Intended Reading (24th February)

[ironed_orchid]

What haven't you read this week?

We all have things we mean to read, but never quite find the time, whether it's a bunch of unopened tabs, or an ever growing pile of books by the bed.

What's on your to-be-read list this week?

Comments

[legionseagle]

Still struggling with the Victorian murderesses (Mary S. Hartman: Victorian Murderesses.) Stuck on the chapter where she keeps being judgey about Madeleine Smith, about the relationship and Smith's general demeanour and character, not the poisoning bit, and it's rubbing me up the wrong way, given the chap was blackmailing her.

[ironed_orchid]

Ugh. Hopefully the next chapter will be better.

[legionseagle]

It's frustrating because schematically she's got some really interesting ideas, specifically the idea of pairing an English and a French murderess in each chapter, where the cases have some similarities, and exploring similarities and differences in both how the public responded to the cases, as well as trying to put the reason these particular crimes got the contemporary attention they did in the context of contemporary anxieties about women's position, the impact of novels on the impressionable female mind (shades of last week's discussion about romance!) and the changing views of marriage. But she then ends up derailing herself because it's clear there's a type she identifies as a sort of "Mean Popular Girl" and she ends up pushing some of her suspects into that mould, rather than considering how that trope itself was shaped by narratives around what a "good" woman was, the tensions between being a "good" woman and making a "good" marriage.

The next one is Constance Kent, and I'll be fascinated to see what she makes of her, when I get round to it.

[batdina]

Jewish law on gender and gender change. I'm going to intersperse that with something riotously funny though because I cannot imagine that the Rabbis are going to make me all that happy in this instance.

comic suggestions more than welcome.

[nanila]

Twitter. I've been really bad at keeping up this week.

[ironed_orchid]

I have two primary modes on twitter: on a train, and in bed when I can't sleep.

[anotherheather]

I need to finish the book I started on children and sleep (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth, MD), because sleep ain't happening at my house on a regular basis. The suggestions from that book that I've implemented so far have been helping quite a bit, but the style is a bit repetitive and dry. I've been spending my time between three other books as I put off reading that one.

[ironed_orchid]

Sometimes it's good to have a book for pleasure reading to balance out the instructive reading.

[anotherheather]

Oh yes I agree. One of the books is an interior decorating book I'm finding very inspirational and even fun to read. I keep gravitating toward finishing that one before the serious stuff.