reading right now

 I decided to follow "Gaudy Night" with something different, so I pulled the first volume (of three) of a young-adult fantasy novel series off the shelf and read it.

I'm only about 50 pages in but it seems promising

It's actually a more-recent series (2000, I think? A lot of these sort of novels I read are older, like 1950s and 60s). It's fundamentally an Arthurian-adjacent tale: Merlin plays a role, but thus far at least, the Arthur being followed in the story (Arthur de Caldicot) is a knight's son and not related to or tied to, the legendary Arthur (though perhaps he will be linked, later on - there are some hints). Arthur and his family live near the border with Wales (in fact, his mother's side of the family is Welsh - his grandmother lives with them and she tells the story of "the sleeping king," which I take to be an Arthurian allusion)

It's a Folio Society book, so it's a well made and attractive book (and was expensive, but that doesn't really matter - I could get rid of a lot of my paperbacks but I'd still keep these, even if I wound up with few enough books I had to do a lot of rereading)

Folio Society books are illustrated - I think the young-adult ones a bit more, even, than the grown-up ones. The illustrations in this one are sort of woodcut/woodblock style (the cover gives you an idea).

One thing I like about it is that the chapters are fairly short - good for someone with a messed up attention span like mine is at present. (As much as I loved Gaudy Night, I had to go back and re-read parts, and I admit all the members of the "Senior Common Room" ran together a bit). Also like many young-adult historical/fantasy stories, it's more about characterization and plot than how clever the writer seems, or ...some kind of art-for-art's-sake thing, which I find much modern literary fiction does, and which leaves me a bit cold.

It's also an adventure story - I have had few adventures, and even fewer GOOD adventures, in recent years - and it's set in another time (the early 1200s) and place (the "middle marches" between England and Wales) than what I inhabit. And the protagonist - the story is told in his words - is a 13 year old boy living then (13 year olds were perhaps younger back then; the author does a good job of capturing his "voice." There are probably historical and definitely linguistic inaccuracies, but I can overlook those). 

Sometimes you just want a good STORY story, one where you don't have to think so much about conventions or the greyness of real human morality (I get the feeling here that good characters are Good and bad characters are Bad, and maybe it's simplistic of me, but sometimes I WANT that in entertainment).