May 2025 books read

  • Daddy Long-Legs: A Comedy in Four Acts – Jean Webster, 1912. Multiple re-read, this time looking for more of the Cinderella/orphan feel from A Little Princess. It’s also a great school story. I love the cartoons Judy draws of herself. I’m shocked this hasn’t turned up in previously-read; I’ve been keeping up with my monthly lists since 2016, but I’m more meticulous now so I suppose it might have slipped in years ago. But maybe I read it so many times when I was younger that it stuck with me?
  • Racketty-Packetty House – Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1906. More comfort re-reading, and another I’m surprised not to have listed since 2016. The family of jolly dolls who laugh through hard times always cheer me up.
  • The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann, 1924. ABC selection, first read with Great Books in 2022. This time I had the Woods translation, which I liked better (but Settembrini and Naptha are still tarsome). Different quotes TBD.
  • Beyond the Door of No Return – David Diop, 2021. Second Monday; quotes TBD.
  • Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World – John Vaillant, 2023. Nature/Enviro, quotes TBD.
  • The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder, 1927. Great Books, quotes TBD.
  • The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern, 2011. The May challenge for the Massachusetts Center for the Book was “A book with a first sentence of eight words or less.” Jonathan found me a Margery Allingham, The Beckoning Lady, but I couldn’t stand it and checked the MassBook recommended list for an alternative. I’d heard a lot of good things about Night Circus and it was already on my read-someday list so I picked it. Hmm…. a lot of beautiful images but overall it didn’t grab me. Kind of a cross between Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and Fingersmith. But it was originally a NaNoWriMo project so I root for it for that reason alone. A reviewer on GoodReads says it’s worth reading twice because you don’t pick up on the plot connections the first time around… but I’m 60 and there are too many other books to read. For the challenge I wrote “The circus of the title is the best thing about this novel – a dreamlike place of visual wonders.”
  • T. Tembarom – Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1913. Re-read for the umpteenth time; it’s probably my favorite Burnett, plus it’s related a bit to the Cinderella theme.
  • Death in Venice – Thomas Mann, 1911. Amherst book group; quotes TBD.

Novellas and short stories

  • “The Dwarf Pine” – Varlam Shalamov (from Kolyma Stories, 1954-1973), for Story Club