What have you recently finished reading?
The last thing I finished, approximately five minutes ago, was John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, which was mostly interesting because of its influence and because Lord Ruthven is a major character in the Greta Helsing books. It was interesting to finally read it, and to read it as a diss on Byron, but it is also mercifully short.
Last night I finished off the last of my planned September reads, my ARC of Georgia Summers’ The Bookshop Below, and a reread of volume nine of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, so that was nice. The magic in The Bookshop Below reminded me a lot of Ink Blood Sister Scribe, and it felt like it was never fully explained/delimited… but that didn’t bother me too much, I think? I need to sit down and put together my thoughts properly.
What are you currently reading?
Well, nothing, actually. Not even books on the backburner, really, except ones that have been backburnered so long I “paused” them on StoryGraph. I’m about to start my reread of volume four of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, to wrap that all up before reading some new-to-me danmei in October.
It feels weird not to have anything on the go; I’ll fix that posthaste.
What will you be reading next?
I’ll probably reread volume ten of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, while volume nine is fresh in my mind — I wish I hadn’t left such a gap between volume eight and volume nine, honestly, since they contain one of the only true plot arcs in the manga so far, and one where all the pieces take time to come together.
Other than that, my Book Spin Bingo list for October is ready, although the numbers haven’t been announced yet, so maybe something from that. I want to reread Jordan L. Hawk’s The Forgotten Dead and Rattling Bone before I get onto the latest book in the series, Into the Dark, so perhaps I’ll start with those.
As ever, I’ll be mostly going by whim.
I have never read The Vampyre, so I didn’t recognize the name Lord Ruthven, very cool!
The Vivian Shaw books reference quite a lot of horror/gothic classics I haven’t touched… it often sounds like they might not be terribly worth it, ahaha, but I’m curious all the same.
Enjoy your next read!
Last #book I finished: Orwell’s Roses by #RebeccaSolnit
#Amreading: Greek Lessons, by #HanKang
#Amlistening to: Tout ce qui est sur terre doit périr, by #MichelBussi
#TBR Reading next: The Hopkins Manuscript, by #RCSherriff
Emma @ Words And Peace recently posted…2025: September wrap-up
Thanks!
When I read The Vampyre on stream, I ended up doing a bit of a deep dive on Polidori (including reading his diary!) and I’m not sure the story was really meant as a diss of Byron as much as some folks make out, though it’s fun reading it that way. If Byron was a disaster bisexual, Polidori was the hottest mess of 1816. The antics! I told my chat he was “extremely 19 years old” when he was Byron’s physician.
HarpGriffin recently posted…Review: Wall-to-Wall by Mary Ann Fraser
Interesting! It was definitely taught that way when it was referenced in my first degree (in passing, while discussing Frankenstein), but we weren’t exactly looking in depth.
Byron has gone through a few cycles of academia and the popular imagination thinking of him as a definite villain, and Polidori is extremely useful to making him out to be one if you don’t look at Polidori too closely (or take him at his word, which… don’t do that. Almost any time someone else was a witness to something he describes, we find that they entirely contradict him, and where there are multiple witnesses, they are more consistent with each other than with him. About the only thing everyone agrees happened was Polidori challenging Percy Shelley to a duel for no apparent reason.)
Here for whim 🙂
calypte recently posted…Days of Shattered Faith – Adrian Tchaikovsky
I try never to let myself get too caught up in “I HAVE to read XYZ right now” anymore… not always successfully, I must admit, but still.
I’m looking forward to The Bookshop Below when it releases! Moon reading / reading by whim is the way I’ve been picking books lately, though, so I’m with you on that choice.
Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits recently posted…Mini Reviews: Knight’s Castle, Sherlock Holmes, & Mousse and Murder