Summer Reading List

I've suddenly become absolutely obsessed with reading again. For someone who's always been a confirmed Reader (with a capital R!) it seems a bit strange that I might go off reading for months at a time. There are so many other things that pull my attention though -- podcasts, Youtube, and even games, I have to admit! Plus, I think my attention span isn't as long as it used to be. So when I get the urge to sit down and spend half a day reading, I don't want to pass that by.

Sure, I've got a room full of books at home, but none of those seemed appealing. Unfortunately my local library isn't within walking distance like where I used to live, so I decided to check out their e-book collection. It's not a huge collection, but it has enough to pique my interest. There was also a link to Open Library, which has a huge collection of scanned copies of books of all kinds. Anyone can join for free. I signed up immediately, only to find that I was already a member! Open Library falls under the umbrella of Archive.org, which I'd joined years ago. Seems I'm also a confirmed nerd!

My current wave of obsession began when I (re)read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Several years ago, I decided to read it every Christmas/New Year as a personal tradition. (I don't really celebrate Christmas, but I do have a few things I like to do every year.) This year I read the e-book edition from Project Gutenberg with illustrations by Arthur Rackham. It made me want to read more Dickens and other books relating to 19th century England.

I logged onto Open Library and started Dickens' first published book: Sketches by Boz. One thing I love about Open Library is that many older books and even first editions have been scanned in. I chose the oldest edition I could find, to make my reading experience more interesting. In a strange way, I feel like I'm a little closer in time to the original readers of the book -- even though I'm reading it on an iPad.

Sketches by Boz, Chapman & Hall 1850 ed.
I haven't read much Dickens so far (only Great Expectations), and my interest in the area in general has been piqued, so my first reading list looks a little like this:

Victoriana

✽ Finish Sketches by Boz
✽ The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - his second book
✽ Dodger by Terry Pratchett - set in Dickens' London, and Pratchett is wonderful (a library find)
✽ The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency series - a series of 4 children's books detailing the adventures of Ada Lovelace and Mary Shelley as children (in reality they were born 30 years apart, but the books bring them together to solve a series of mysteries). It also has a fictionalised Dickens as a child in it. (another library find)


I didn't pay much attention to the audiobook side of my local library's selection, because initially I thought I wouldn't have much chance to listen to audiobooks, but last week I realised I can listen to them while I'm doing crafts. Silly me! That opened up a whole different set of options. I started with The Cottingley Secret, a fictionalised account of the two girls, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, whose photos of fairies in the 1910s took the world by storm.

The Cottingley Secret, as shown on the audiobook player.
It mentions more than once a book extant at the time: The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley. I decided to stop and read that book before continuing, to get a fuller experience. So my second list is:

Fairy Tales

✽ The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley
✽ finish The Cottingley Secret
✽ The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay - an Australian classic (from Open Library)
✽ The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (from my shelves)
✽ Grimm Tales By Philip Pullman (a library find)

The Water Babies, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1916 ed.
Illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith.
And, because I couldn't help myself, a third list:

Extras, If I Have Time

✽ Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
✽ Books 2 and 3 of the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the first book of which I reviewed here (I'll be borrowing these from the library, too)
✽ The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter (from my shelves)
✽ Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson (I apparently own this book, according to LibraryThing, but I'll have to find it before I can read it!)


Also, I've re-discovered these resource websites, which may well prove to be handy:

★ Books Set In - choose a country, region or city to find books set in that location
★ Historical Novels - find historical novels set in your preferred time period. Some are also divided by location, genre and/or topic.
★ Which Book - use the sliders to choose variables such as Happy/Sad, Beautiful/Disgusting and Conventional/Unusual to decide what kind of book you want to read, and the Which Book tool generates a reading list based on your preferences.

Happy reading!