"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade"

(Might be about time to read Great Expectations again ....)

Finished The Shakespeare Thefts by Eric Rasmussen, a blithely quick read, but interesting.  The title is somewhat misleading, as there is not really much theft involved -- it is about a project to trace all known copies of Shakespeare's First Folio, the famous 1623 first "collected works" of Shakespeare.  There were 750 copies in the run, of which only 232 are known to still exist, so Rasmussen has made it something of a life's work of his to not only find them all but to examine them minutely, even to the marginalia scribbled by innumerable hands down the centuries, partly just for the fun of it, but partly also so that in the very-real possibility of theft not only the books themselves but the individual pages are identifiable.  He has a light, breezy style that sits somewhat oddly, to my mind, with such a scholarly obsession, but it certainly makes for a good popular introduction to the subject.

I am now working through the four "historical" novels of Joanna Trollope that my public library has -- I say historical in quotes to distinquish them from her "modern" ones, called somewhat disparagingly "Aga sagas" by some.  I pay that no mind, as I've always found her to be an interesting writer, serious yet not at all without humor, and some of her novels I count among those I have reread a number of times.  I did not, I regret to say, much like the first of these historicals I read, Eliza Stanhope, which I thought more than a little formulaic and with little to distinguish it from any other Regency romance writer except perhaps a good ear for dialogue.  I was a little relieved to find out that it was her very first novel.  The Taverners' Place was an engrossing multi-generational family saga, stretching from the 1870s to the 1930s, which I quite enjoyed, although I was rather depressed to realize towards the end that very few of the many marriages were happy.  The third one I read -- because I had (characteristically, I suppose) arranged them in chronological order by historical period -- was the Boer War drama The Steps of the Sun, about which I had very mixed feelings, thinking it well-written but finding it surprisingly difficult to tell the main characters apart -- although in Trollope's defense, this may have been only because I seemed to have the time this past week to read only in three- or four-page bursts, and therefore could never really get involved in the story.  I am now in the middle of The Brass Dolphin, set in World-War-II-era Malta, and am much involved in it, interested in the characters and appreciating Trollope's easy hand at describing the Mediterranean beauty of the island.

Knitting?  Well, yeah, I'm thinking about it, actually.  Got two balls of Kidsilk Haze yearning to cover my shoulders this spring.  Only two.

Nona's Tie One On from knitty?

Plain-but-pretty, probably a quick knit.  Useful too -- and I mean that in the best way, in that the trapezoid shape will actually stay on your shoulders.

Or the Kid Mohair Wrap from Susan Cropper's Pretty Knits, excerpted in Canadian Living?

Perhaps a little impractical? can you actually do anything with this fallng off of your shoulders all the time?  But rather spectacular, certainly, and a lot of wow for only two balls of Kidsilk Haze.

Comments

[mary lou]

I've never read any Joanna Trollope, but I am right now plowing thru the Barchester Chronicles - well, really on audiobook. I have found that with a good reader Victorian novels are just the ticket for audio books. I recently finished Our Mutual Friend that way, and really enjoyed it. For the KSH? I think the Tie One on looks practical, but boy that other shawl is gorgeous!