These two jumped out at me because I have gotten the Spider Bathtub Rescue down to a science. Or, given the array of materials I keep on hand, perhaps it would be better described as an artform? Although it’s particularly hard when they’re very young spiders, the almost see-through kind: I admit that I, more often than not, must seek the assistance of Mr. Buried In Print to assist in these rescue operations.

First, Kit leaps out of the bath, reaching for her clothes on the other side of the room in The Twisted Heart:

“She swerved to avoid a daddy-long-legs, tangled up in a ball of dust and hair, that was berserkly whirligigging round the floor, but her attempt to free it led to her pulling off a wing. When she then executed it, folded in a square of loo paper, the body audibly popped.”

And then, Morris, sick over Ghislaine’s return in Angela Carter’s Shadow Dance:

“He moved once; he lifted a spider out of the bath and set it upon its feet on the floor, where it ran off under the door and away. He found he was almost crying when he thought of the poor spider, how it might have drowned if he had left it in the bath.”

This is how it is, When Reading Connects.

Anyone else notice any reading connections lately?