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arbieroo

Arbie's Unoriginally Titled Book Blog

It's a blog! Mainly of book reviews.

Currently reading

Station Zero
Philip Reeve
Progress: 220/282 pages
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition
Ursula K. Le Guin, Charles Vess
Progress: 749/997 pages
The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry
Robert Chandler
The Uncertain Land and Other Poems
Patrick O'Brian
Progress: 8/160 pages
The Heptameron (Penguin Classics)
Marguerite de Navarre
Progress: 152/544 pages
The Poems and Plays of John Masefield
John Masefield
Progress: 78/534 pages
Poems Selected
Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes
Progress: 4/50 pages
Selected Poems
U A Fanthorpe
Progress: 18/160 pages
The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse
Mick Imlah, Robert Crawford
Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 2
Ursula K. Le Guin
Progress: 133/789 pages
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories - William L. Hedges, Washington Irving I was a victim of marketing with this book: If it had been The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (the original title) on the cover I almost certainly would have passed it by. However, I could not miss out on the book holding Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, two stories whose fame outstrips that of their author by a few miles (at least in Britain).

It turns out that "Sketchbook" is appropriate, where-as "Stories" is only apt to a minority of the pieces. The collection is a rattlebag of narrative, descriptive, historical and fantastical essays covering British rural and city life, Christmas customs of yore, the history of the persecution of the American Indians and supernatural tales amongst other items. I found most of them a bore and was not overly impressed by the famous stories but I was interested to learn that as early as 1818 people were realising that the indigenous tribes of America had be horribly mistreated and trying to set the historical record straight, even if they failed to curtail any further abuses. I was also greatly amused by Irving's descriptions of visits to libraries where many old books by largely forgotten authors were held. He holds very amusing dream or reverie conversations with the books themselves.

Irving's net is cast so wide in this collection that it is likely that something will catch your interest, even if the majority does not.