: in this book, a summer-holiday-world of adults and sand-fairies and magical events and not very many other children. And, of course, I’m smitten with the British-ness of this story,
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The Wings of the Dove by Henry JamesMiramax Books, 1997 (originally The Bodley Head, 1902)
James’s sentences are often exquisite: sentences as long as paragraphs, sentences full of commas, phrases nested like Russian dolls. His style forces me to slow down, to re-read passages, and I appreciate his pacing, his rhythm. Even the long slow middle of the book, a period of waiting for Kate and Merton and Milly, and
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What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-UcciHarcourt, 2002
This story of small-town narrow-mindedness is unsettling, upsetting, but also well worth reading. Growth & progress & learning to be real.
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The Voyage Out by Virginia WoolfBarnes & Noble Classics, 2004 (originally the Duckworth Press, 1915)
Woolf’s first novel is full of luminous detail, perfect descriptin: a boat moving along a river, a thunderstorm, the way night falls or morning breaks. Familiar themes of aloneness, the inadequacy of language, the difficulty of communication: but here that’s all combined with the disconnect between the sexes, which makes this book feel frustratingly dated
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Lucy Rose, Here’s the Thing About Me by Katy KellyDelacorte (Random House), 2004
When eight-year-old Lucy Rose’s parents separate, she and her mom move to Washington D.C., where her grandparents live. What follows is a pretty standard story, told in the form of diary entries, of getting used to a new place, making friends, and having child-sized adventures. Lucy Rose is smart, and her voice is really endearing,
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Affinity by Sarah WatersRiverhead Books. 2002 (originally Virago, 1999)
Perfectly faux-Victorian, the twists & turns of the mind & of prison corridors, allusive and delicious and dark. A story told in the form of diary entries, secrets and private thoughts.