![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I will get back on track with these!
What I Finished Reading This Week
Down the Back Lane – Grey Larsen
This book's strengths include Larsen's clear prose, subject matter expertise, commitment to gender equality, passion for the subject, and of course, his simple and elegant innovations in describing and noting articulation and ornamentation in Irish traditional music. Its weakness is its high price to content ratio, particularly given that a quarter of the accompanying recordings were taken from one of Larsen's previously released albums and aren't content original to this volume at all.
The Hebridean Baker – Coinneach MacLeod
Yes, this book has the same title as MacLeod’s second volume, which I reviewed two weeks ago and obviously enjoyed enough to pick up the first! Unsurprisingly, it's very much of a piece with its successor, although MacLeod's commercial image was somewhat less honed in this one: the introductions to each recipe are factual versus cottagecore-cutesy; electric appliances, power lines, and inclement weather are all visible in the photos; and the prose essays haven't been scrubbed of topics (e.g., religion) that PR specialists probably caution influencers to avoid. The advertainment content is about on par with the second volume (note the blink-and-you'll-miss-it aside, after all the shilling, that it will be many years before Isle of Harris Distillery produces its first batch of whisky). Still it's much less obviously advertainment than much influencer content. And anyway, the photography is gorgeous, the recipes so far have been great, and sure, the whole thing is pretty hokey, but it's my kind of hokey.
What I Finished Reading In Weeks Past
The Silver Bough vol. 4 – F. Marian McNeill
This is definitely one for the completionists. McNeill published this volume in 1965, i.e., well before the advent of the Internet, with the result that most of this book is comprised of exhaustively detailed accounts of local festivals that would just be Wikipedia entries today. This is not necessarily a bad thing per se: apparently MacNeill was the first person to ever ask "What are Scotland's local festivals?" and then collect the answers that question in one place--a valuable historical documentary function. It's just that the result is not that dissimilar to someone, for instance, setting out to document 4th of July festivities in every US town. The geographic locations may differ but the broad strokes (and often, fine details) are the same: parade, official speech, festive meal, fireworks. By the time MacNeill hits the 30th such iteration she's clearly struggling to describe the same template in unique ways (there are only so many ways to describe people cheering, and eating, and listening to the mayor giving a speech); she gives up entirely for the last 20 or so local festivals and mercifully just lays out the sequence of events.
Nor has all of the content aged well: the passage about tributes being sent for display during one local festival from all corners of the Empire (Cheetah skins from Africa! Exotic feathers from New Zealand!) will not inspire the awe in 21th century readers that MacNeill intended, and I doubt many readers will agree that inventing a pseudo-historical outfit to combat the scourge of "be-sporraned girl dancers in male Highland dress" is as laudable a development as dudes at the time of the book's publication apparently thought it was. (Also, I am hereby adopting "be-sporraned girl dancer in male Highland dress" as my social media profile language of choice.)
The most interesting parts of the book were the descriptions of the few unique local festivals, the information on the development of Highland games, and the chapter on defunct winter solstice celebrations. TL;DR--I'm glad I read it, it contains some interesting information, but much of it is downright monotonous, and all but the most dedicated readers could easily give it the skip.
The Penny Whistle Book – Robin Williamson
I believe this is one of the earliest pennywhistle tutors published, and it's great fun to read. Williamson's voice is enthusiastic and often silly, and the book's lack of self-importance and even self-consciousness is refreshing when compared to the self-serious and pedantic tone of the last 15 to 20 years. It was also written before the current emphasis on purity and taxonomy in ITM, so there are American, English, Scottish, and Welsh tunes freely mixed in with the Irish, which I very much like. Each tune is introduced with some notes on its origins, or Williamson's thoughts about its merits, something few tunebooks these days do that I wish they would. (And honestly, this blending of music from geographic regions is probably a lot truer to historical practice than the current tendency to insist on publishing collections of "only" Irish tunes or tunes from a given county or whatever.) Conversely, historical clip art fills the blank spaces on many pages sans any captions to explain what the images depict or why they accompany a given tune. It's all sort of endearingly naive by modern standards. Williamson's also much less concerned with ornamentation than most modern authors, or at least, the ornamentation he introduces is not the "canon" stuff. (I'd love to get my hands on a recording of him to hear whether he's playing the turns as turns, or if that's just how he was noting long and short rolls.)
TL;DR--my original copy of this book disappeared decades ago and it was nice to get my hands on a second. This book has a good selection of tunes unpretentiously presented, and I've enjoyed reacquainting myself with them.
What I Still Need To Review: Queer City – Peter Ackroyd
What I Am Currently Reading
Guided Tarot – Stefanie Capoli
It’s not bad, but neither is it anything that hasn’t been published in dozens of other "just let your imagination guide you" Tarot books.
Blackheart Knights – Laure Eve
I think I'm just at about the halfway point in this book, which isn't bad, but as failed to grab me all the same. This probably has something to do with my having spotted the yet-to-come Big Reveal by the third chapter.
The Thorns Remain – JJA Harrow
Our early 20th century protagonist has a glaringly anachronous 21st century mindset, but I still inhaled a hundred pages in a go.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I acquired Ann Leckie’s Translation State, MacLeod’s The Hebridean Baker, and Seogang University’s Grammar and Supplementary Vocabulary Book: 1A & 1B. Last week, I acquired Michael O’hAlmhain and Seamus Mac Mathuna’s Tutor for the Feadog Stain, Jim Meehan’s The PDT Cocktail Book, Rich Shih and Jeremy Umansky’s Koji Alchemy, and Charissa Weak’s The Witch Collector.
これで以上です。
What I Finished Reading This Week
Down the Back Lane – Grey Larsen
This book's strengths include Larsen's clear prose, subject matter expertise, commitment to gender equality, passion for the subject, and of course, his simple and elegant innovations in describing and noting articulation and ornamentation in Irish traditional music. Its weakness is its high price to content ratio, particularly given that a quarter of the accompanying recordings were taken from one of Larsen's previously released albums and aren't content original to this volume at all.
The Hebridean Baker – Coinneach MacLeod
Yes, this book has the same title as MacLeod’s second volume, which I reviewed two weeks ago and obviously enjoyed enough to pick up the first! Unsurprisingly, it's very much of a piece with its successor, although MacLeod's commercial image was somewhat less honed in this one: the introductions to each recipe are factual versus cottagecore-cutesy; electric appliances, power lines, and inclement weather are all visible in the photos; and the prose essays haven't been scrubbed of topics (e.g., religion) that PR specialists probably caution influencers to avoid. The advertainment content is about on par with the second volume (note the blink-and-you'll-miss-it aside, after all the shilling, that it will be many years before Isle of Harris Distillery produces its first batch of whisky). Still it's much less obviously advertainment than much influencer content. And anyway, the photography is gorgeous, the recipes so far have been great, and sure, the whole thing is pretty hokey, but it's my kind of hokey.
What I Finished Reading In Weeks Past
The Silver Bough vol. 4 – F. Marian McNeill
This is definitely one for the completionists. McNeill published this volume in 1965, i.e., well before the advent of the Internet, with the result that most of this book is comprised of exhaustively detailed accounts of local festivals that would just be Wikipedia entries today. This is not necessarily a bad thing per se: apparently MacNeill was the first person to ever ask "What are Scotland's local festivals?" and then collect the answers that question in one place--a valuable historical documentary function. It's just that the result is not that dissimilar to someone, for instance, setting out to document 4th of July festivities in every US town. The geographic locations may differ but the broad strokes (and often, fine details) are the same: parade, official speech, festive meal, fireworks. By the time MacNeill hits the 30th such iteration she's clearly struggling to describe the same template in unique ways (there are only so many ways to describe people cheering, and eating, and listening to the mayor giving a speech); she gives up entirely for the last 20 or so local festivals and mercifully just lays out the sequence of events.
Nor has all of the content aged well: the passage about tributes being sent for display during one local festival from all corners of the Empire (Cheetah skins from Africa! Exotic feathers from New Zealand!) will not inspire the awe in 21th century readers that MacNeill intended, and I doubt many readers will agree that inventing a pseudo-historical outfit to combat the scourge of "be-sporraned girl dancers in male Highland dress" is as laudable a development as dudes at the time of the book's publication apparently thought it was. (Also, I am hereby adopting "be-sporraned girl dancer in male Highland dress" as my social media profile language of choice.)
The most interesting parts of the book were the descriptions of the few unique local festivals, the information on the development of Highland games, and the chapter on defunct winter solstice celebrations. TL;DR--I'm glad I read it, it contains some interesting information, but much of it is downright monotonous, and all but the most dedicated readers could easily give it the skip.
The Penny Whistle Book – Robin Williamson
I believe this is one of the earliest pennywhistle tutors published, and it's great fun to read. Williamson's voice is enthusiastic and often silly, and the book's lack of self-importance and even self-consciousness is refreshing when compared to the self-serious and pedantic tone of the last 15 to 20 years. It was also written before the current emphasis on purity and taxonomy in ITM, so there are American, English, Scottish, and Welsh tunes freely mixed in with the Irish, which I very much like. Each tune is introduced with some notes on its origins, or Williamson's thoughts about its merits, something few tunebooks these days do that I wish they would. (And honestly, this blending of music from geographic regions is probably a lot truer to historical practice than the current tendency to insist on publishing collections of "only" Irish tunes or tunes from a given county or whatever.) Conversely, historical clip art fills the blank spaces on many pages sans any captions to explain what the images depict or why they accompany a given tune. It's all sort of endearingly naive by modern standards. Williamson's also much less concerned with ornamentation than most modern authors, or at least, the ornamentation he introduces is not the "canon" stuff. (I'd love to get my hands on a recording of him to hear whether he's playing the turns as turns, or if that's just how he was noting long and short rolls.)
TL;DR--my original copy of this book disappeared decades ago and it was nice to get my hands on a second. This book has a good selection of tunes unpretentiously presented, and I've enjoyed reacquainting myself with them.
What I Still Need To Review: Queer City – Peter Ackroyd
What I Am Currently Reading
Guided Tarot – Stefanie Capoli
It’s not bad, but neither is it anything that hasn’t been published in dozens of other "just let your imagination guide you" Tarot books.
Blackheart Knights – Laure Eve
I think I'm just at about the halfway point in this book, which isn't bad, but as failed to grab me all the same. This probably has something to do with my having spotted the yet-to-come Big Reveal by the third chapter.
The Thorns Remain – JJA Harrow
Our early 20th century protagonist has a glaringly anachronous 21st century mindset, but I still inhaled a hundred pages in a go.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I acquired Ann Leckie’s Translation State, MacLeod’s The Hebridean Baker, and Seogang University’s Grammar and Supplementary Vocabulary Book: 1A & 1B. Last week, I acquired Michael O’hAlmhain and Seamus Mac Mathuna’s Tutor for the Feadog Stain, Jim Meehan’s The PDT Cocktail Book, Rich Shih and Jeremy Umansky’s Koji Alchemy, and Charissa Weak’s The Witch Collector.
これで以上です。