The Hidden Land by Pamela Dean (reread)
The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
The Secret Country by Pamela Dean (reread)
Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn (reread)
Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn (reread)
College of Magicks by Caroline Stevermer (reread)
The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt
Extraordinary Canadians: Glenn Gould by Mark Kingwell

This was a month of rereads because I never made it to the library (missed two reserves that way, argh), couldn’t afford to buy new books, and then it was too close to various gift-giving occasions. It was kind of lacklustre month, reading-wise. I revisited old favourites (Stevermer) and not-very-challenging stuff (Shinn) but then hit the Pamela Dean books, which make my quotation-repository part of my brain work hard.

Brief notes:

Every time I finish College of Magicks I am reminded of how brilliant a read it is.

I wanted to enjoy The Court of the Air much more than I did. I found it very hard to hold on to the thread of what as actually happening, since there was so much going on in different plotlines. It was a fabulous world, but I had trouble empathising with the main characters, and the villain was just insane, so there wasn’t much to empathise with there, either. It didn’t feel very immediate, somehow; a bit scattered and crammed. And every time it came close to the reader, it jumped away again. Eventually I’ll get to The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, because it’s on my shelf, but not any time soon. (I don’t usually buy more than the first book in a series by a new-to-me author, but I received these two in a draw.)

The White Queen helped shore up my knowledge of the Wars of the Roses, which was woefully patchy and skewed time-wise. For some reason I’d always thought there was more of a gap between that part of the Lancaster/York dynasty and the Tudor one. It would be helpful if not everyone was called Elizabeth, Henry, Richard, or Margaret, though. I kind of liked Gregory’s envisioning of what might have happened and people’s motivations.