The only book I read in June was
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, which was a reread. I watched the Amazon Prime series (booo. I used my mom's account), read the book, then watched it again. It's so good; I really recommend it even if you don't watch the show. For those of you who don't know, it's about the looming apocalypse and the angel and demon who become friends while trying to make the world better/worse, attempting to stop it. This is difficult because they lost the antichrist, and their respective sides definitely want the apocalypse to happen. There's also a witch and many prophecies. It does get rather close to being too sacrilegious for yours truly, but the humor and relationships make up for it. I felt the show was a perfect adaptation of the book, due in no small part to Neil Gaiman's influence and work as a show runner. 4.5/5 stars, keeping obviously.
On Sunday I went to Savers and bought like $40 worth of books. They have a buy 4, get 1 free deal which gets me almost every time. I started reading books from my haul pretty much immediately, starting with
Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson, which is about a magic contest hosted by a wizard who needs to find a witch to marry. Ibbotson wrote the suspiciously Harry Potter-esque
The Secret of Platform 13 (it was written long before
HP),
which I read a few years ago, and her writing is very good. It's that rather old-fashioned British fantasy children's lit that I like so much, very Dahl-esque. I noted there was another "orphan boy who at first was presumed to be ordinary but is actually More" character. I definitely recommend this if you like/don't mind reading about witches and wizards (they're written for a child audience). 4/5 stars, but I'll be giving this one away
The next book I read from my Savers haul was
Girl in Hyacinth Blue, which is a series of interconnected short stories about the different people who own a possible Vermeer painting throughout the centuries, and what it means to them and how it affects them and their lives. Quite sad, but very good writing. It turns out I had read the first story before, which is about a math professor who kept the painting a secret in order to keep people from finding out his father was a Nazi who acquired the painting by looting a Jewish home. I think I read that in high school or college. My favorite (i.e. least sad) story was the one about the Rococo-era rich lady who had to sell the painting without its authenticity papers in order to flee her cheating/cheated husband, thus ensuring future owners were unsure it was a real Vermeer. I love the Rococo era, and the despair and hardship the other characters went through was not present in this story because the lady was rich. I did some googling, and the painting is not real (just like I'd assumed). However, an artist painted it, and you can read about it in
his blog post. It's lovely, although rather different than I imagined it. 3.5/5 stars, giving away.
