Book Chain 2026: Week 3
Jan. 18th, 2026 08:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pedanther#4: A book published at least five years before the previous book
Attempt 1: Twenty-Two Goblins by Arthur W. Ryder, a translation/retelling of "Vetala Panchavimshati", a Sanskrit cycle of folk tales.
In the frame story, a king encounters a goblin (properly a vetāla) who tells him a series of stories involving magic and supernatural creatures. The stories are colourful and full of dramatic incident. The bit at the end of each story where the vetāla challenges the king to answer a question raised by the story, such as "Who was most at fault in this situation?", often led to conclusions that I, not being an 11th-century Hindu, do not agree with, but it was interesting to trace the reasoning that led to each conclusion.
Then I hit a chapter where, instead of asking about any specific part of the story, the vetāla's question was "Which is the bad untrustworthy sex, men or women?" It probably goes without saying that I was going to disagree with any answer that accepted the question as given, but what I want also on record is that the king's justification for his answer didn't even rise to a level of thoughtfulness that could be dignified as "reasoning".
I read a few more chapters after that, before admitting that the book had lost me and wasn't going to win me back.
Attempt 2: Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster.
I decided that what I needed was a book in which nobody was getting horribly murdered. My to-read pile wasn't being helpful, so I went back to a book I've read before, and it was just the ticket.
Last time I read it, it was the basic Project Gutenberg edition with just the text and no images, which meant there were just gaps where Judy's marginal illustrations were meant to be. This time I made sure to download the version with illustrations, and I recommend it: the illustrations add a great deal to an already-enjoyable experience.
#5: A book with the same spine colour as the previous book
Here's a conundrum: What colour is the spine of an ebook?
Well, in this case there's an answer: PG's edition-with-images of Daddy-Long-Legs includes not only the internal illustrations and a picture of the front cover but also a picture of the spine, which has a nice floral decorative element on it. The spine is green.
The Project Gutenberg edition-with-images of the sequel only has the front cover and not the spine (insufficiently decorative, one presumes), but if the spine is the same colour as the front cover then it is also green. Therefore:
Dear Enemy by Jean Webster.
A young woman is charged with running an orphanage in need of reform, with the assistance of, among others, a taciturn doctor with whom she immediately fails to get on (and we all know what that means).
I have mixed feelings about this one. The characters are charming, and although the beats of the romance plot have become extremely familiar in the past century, assuming they weren't already in 1915, they carry them off well. I also appreciate that it's making some effort to use the romance plot as a vehicle for saying things about woman being able to make their own paths and children being afforded the opportunity and preparation to do likewise.
On the other hand, the book and its characters are products of their time, so we also get things like a sympathetic character giving a child a thrashing without anybody thinking anything of it, and the doctor's interest in the latest science of heredity coincides with a time when many of the scientific theories he's giving credence to were racist and ableist pseudoscientific nonsense. And there's a scene I was particularly struck by, where a minor character drops a paragraph about her marital difficulties that wouldn't be out of place as a case study in a textbook on domestic abuse, and then goes on her way and nothing is heard about her again and nobody gives it any more thought. (Although, at that, I'm perhaps being unfair to the author in assuming that she didn't intend for the reader to give it more thought. The book presents a lot of examples of good and bad marriages in a way that suggests that the reader is being invited to think about what makes a marriage good or bad.)
Attempt 1: Twenty-Two Goblins by Arthur W. Ryder, a translation/retelling of "Vetala Panchavimshati", a Sanskrit cycle of folk tales.
In the frame story, a king encounters a goblin (properly a vetāla) who tells him a series of stories involving magic and supernatural creatures. The stories are colourful and full of dramatic incident. The bit at the end of each story where the vetāla challenges the king to answer a question raised by the story, such as "Who was most at fault in this situation?", often led to conclusions that I, not being an 11th-century Hindu, do not agree with, but it was interesting to trace the reasoning that led to each conclusion.
Then I hit a chapter where, instead of asking about any specific part of the story, the vetāla's question was "Which is the bad untrustworthy sex, men or women?" It probably goes without saying that I was going to disagree with any answer that accepted the question as given, but what I want also on record is that the king's justification for his answer didn't even rise to a level of thoughtfulness that could be dignified as "reasoning".
I read a few more chapters after that, before admitting that the book had lost me and wasn't going to win me back.
Attempt 2: Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster.
I decided that what I needed was a book in which nobody was getting horribly murdered. My to-read pile wasn't being helpful, so I went back to a book I've read before, and it was just the ticket.
Last time I read it, it was the basic Project Gutenberg edition with just the text and no images, which meant there were just gaps where Judy's marginal illustrations were meant to be. This time I made sure to download the version with illustrations, and I recommend it: the illustrations add a great deal to an already-enjoyable experience.
#5: A book with the same spine colour as the previous book
Here's a conundrum: What colour is the spine of an ebook?
Well, in this case there's an answer: PG's edition-with-images of Daddy-Long-Legs includes not only the internal illustrations and a picture of the front cover but also a picture of the spine, which has a nice floral decorative element on it. The spine is green.
The Project Gutenberg edition-with-images of the sequel only has the front cover and not the spine (insufficiently decorative, one presumes), but if the spine is the same colour as the front cover then it is also green. Therefore:
Dear Enemy by Jean Webster.
A young woman is charged with running an orphanage in need of reform, with the assistance of, among others, a taciturn doctor with whom she immediately fails to get on (and we all know what that means).
I have mixed feelings about this one. The characters are charming, and although the beats of the romance plot have become extremely familiar in the past century, assuming they weren't already in 1915, they carry them off well. I also appreciate that it's making some effort to use the romance plot as a vehicle for saying things about woman being able to make their own paths and children being afforded the opportunity and preparation to do likewise.
On the other hand, the book and its characters are products of their time, so we also get things like a sympathetic character giving a child a thrashing without anybody thinking anything of it, and the doctor's interest in the latest science of heredity coincides with a time when many of the scientific theories he's giving credence to were racist and ableist pseudoscientific nonsense. And there's a scene I was particularly struck by, where a minor character drops a paragraph about her marital difficulties that wouldn't be out of place as a case study in a textbook on domestic abuse, and then goes on her way and nothing is heard about her again and nobody gives it any more thought. (Although, at that, I'm perhaps being unfair to the author in assuming that she didn't intend for the reader to give it more thought. The book presents a lot of examples of good and bad marriages in a way that suggests that the reader is being invited to think about what makes a marriage good or bad.)
