Meredy's Reading Journal 2026

Welcome to my reading thread, and thank you for stopping in. I aim to post more consistently in 2026.

This is a continuation of my notes from 2025, here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/374604

Finished

God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning, by Meghan O’Gieblyn. 2021. 4 1/2 stars.
The Queen Who Came In from the Cold; series: Her Majesty the Queen Investigates, by S. J. Bennett, 2025. 4 stars.

Currently reading

The Last Samurai, by Helen DeWitt, 2000.

Happy new year, and happy new thread!

I hope you do! Happy New Year!

Happy New Thread and Happy Reading for 2026.

Happy New Year; happy new thread

>1 Meredy: A very Happy New Year and New Thread to you. It is so good to see you posting regularly again.

>1 Meredy:. Glad to see you here! Happy new thread!!

Happy New thread!

Happy New Thread and Happy New Year! I hope you will read many great books 🥰

Thank you, thank you! LT is one of the very positive, welcoming places in my life, and I need more of that. I'm one of those people who tend to isolate when there's trouble. I have to remind myself that staying engaged is the right thing for me.

I do still keep reading, every night, even if sometimes it's only for ten or fifteen minutes. And the next step is . . . post something. I'll try.

>7 Bookmarque: Oh, thank you, that's beautiful! What a lot of cheer in a small package. It makes me smile just to look at it.

Happy New Year and new thread :)

>13 Meredy: That was the point, my friend, and you are most welcome. Don't be a stranger, ya hear?

Happy new year to you! I hope it brings you many good books! I will look forward to your thoughts on them.

Happy new year (belated) and happy new thread!

The Queen Who Came in from the Cold (2025), by S. J. Bennett

I love this series: Her Majesty the Queen Investigates, starring Queen Elizabeth Ii. This was book 5. I don't much care if I have trouble tracking the secondary characters and remembering the details of the plot. Being a born anglophile, I relish the illusion of close proximity to the queen and her husband, including being privy to their private conversation and even to some of her thoughts. She is, of course, the soul of discretion. All of it sounds deliciously authentic to me.

I don't give them big star ratings, which I have to reserve for more ambitious, heavy-duty selections, but rated on enjoyment alone, they'd be up there with Nero Wolfe.

>18 Meredy:
It sounds like you are describing this series as entertainment fodder that works for you.

>18 Meredy: Oh, I didn't know there was a new one out. I love this series too--it does have such a feeling of authenticity.

>19 pgmcc: Exactly so. An entertaining fantasy that resonates with my New England and Canadian roots. The timing of this release was great for me because I have taken such a heavy dose of heavy reading in recent months. I'm back to another one of those now: Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai.

The Last Samurai drew me right in, for reasons not readily apparent. Maybe it was the voice of the main character, Sibylla, an unusual narrator, especIally with respect to languages. Her prodigy son, mastering numerous languages by the age of three, soon becomes a co-narrator, adding dimension if not counterbalance.

At about 300 pages in, it's hard to say what is so compelling about this novel, which is pretty light on plot, other than that the two main characters are themselves a trip, a head trip into previously unexplored territory. If languages and _language_ fascinate you, this one is a remarkable experience.

Finished it. Stunning book. I've never read anything at all like it.

>23 Meredy:
I am glad you had such a good read.

I have added The Last Samurai to my list of books to acquire. It sounds very intriguing.

>23 Meredy: I am very happy for you! I've had The Last Samurai on my to read list for such a long time now.

The Last Samurai was a doozy. Partway through, it became the son's story. I'm still pondering the ending.

Currently reading the very weird The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton, right on the heels of 1929, by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Quite a series of long reads so far this year. Next up is The Brothers Karamazov, last tackled in 1966.

Which book is it--Douglas Adams?--that ends the series of adventures and challenges with the aliens coming to pick up a part for their ship? We understand that the entire plot took place in order to deliver it to them from somewhere else in the universe.

Skipping over a few, I'm currently reading The Brothers Karamazov in a Modern Library edition from the 1960s.

Passed page 700 in The Brothers Karamazov. About another week should do it. This book is an experience (and I had to resist the temptation to write that with a capital E).

>30 Meredy:
A good, bad or indifferent experience?

>31 pgmcc: Oh, marvelous, amazing! I don't want to make global statements before I finish it, but it has been dramatically absorbing. I've gone so slowly because I've written a lot of notes, including the inevitable character list for a Russian novel. I'll say more after I reach page 822.

>32 Meredy:
Glad to read that you are enjoying it. A six word review for this one would be a challenge.

>32 Meredy: I'm glad you're enjoying it so much. I have started the book several times but always get bogged down about 1/3 through. I will look forward to your thoughts when you finish.

>34 Sakerfalcon: I read this back in 1989, and I don't believe I was as enamoured with it as >30 Meredy: appears to be!

>30 Meredy: Does anyone know if the translation matters? I own an old leather-bound edition. Not sure on translator. I've never worked up the energy to read it, though I have read Crime and Punishment (college) and some other works by Dostoyevsky. I'm interested in whether people have a preferred translation.

>36 ludmillalotaria: The translation can make all the difference to enjoyment of a book, and can generate heated discussion! My copy of Karamazov is the Penguin one translated by David McDuff, but there are more modern versions out there.

I recommend taking a look at the Fans of Russian Literature group as they are knowledgeable about the different translators and their strengths and weaknesses.

I finished! The Brothers Karamazov! last night!

>38 Meredy: Congratulations :)

>38 Meredy:
You will need a rest after that.

>38 Meredy: Congratulations! I haven't had the stamina to attempt Dostoevsky; I think I sped through one of his novels years and years back but can't recall which novel it was. I am quite sure I didn't take the time to work through it properly

>41 jillmwo: Same here. I was scarred by Notes From Underground in AP English decades ago and never recovered. My hat is off to Meredy...and I expect that a six-word summary is all but impossible for Dostoevsky.

Here's my shot at it (ahem):

God exists or doesn't. Humankind does.

Inadequate, I know, but I'm still pondering this masterwork. I read Crime and Punishment in my early teens and then somehow induced my English teacher to assign it to the whole class. (I expect I owe them an apology.) Well, he asked for suggestions, so I made one. I'd also read Notes from the Underground, but not yet The Double, The Idiot, or The Possessed. It's been more than 50 years since I read anything by Dostoevsky; and maybe now was the right time for me to come to this one, late in life, as D. was when he wrote it--completing it shortly before his death at age 59.

The depth of D.'s grasp of the psychology of his characters--including some who outspokenly decry the invasion of psychology into the human thought process--gives much to dwell on. It'll take a little time.

I do need a rest. However, I went straight to Ian McEwan's Atonement.