Reading Wednesday

[yuuago]

Just finished: Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words by Boel Westin. It was interesting to read about Tove's view of her life and work, and how she felt about her work and its reception. I didn't know that she ran into some difficulty with the reception of her books for adults, though I've heard of similar things happening with other writers so it's not that surprising (people wanted more Moomins, and were disappointed when her adult works were not Moomin-ish). I'm really curious about reading her non-Moomin books, so I guess those have to go on the to-read list. Art-wise, she did some paintings in the 1960s that leaned more toward abstraction, and I'll have to look up more about those, because the examples shown in this book were very much to my taste.

Currently Reading: Fragile Things, a short story collection by Neil Gaiman. Started it because someone mentioned "A Study in Emerald", and continued after reading that. It isn't leaving much impression on me, but I don't regret the time I'm spending with it either, so that's all right.

Reading Next: At one point I tried reading Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. It's actually three novels compiled into one book - The Wreath, The Wife, and The Cross. I didn't get very far with it initially because it's very big and very heavy and not very portable. But all things considered... there's no time like the present! This one is a classic set in fourteenth-century Norway, and I don't know or recall much about it aside from that.