User Profile

sarah

wynkenhimself@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years, 10 months ago

dorking around with old books for work and reading new(ish) books for fun with strong opinions but an inconsistent rating system | you can find me most places as wynkenhimself including as @wynkenhimself@glammr.us | she/her

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sarah's books

Currently Reading

2024 Reading Goal

52% complete! sarah has read 21 of 40 books.

reviewed The Wife by Sigrid Undset (Kristin Lavransdatter, #2)

Sigrid Undset, Tiina Nunnally: The Wife (Penguin Classics) 5 stars

Kristin Lavransdatter interweaves political, social, and religious history with the daily aspects of family life …

More of the same and still great

5 stars

I am still really pulled in by this trilogy. Kristin continues to make rough decisions, Erlend continues to be a mistake always, but the inner lives and the sweep of it all, and the deeper look into Simon are all great. I think it’s the deeply realized medieval Norway setting in combination with the really subtle storytelling? The details of political feuds escape me, but it doesn’t really matter

E. G. Crichton: Matchmaking in the Archive (2023, Rutgers University Press) 4 stars

Though today’s LGBTQ people owe a lot to the generations who came before them, their …

good intent, mixed execution

4 stars

An odd book that explores an evolving art piece in which the author matched other artists with people whose lives had been included in the archives of an LGBTQ society. The idea for the piece—matchmaking and creating queer lineages—is great. But the book focuses relentlessly on the author’s experiences of creating the project rather than the artists’ experiences of making the art, or even conveying those installations so that the reader can experience them. The third part with invited essays from Katz, Tea, and Vargas was great—smart and beautifully written. If you’re a GLAMs person, this can open up lots of thoughts both about how we as researchers and we as institutional workers could create opportunities for public and creative work with our collections.

commented on The Wife by Sigrid Undset (Kristin Lavransdatter, #2)

Sigrid Undset, Tiina Nunnally: The Wife (Penguin Classics) 5 stars

Kristin Lavransdatter interweaves political, social, and religious history with the daily aspects of family life …

I can’t really explain why this pulls me in so much—Kristin herself is so annoying and I don’t relate to the devout Christianity—but I am just loving this trilogy

started reading Marry Me by Midnight by Felicia Grossman (Once upon the East End, #1)

Felicia Grossman: Marry Me by Midnight (2023, Grand Central Publishing) 3 stars

London, 1832: Isabelle Lira may be in distress, but she's no damsel. Since her father’s …

Not entirely sure it was wise to choose a romance that has a lot to do with the precariousness of being Jewish in 1832 London and the desperate hopes that they will finally be granted emancipation—lots of anxieties around today’s world pulling me out of a relaxing read, oops

Barbara Pym: A Glass of Blessings (1980) 5 stars

Barbara Pym’s early novel takes us into 1950s England, as seen through the funny, engaging, …

Tender and funny

5 stars

My chronological reading of Pym continues to pay off. I loved this one. Less mockery and cringe, more wistful and generous. Despite Wilmet being the center (or maybe because) it really feels like a study of men and the roles open for them.

Nathan Thrall: Day in the Life of Abed Salama (2023, Holt & Company, Henry) 5 stars

Immersive and gripping, an intimate story of a deadly accident outside Jerusalem that unravels a …

hard and important

5 stars

just one tragedy after another, and Thrall does an excellent job of exploring the many stories that he interweaves into Salama's search for his son, and connecting micro actions with the macro circumstances and decisions that created the conditions for this.