Miscellaneous bookellaneous

Perhaps one day I'll come back to this and turn it into a coherent narrative. But for now, here are a few random thoughts.

You may notice that the Martin Luther King, Jr. anthology has been removed from the "Notable Reads" list below. Why? Well, it's a simple case of too much of too much the same. Rather than clarifying and expanding my knowledge of Dr. King's ideas and impact, that collection narrowed my view by presenting pieces that were too much alike; rather than showing any progression (or depth of views) from the earliest civil rights speeches and writings to the late, anti-war, anti-poverty pieces, the latter simply appeared, almost from nothing. Very disconcerting, and a very disappointing approach to the powerful words of a great American leader.

So where do you turn after such heaviness? I turned to lighter fare, and want to point out two of my favorite light reading books: Steven Brust's The Phoenix Guards and Laurie R. King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice. They have nothing at all in common, except a wonderful read-ability, and delightful turns of writing. They're both books I return to with pleasure.

As for my attempt to get to know A. A. Milne better, I feel rather rebuffed. I read a collection of essays (Sunny Days, I believe) and his mystery (The Red House Mystery), and, although they were each amusing, they felt shallow and dated. (I also found it took an effort to get into the "flow" of each book; this surprised me, since they were written around the time of World War I.) For now, I'm content with that as a brief look at his works (it's what's available at my local library, anyway). I continue to love the original Winnie-the-Poohs, of course, and hope one day to return to his other adult writings. Perhaps I'll even turn to the biography of him that's waiting on a library shelf.