What I've Been Doing

The 16th of August was precisely a week ago, and I am sorry for the delay but I've been completely absorbed in the world of Elizabeth Gaskell (her actual real life world, not the world's she wrote about) and the Stravagante in Talia. I simply adore books, but I've been a bit scared by the sheer amount of reading I've done in the past week. Two whole Stravaganza books and half of Jenny Uglow's biography of Elizabeth Gaskell. Plus a bit of the Bible, but I take that slower.

Reading the Stravaganza books has made me realise that although I've read a lot of fantasy, the fantasy books which I really love (Harry Potter, Stravaganza, Narnia, and others) are ones in which the magical/fantasy world is unknown to the protagonists until it find them/they find it. I feel like this just makes the books more . . . it makes the reader feel as though they can almost reach the world, that it's plausible, there but hidden. It pulls you in more.

Elizabeth Gaskell's biography on the other hand - I love her letters, and I am not exaggerating. They're delightfully excellent, charming, full of details but not boring. At least the extracts I've read, and I plan to borrow out the book of them from my uni's library. I just wish the modern world lent itself more to letters. I love letters.

And that has been my week of reading, or extracts from. So, I'm off to read a bit more!