ridiculous number of books pt 2
The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece by Roseanne Montillo
This was an interesting read, covering the scientific experimentation happening during Shelley's childhood (mostly galvanism), and a moderate exploration of her life. I do think it's padded out though. Always interesting to read about Burke and Hare and the body-snatching, but Montillo spends way more time than is warranted on that. It doesn't really have a firm connection to what this book is supposed to focus on.
Amusing line about Shelley's father when he'd met his second wife: "The professor is COURTING," his friend Charles Lamb said. "The Lady is a widow (a disgusting woman) and the Professor has grown quite juvenile. He bows his head when spoken to, and smiles without occasion...You never saw...anyone play Romeo so unnaturally."
It's interesting to me that our culture (in the US) generally has a negative reaction to people being head over heels in love. Smiling without occasion, that's just the beginning of the end. And here's Godwin's view on prison.
Godwin told the prisoner he hoped this time alone would allow him to "reflect on his error." Perhaps being imprisoned would let him feel "the beauty of universal benevolence."
The padded out bits didn't bother me hugely, and I think it's an important angle on Shelley's inspirations. Recommended if you like the annals of nutso old science.
The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry that Built America's First Subway by Doug Most
Well, this rivalry wasn't that big, or wasn't represented that well in the book. It was still an interesting book, particularly if you have any interest in engineering. Lots of digging and accidents and "oh no we've run into a dead body."
Again, interesting, though not as dramatic as the subtitle states. A solid history read otherwise.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
This was one of my suggestions for my book club, which most of them didn't enjoy. We vote on suggestions though, so I don't feel bad, they all had time to look up more information about the book. Most of them had issues with the style.
I really liked it and pretty much everything about it. I loved the living house, I loved the changes in time, I loved the fragmentation as Sethe's emotional state builds, and the path her character takes. The writing is full to brimming with emotion and it's a novel that must speak to the heart to be loved, I think. All of Morrison's choices made solid character sense to me.
I was one of the last in the bookclub to finish, and was apprehensive after so many people weren't liking it. Looking forward to reading more by Morrison.
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
This is the hot new YA fantasy novel. It was a good read, though I'm not blown away by it (I'm not a huge fan of fantasy though, and it had the "love at first sight, drawn to a person for no reason" trope that I hate). That's what I like about Juliet Marillier (and Sharon Shinn for that matter), her love relationships build over time generally. Difference between YA and adult fiction, I guess.
Marginalized group living under oppressive rule of ultimate evil group, young woman's family is gone, her brother taken before her eyes and to get the rebellion to rescue him she must go undercover and serve the sadistic local ruler who killed her parents. Who can she really trust, etc...
It's one of those that ends in the middle of the story, though from what I can tell it won't be a long series or even a trilogy, just two books. Where it left off it felt like it really wouldn't have taken another whole book to resolve things, but we'll see.
Not a bad read at all, but maybe over-hyped. If you're a big fantasy or YA fan you'll probably want to pick it up.
Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon by Michael O'Brien
I'd initially put this on my list without looking closely, thinking that it was about Abigail Adams. It's actually about Louisa Johnson Adams, the wife of John Quincy Adams, and the only First Lady born outside of the US (English mother, American father, grew up in England and France). Her marriage, while not terrible, wasn't great either, and Adams was not a loving person in general, and didn't believe love-match marriages were a good thing.
The book is part biography of Louisa and part travelogue of her journey from St. Petersburg to London, taking forty days. Not too far into her journey Napoleon escaped from Elba, increasing the chaos and danger of the trip.
It was a generally interesting read, but nothing amazing. Recommended for Presidential/First Lady history readers. Mostly made me want to break out the family tree to see exactly how I'm related to the Adams men.
Just Send me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag by Orlando Figes
This book springs from an almost certainly unique collection of letters. As with many Russians who had been captured by the Germans during WWII, Lev Mishchenko was sent to a gulag after the war ended. His pre-war sort-of sweetheart, Svetlana Ivanova, and he wrote each other for the eight years of his imprisonment in the Pechora labor camp (and they even managed a couple of visits). There are 1,246 letters in the collection.
What is unique is that the letters survived, given the danger in keeping them (especially as many were smuggled in), and particularly that Lev's letters to Sveta survived. Just being related to a prisoner could spell disaster for a person on the outside, let alone being in contact with them. Lev saved and hid the letters from Sveta and when a certain number accumulated they were smuggled out of the camp and back to Sveta. It is an invaluable archive of life in that period and in a labor camp.
I picked this up as it was the only title by Figes my library had on audio (what I really want to read are his books The Whisperers and Natasha's Dance). It was very interesting and, since much of it is quotations from the letters, so personal. I was braced for a very unhappy ending to their tale, but was pleasantly surprised. Lev is eventually released and he and Sveta are able to marry and finally make a life for themselves.
General recommendation if you're interested in this part of history.
The Dust That Falls From Dreams by Louis de Bernieres
I saw bryanoz's review of this and it immediately went on my to-read list. Thankfully my library obliged me by ordering the audiobook for me, as the readers were very good and brought something extra to this wonderful book.
It's first and foremost a family saga, taking place before, during, and after the First World War. If there's one book that perfectly encapsulates the change of mood (and some changes in society) between pre and post-WWI Britain, this is it. The writing is beautiful, but even more so the characters are so alive. The book seemed so realistic to me that at times it felt like a memoir.
A perfectly stunning read. After finishing I felt the only thing I could do was pick up the trashiest novel I own (well, the first in the only series of trashy novels I own). Trying to pick up another serious fiction title just after would have shone badly on the new book (probably) but I also just wanted to hang on to this one and its characters a bit longer.
Heartily recommended. This is one I'll definitely want to re-read.
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
I try not to be embarrassed about anything I read, but the Anita Blake series comes pretty close (especially since I believe more people are familiar with the later books). It has the reputation of being full of sex, but the main character doesn't have sex until the sixth book in the series (and she narrates them, so it's not like we're seeing other characters' sex scenes). I read and enjoyed the first nine and then it just got a little too ridiculous to continue.
Anita Blake is a professional necromancer, raising zombies for a living mostly for the purpose of clarifying wills, telling the family where XYZ is, etc... She is also on retainer with the police department's preternatural crimes unit. In this world vampires have been living opening for two years and while the surface is mainstream the underbelly of vampire politics is not. Blake is a professional when it comes to hunting down rogue vampires who have broken the law and in their community she's known as the Executioner.
The books aren't horribly written, and Hamilton was wise in letting Anita narrate them. They are casual, and Anita's sarcasm is there on every page. Hamilton also lets her be scared, and be realistic about her own abilities vs a vampire's supernatural speed and other powers. Anita has a full life outside of interacting with vampires, she has female friends, she has a history. They're fast reads, with the action rarely stopping and lots of gun talk. I first read these when I was 17 and 18, but they're still really fun reads today, and I've re-read my favorites many times. All the books involve a police case, which usually end up wrapping Anita up in vampire politics.
This was first published in 1993, and it seems like they mark the start of a turning point in vampire fiction (these involve all sorts of preternatural creatures), away from the Anne Rice style and towards the more urban "what if vampires were just a mainstream part of life." When True Blood came out I couldn't help feeling it was a bit of a rip-off of Anita Blake only less well-balanced. I gave the first book from the series it's based on a read but the writing was just so terrible.
The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander
This is the book that the Disney movie The Black Cauldron was very very loosely based on. Alexander said that as a book movie it's a failure, but just as a movie it's good.
This one is quite as fun as The Book of Three, which happily pokes fun at the epic/high fantasy tradition (perhaps unusual as these were published in the 1960s). The Black Cauldron has less of that and is more of a partial "read the next volume" story. It does have some very fun scenes, particularly with the witches.
The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck
I feel like the name Rinker Buck predestines you to do something like buying a covered wagon and team of mules, and embarking on the Oregon trail with only your brother who you mildly dislike along to help.
If you're looking for a true history of the trail, this isn't that book. It has a lot about the trail and the periods of migration and issues faced by travelers, but more of the book focuses on the author's journey and his relationship with his family (particularly his brother Nick and his father).
It was an interesting read, and a good enough book. Nothing particularly amazing, but good. I also appreciated that Buck didn't try to be a trail purist and eschew modern gadgets and things. That wasn't the purpose of the trip. While really totally immersing yourself in a period of history can be helpful in learning some things (ala Ruth Goodman's farm programs), that wasn't the purpose of this trip.
I feel like this would be a nice light history travel/beach book.
Coot Club by Arthur Ransome
This is the fifth book in Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series, but this book contains neither Swallows nor Amazons. Instead it focuses on Dick and Dorothea Callum, who met the Swallows and Amazons the previous winter and had great adventures with them. Dick and Dot are eager to learn to sail and assume that staying with a family friend on her rented yacht will give them the opportunity to learn. Unfortunately it's too large to sail with one person and two beginners, but Mrs. Barable enlists three local children to teach them. Tom, twin girls Port and Starboard, and the 'pirate' crew of the Death and Glory are members of the Coot Club, a bird protection society, whose activities have landed Tom in the drink with some 'foreigners' (people on holiday).
A wonderfully fun and vivid read, I truly love this series (enough that I'm carefully rationing the books. Ransome not only writes children very accurately, but adults as well. I appreciate that Mrs. Barable is not an average adult, but also isn't the stereotypical 'perfect adult' (to children) that you find in some children's books.
When I get that time machine I'm giving the whole series to child-me. I can't wait until my niece and nephew are old enough to enjoy this series.
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist
The magazine The Economist, in reviewing this book, complained that slave owners were portrayed negatively, and that says everything about why this book is necessary. When people let guilt over our country's past blind them to historical facts they do as much or more damage than vehement racists.
This is an important book, dealing with an extremely important subject. The past is not simply the past, and telling people they should focus on something else or that "the past is past" (and notice how supporters of current use of the Confederate flag tell people to get over the past while yelling about their 'heritage') is both dismissive and ignorant.
One strength of this book is that it merges the big picture with the every day, human facts of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. If you have any high school students in your life, get them this book. The way slavery and the Civil War are covered in schools all over the US (IF they're covered at all, which is not a given) ranges between ineffectual and downright false.
Absolutely recommended.
Letting It Go by Miriam Katin
This is a graphic memoir of Katin's reaction to and attempts to come to terms with her son announcing he's moving to Berlin (requiring her to fill out forms stating her Hungarian origins which will allow him to claim citizenship and give him an EU passport). She is a lone voice of overwhelming concern and despair at his decision, and finally agrees to visit Berlin.
Katin is one of those artists whose sometimes scribbly fill style and usually simplistic faces, can temporarily blind you to just how impeccable her drawing skill is. Her graphic memoirs are very quick reads, and it's really worth taking your time over the pages to appreciate her drawing skills.
An interesting read, if the arc of her emotions and the way they're compressed in the book do seem a little too pat and perfect overall (that's life vs the telling of it though).
The Imposter's Daughter by Laurie Sandell
Another graphic memoir. Sandell's father is the absolute ruler of the household. He is always telling stories of his dramatic past, and while Sandell absolutely worships him, he also has a really frightening temper. As she gets older and he loses a teaching job she's forced to notice the problems he causes in their lives and the way his personality has shaped how she treats her sisters and others. When he takes out a credit card in her name and she intercepts the envelope she is shocked but mollified as he agrees to cut it up and does so in front of her. A while later when she wants to get a card herself she's shocked to find that the card she saw him cut up has been fully maxed out. She requests a credit report and finds multiple cards under her name and it's the same with her sisters. Soon after she discovers he has lied about his college degrees.
While the memoir is about trying to figure out her father and the enormous pile of lies she grew up in, it is equally (perhaps more so, really) about her struggles with relating to others and an addiction to ambien and alcohol. If you only want to read it to find out what her father's deal was or the truth behind the lies, this isn't the book for you (and in the end that is never fully resolved, though it seems likely to me that he simply has a narcissistic personality disorder).
My Mother's Wars by Lillian Faderman
This is Faderman's biography of her mother mostly dealing with her decades in the US up until Lillian was born. It's written in a novelistic style, with occasional breaks where the author laments for her mother's hardships and struggles with wishing her mother had severed relations with her father while being conscious she wouldn't exist otherwise. Her mother, Mary (often used in place of her real name, Mereleh), came to the US from Latvia in 1914 when she was 17 or 18 and becomes a garment worker. Sponsored by her much older half-sister and her husband, they soon kick her out due to her desire to spend her nights dancing, basically (she wanted to be a professional dancer). A chance meeting with a younger man begins a relationship that will last, on and off, for over ten years. Morris is educated and from a well off family, and will not marry her while his mother lives. Much of the book takes place in the run up to and during WWII, with Mary growing frantic as there's no way to bring the rest of her family to the US or get them out of Latvia at all.
It was an interesting read in many was, but Faderman refers to her childhood only a few times and in the shortest, most vague ways. I had a hard time buying into the depth of knowledge and emotion in telling her mother's stories without any detail of when or how her mother talked about all this to young Lillian. I constantly expected there to be at least a few paragraphs about that, but there really wasn't anything. Faderman talks of her aunt Rae being the rock to her mother's instability but with no details of that life at all (Mary and Rae were opposite personality types, and Mary shared as little as possible with her, and even avoided seeing her much until the late 1930s, so Rae wasn't the source of this history). The book basically ends at Lillian's birth.
Her mother's struggles with living through the Great Depression and participation in strikes against one of the factories she worked in were the most interesting parts of the book to me. The book didn't go into Faderman's relationship with her mother enough to really sustain interest in it or understand why Faderman felt led to write this book. I could write a novel of my mother's life from what I know of her decisions and the time-line of it, plus snooping through letters and journals. However, it would simply be a novel at the end of the day because getting my mom to share anything about her childhood or young adulthood is like pulling teeth (let alone getting her to share how she FELT about anything during those years). Yet with vague statements I could probably make it appear that my mother had shared her past wildly and fully and that her sisters had added lots of information to that as well.
Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace RE-READ
One of my favorite book series, which follows Betsy from age seven or so up through her wedding. I actually stopped reading them when she got close to teenage, in part because we didn't own the later ones and because the idea of growing up was absolutely repellent to me as a kid. I mostly pretended it would never happen to me.
Betsy and Tacy are great characters though, and the books are based on the author's own childhood (meaning they're more indicative of Edwardian life than the 1930s and 40s when they were originally published). When I worked in a bookstore I pushed this series onto many parents and the kids always liked them, so I think it's fair to say they still hold up for modern kids.
The first four books gradually increase in reading level in keeping with Betsy and Tacy's age. It's a great starter series for your book loving seven or eight year old.
Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis RE-READ
I suggested this book for my bookclub's historical mystery theme month, and it was voted in. This is the sixth book in the Falco series, and an especially funny one for me (being familiar with the theatrical world). I chose this one in part for the humor, but also because Davis has totally hit her stride by now and Falco and Helena are pretty settled in together. I think the first ten you can skip around quite a bit without trouble, and Davis is good at filling the reader in without being annoying about it.
Falco needs to get out of Rome, and reluctantly takes on a spying mission for Vespasian. Helena goes too, and they head for Petra (in modern day Jordan). While there they discover the body of a recently murdered man who worked for a traveling theatre group. Falco convinces the operators to take him on as he hunts for the murderer (while also working as the theatre's writer) and they travel around the Decapolis. Falco also works on an original play The Spook Who Spoke, which is basically Hamlet, and all the actors have quite a negative reaction to it. It makes for a great running joke.
It's always fun when Falco is abroad, and I just love how Davis packs in the history. Falco is more progressive than many of his peers, but still a product of the time with all the prejudices that implies. Still my favorite historical mystery series and that's unlikely to change. Hope the book club like it, but if they don't it's their loss.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Mongomery RE-READ
Though I grew up obsessively watching the late 1980s mini-series of this book and the first sequel, I didn't read the books while I kid. I think mostly because the editions we had were mass market paperbacks which I associated with Boring Grown Up Books. I read the first four books in the series around ten years ago, and then got kind of bored with Anne being all grown up and married.
The book is just so wonderful. It is absolutely perfect comfort reading and Anne is one of those characters who captures your heart pretty much immediately and never lets go. Now I have a very strong need to watch the mini-series again, especially since the casting is so perfect.
A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook
While this title sounds like it might be science fiction, it's actually a history and examination of several purpose-built, instant cities, constructed with the aim of being modern which generally meant being Westernized. It focuses on St. Petersburg, Shanghai, and Mumbai as the historical examples and looks at Dubai as a more modern equivalent.
Pasting from Wikipedia, as it says it better than I can:
For example, "(a)ll of the questions St. Petersburg raises are still with us: Which way should a city face: outward to the globe, or inward to the nation? What is global and what is local? Is cosmopolitanism a threat to native ways and self-sufficiency or a necessary condition of progress? What does modernity look like, separate from its Western conception?"
According to the author, "We need to understand (these cities) because they’re the places that matter today. I describe them as 'dress rehearsals for the 21st century.' People used to be fascinated with them because they were so unusual. Now, we need to be fascinated with them because the project for which they stand - urbanization/modernization of less developed regions - is the project of our time."
It was a very interesting book, and well done. It rotates through the cities focusing on different periods of their development. Since the chapters are divided by city it's also easy just to read about Dubai or Mumbai if you want to focus on recent history.
Lumberjanes Volume 1 by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and others
I kept forgetting to pick this one up, but the first volume only came out this year, so I guess I'm not too late.
This is a middle-grade/YA issue comic, originally slated for a fixed one-off storyline but then expanded. It's a lot of fun, and I love the art style. I also love the way the writers use the names of notable women (who are largely missing from school history lessons) in situations where a character is exclaiming, so we get "Oh my Bessie Coleman" etc...
Enormously fun, can't wait to see more.
Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir by Liz Prince
I think I'm officially too old to read anything else where young women are going through the process of unpacking internalized misogyny (anything associated with femininity is bad/worthless, etc...). Prince recounts her childhood of being a dedicated "girls suck," "not like other girls" tomboy.
I have been there, I get it, I just can't keep reading about it apparently. Good book for teens and college age women, probably. In many ways I'm just tired of gender in general, and I don't understand how anyone can talk about gender in this world and mean anything except societal gender norms.
Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar by Tom Holland
Tom Holland wrote one of my favorite books about ancient Rome, Rubicon, and this one almost measures up to that quality (the others I wouldn't really bother with). I am partly biased as I just love Julius Caesar.
If you want the rundown Julio-Claudian emperors in a more readable style than Suetonius' Twelve Caesars (though that also covers the year of the four emperors and the Flavian emperors), this might be the book for you. It covers the ground well and is helpful in terms of dealing with the aspects of society more alien to to us.
It was good timing, in some ways, as I just recently watched all of the first season of HBO's Rome (practically my favorite show of all-time). Generally recommended. It's a nice refresher on the period without having to read separate books about each of the main players.
Katherine by Anya Seton
This is one of the major (dare I say foundational,) works historical fiction, published in 1954. I absolutely loved it, particularly the last two thirds of the book or so. It follows Katherine as she goes from being a sheltered convent girl to marrying a well-placed lord and on to being the mistress of John of Gaunt (third surviving son of King Edward III, born 1340).
Seton was known for her research and given the that she was not a historian and there wasn' the same breadth orfresearch or ease of access in the 1950s, she does a very good job with accuracy, particularly in portraying life in general in this period. It certainly felt more grounded and realistic to the period that most other books of fiction set in this time (though I'm not expert). While some of her speculations have turned out to be partially or wholly incorrect, I don't think she ever asserted that they were absolutely accurate anyway.
It was a really satisfying read and I'd recommend it to historical fiction fans and biographical novel fans, or those wanting some Plantagenet history without any dryness. If you don't know Katherine's story already I'd read the book before looking it up. More fun if you don't know how her life goes.
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
This is a well-written and extremely necessary book for a variety of reasons. One of them being the almost certainly false idea that rates of autism exploded in the US in the last twenty or thirty years (meanwhile girls and people of color are still underdiagnosed).
Silberman gives us the history of the study of autism and the important work of unpacking wrong ideas about the condition and correcting our general ignorance about it. He details some incredibly abusive 'experiments' and they are seriously upsetting.
I wish I had clever or insightful things to say about the book, but I highly recommend it. Anyone with children or who works with children should especially read it, and at least one book by an autistic writer (Temple Grandin perhaps). It's not a children's disease, and autistic adults are often overlooked unless they have some savant ability, so really everyone should read it, but people who work with kids especially need to understand how to adapt their programmed behavior.
Walt Disney Uncle Scrooge And Donald Duck: "Treasure Under Glass": The Don Rosa Library Vol. 3 by Don Rosa
Third volume in the Don Rosa series. Some reprints from the two volumes of Donald Duck cartoons that came out a while back. Pretty confused about the overlap, but oh well. You have to buy these volumes up quick, as often not that many are printed.
Rosa is my favorite artist and writer for Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, after Carl Barks, of course. However, he sometimes falls into the same casual racism found in the Barks stories. Given the time when Rosa started writing and drawing Duck comics, this is really bothersome. I hope it's only an issue in these early works. In the fourth volume, containing half of his Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck stories, he is more typically overturning the racism of the 40s and 50s stories, so perhaps he got called on it enough to change those issues. It doesn't happen in every story or every other story (I think only in two out of the nine in this volume), but it is so distasteful and depressing.
These stories are all from the early 90s, and there's probably more racism in the Disney cartoon Rescue Rangers (honestly, there are some awful bits), but we do want to hold our idols up to a higher standard than the average person on the street.
Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser
I don't feel the title of this really relates that much to the content. I never got any sense of WHY Lesser loves to read, but instead got "here is what I think makes for a successful book." As she's one of the founders of the Three Penny Review I felt like the title should be "Here are things to keep in mind if you're submitting to the Three Penny Review."
Lesser is a literature dissecter, something I don't think I could ever be with regards to fiction. And during all this dissecting and talk about character vs plot and authority in writing she says right smack in the middle of the book "The work speaks to you or it does not. That is all you can finally say." Then she says a whole lot more.
Admittedly, this was never going to be a book I loved and she rubbed me the wrong way in the beginning. She characterized two female authors as "narcissistic" because they focus on their own voices and experiences. Knowing people with narcissistic personality disorder her usage of that word annoys me, but also I feel like she'd never levy that charge against a male author. Just like women who focus their fiction around women are always getting "but can they write men?" when male authors are excused or even applauded for leaving out women entirely.
Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery RE-READ
It's odd to read this and the following two books and see how and where all the events in the 80s mini-series, Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, were pulled in. As usual it's wonderful to be with Anne Shirley, perhaps the most beloved character ever, at least for bookish girls.
This volume pales a bit in comparison with the first, but mainly that's due to Anne having to be a bit more serious (and, for my older reading self, there's not enough Marilla). Excellent books though, really excellent.
My maternal grandmother took a long summer trip to Prince Edward Island and I always wonder if she was a fan of the books. She died when my mother was a teenager, so unless she made a big deal about it to my mom or her sisters it's a question that may never been answered. Five Little Peppers and How They Grew was the firm family book on that side (great-grandmother was born in 1878 and was 44 when grandmother was born, so perhaps that's not surprising, Anne may have misbehaved too much for her tastes!).
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
I really enjoyed this novel right up to the very very end where I feel Atkinson did something wholly unnecessary. While this is a companion piece to Life After Life, which involves a novel concept where the main character can do things over to get a different result, I don't think A God in Ruins needed to be anything other than good, solid historical fiction.
The book follows Teddy, an RAF pilot working in a bomber crew during the war. We go back and forth in time, and I forget now if the different threads were in order. As in a chapter on the beginning of his war, then the beginning of his marriage, etc... I felt the ordering of it worked perfectly though. We see who he is at various periods and then we see how he became that person, we see his grandchildren struggling and then see how their characters were formed.
It's a wonderfully written slice of this time period and these mindsets. It asks questions we've long struggled with, and reminds us that we cannot accurately put ourselves in any historical event because we already know the outcome. Since I wasn't expecting a similar format to Life After Life and knew it was a companion rather than a true sequel, I think that let me enjoy it on its own terms as a separate book.
Again, just that tiny bit at the very very end letting me down. I could happily re-read it though.
Ms. Marvel Volume 2: Generation Why by G. Willow Wilson
This is such a fun series, and one of the (seemingly) few Marvel/DC series actually appropriate for and marked to kids. The shift comics took over time, decided to keep marketing to the same generation and just grow up with them, is something I find distressing and annoying. Leaving kids behind is a large part of why issue comics were struggling for so long.
The writing is still great and the story interesting, though the first two issues in this volume were drawn by a new artist and then the last three were by the previous artist Adrian Alphona. Then in the third volume none of the stories are drawn by Alphona. This threw me a bit (for one thing, why?), as Alphona's art is part of why I was so drawn into the comics. It's a great style, perfect for these stories, and it's quite different than most mainstream superhero comic art. The other artists are much more traditionally mainstream and it loses so much character.
Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured by Kathryn Harrison
I've never read much about Joan of Arc before, though I know the basic "what everybody knows" stuff. It's such an unusual bit of history, and something that still makes me go "Hold on, really?" I think that's a bit of a common reaction given all of the fiction devoted to her.
Harrison uses the fiction as well as the historical record, providing quotes from various plays and novels and how the authors of them changed or added to Joan's story. I'm still wondering whether or not that added much or just confused the issue, but obviously I didn't find it hugely bothersome.
Certainly an interesting read. Harrison seemed to get into it quite well and I think was good about bringing up the murkier or more unknown issues in Joan's story (though of course I'm not really equipped to judge that).
Generally recommended, and it was very readable.
Ms. Marvel Vol 3: Crushed by G. Willow Wilson
None of the issues in this volume were drawn by Alphona, unfortunately. It's not horrible art, just different (except for the last bit, which seems to be a guest appearance from the new S.H.I.E.L.D., just the most typical mainstream art and was constantly off-model for all the characters, which is something that really bothers me).
I was always a comics nerd, but never mainstream superhero comics (Asterix, Tintin, Pogo, Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck, various artists and series that were in Funny Times, etc...). This means I'm finding it really strange that in this universe the superheroes are real but also there are still comics about them? Comics which are strangely accurate apparently? I don't know. I know for Marvel and DC readers that's probably the least strange thing ever.
Apparently Alphona is back doing all the art in volume 4 and again I ask why all the changing? I'm not really used to issue comics like this though.
Trumbo by Bruce Cook
I got this as an audiobook ER win, as the book has been re-released to accompany the movie that's just come out recently (which looks great). Interestingly, to me, there don't seem to be any revisions to the book which was originally published in the 1970s.
Cook is forthcoming about his admiration for Trumbo, and tries to bring this up when it would appear to be coloring the book's content. He's open about his process and who he's spoken to, and what their relationship with Trumbo was/influences on their opinion.
I read Johnny Got His Gun in high school and it has certainly stayed with me over the years. However, I didn't know much else about Trumbo or the fact that he was blacklisted. Good biography, up-front, honest writing, recommended.
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
It's apparently my month for biographies! Joan of Arc, Dalton Trumbo, and Malcolm X would make an interesting dinner party...
This is a very thoughtful biography, which a figure like Malcolm X needs. I do feel Marable slightly ignored the fact that today Malcolm X is still perceived as a pure criminal by most of white America (and certainly those parts in charge of middle school and high school textbooks), while they pick and choose small pieces Martin Luther King Jr to focus on. In the book he basically states that this has changed already.
The word reinvention also makes the various shifts in Malcolm's life seem deliberate and calculated, whereas I saw it more as a natural cycle of maturation and learning. It's a worthwhile read, and one that I think is necessary to understanding the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
One does wonder how so many people ignored the fact that Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam from 1934-1975, was enriching himself to a huge degree. This is while all members needed to tithe a certain amount of their income to the group AND sell a certain number of copies of the group's magazine each month. This is particularly obnoxious as one of the main charges of the group was that middle and upper class blacks weren't doing anything to help those less well off. There was certainly a serious cult atmosphere around him, and of course in terms of orthodox Islam it would be (and was) considered a heretical sect. It's really a great shame that Malcolm X wasn't taken under the wing of a better person or that he didn't break away sooner.
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
This book! Written in 1921, a grandfather of 20th century dystopian fiction, the first work banned by the Soviet censorship bureau (according to Wikipedia), smuggled out to the west for publication in English in 1924 the first Russian edition wouldn't appear until 1952. I read the translation by Clarence Brown, published in 1993. I liked his thoughts on the translation effort in the forward. I think it's one of those books that you can basically talk about forever.
I'm going to copy and paste the synopsis:
"We is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State, an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass, which allows the secret police/spies to inform on and supervise the public more easily. The structure of the state is analogous to the prison design concept developed by Jeremy Bentham commonly referred to as the Panopticon. Furthermore, life is organized to promote maximum productive efficiency along the lines of the system advocated by the hugely influential F. W. Taylor. People march in step with each other and wear identical clothing. There is no way of referring to people save by their given numbers. The society is run strictly by logic or reason as the primary justification for the laws or the construct of the society. The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulas and equations outlined by the One State."
One of the strengths is certainly the dark humor in it, and the twisting of aspects of our lives. D-503 notes that the primitive ancestors were drawn to dance because of the wish to all be uniform, with no one standing out or being unique.
This was mostly a great read for me, but the recurring racialized comments D-503 makes about I-330's other lover left a horrible taste in my mouth. Zamyatin didn't do anything to make me feel like that was another symptom of OneState's control (vs Zamyatin's own prejudices).
Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life by Colin Ellard
This book is generally about the psychology of place (referred to as psychogeography), though I feel Ellard strays in a few chapters that deal with technology. There are some interesting studies related here, both about how spaces affect us and how we're sometimes influenced by what we think we're supposed to like/want in a space (versus what makes us happy). A section on the use of paper maps vs lists of directions on phone or sat .nav. has me feeling vindicated about my championing of the importance of paper maps and map reading skills.
I do feel Ellard sometimes conflates an issue. Twice he talks about his children not being suitably impressed by a dinosaur bone but opting for the video of how the dinosaur looked when it was alive (also moon rocks) and this being an issue of devaluing of authenticity blah blah blah. Those are two totally separate things and I don't think you can compare them. If they didn't feel any difference looking at a real dino bone vs a plaster mold, then that's an issue to talk about. Just like I'd rather see the pictures and footage taken on the moon by the astronauts than look at a moon rock in a case (vs in a room full of rocks and minerals I will gravitate toward a moon rock).
Pretty interesting book generally well written, though I felt it strayed from the stated purpose too often.Not the best of the popular science genre, but not the worst either.
The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon
This is Graedon's first novel, and for a first novel I think it's a pretty good start. Her concept was interesting, technology taking over, doing too much for us and humans catching a virus from that somehow. I'm not a huge science fiction fan, especially with dystopian stuff (though this is more dystopia lite, I think), so bigger fans of the genre take this review with a grain of salt.
While the concept was interesting I think her pacing was off, and a bit all over the place. It made it harder to see what her real focus/climax was. Also two of the main characters seem ridiculously slow on the uptake when it comes to the disease, which is always something I find bothersome.
As I say, first novel, and a good effort for a first novel. If you find the concept interesting read it, but have it in your head that this is a novice novelist. The audio edition was pretty well done, and I think highlights the word flu issue better than print reading does.
Coventry by Helen Humphreys
I loved this short novel and sped through it. The vast majority of the book takes place over one day and night in Coventry, covering the first huge civilian bombing raid of the city during WWII (Nov. 14 1940).
I've always really enjoyed Humphreys writing, though found the plots (or lack of plot) in two of her earliest novels wanting (Afterimage and Leaving Earth), compared to her 2004 novel Wild Dogs. I loved her little vignettes in The Frozen Thames as well. This one has been on my list for a while and it was a joy to read.
She follows two women who had a brief encounter in 1914, how their lives got to their current points in 1940, and how they're drawn back together on the night of the bombing. It's more about character and reactions to the event than a firm plot, but it worked perfectly for me.
El Deafo by Cece Bell
I asked my library to order this last year, but apparently they didn't connect the order with my request as they never let me know it had come in!
This is a graphic memoir written for children. Bell lost her hearing around age four due to meningitis. Hearing aids allowed her to hear but the sounds were difficult to understand, requiring proficient lip reading and context guessing to understand people. A more powerful type of hearing aid was given to her to use for school (requiring the teacher to wear a microphone around her neck), but of course it made school life difficult and her fellow children weren't good about understanding her situation and she worried about people befriending her out of pity.
El Deafo refers to the superhero name she gave herself, partly born of the fact that teachers often forgot to turn the mic off, so she heard them in the house, the teacher's lounge, etc..., and thus knew things no one else did. I quite enjoyed her drawing style as well.
If you're getting this for a child (particularly a d/Deaf or hard of hearing child), be sure to read the afterword with them first, as it deals with the fact that this is one experience and covers the different ways people see themselves and how some are part of the Deaf Community and some are not (and don't want to be), some see it as a disability and some do not, etc...
The book is well done, and was a great read as an adult too (I'm a sucker for anything dealing with childhood). Definitely recommended.
Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler
This was a book club pick. I loved Butler's Fledgling, but this isn't what I'd have picked as my second Butler read. It consists of just two short stories, at least one of which was completed long before her death. Now, stuff like that, I often think it's a mistake to publish it. Butler didn't continue shopping it around to anthologies and such, she set it aside and I think it should have stayed set aside (different when a writer finishes something just before they die or had been seeking publication already, etc...).
The stories are good, but not amazing, and not really worth publishing on their own in my opinion (though I believe this is only available as an ebook). Both of them feel like they should be part of a longer work or were meant to accompany longer works. The worlds are detailed and and fully crafted but the stories are two short to really give us a feel for them (particularly in the second story, Child Finder).
Something for the Butler completest, I guess.
This was an interesting read, covering the scientific experimentation happening during Shelley's childhood (mostly galvanism), and a moderate exploration of her life. I do think it's padded out though. Always interesting to read about Burke and Hare and the body-snatching, but Montillo spends way more time than is warranted on that. It doesn't really have a firm connection to what this book is supposed to focus on.
Amusing line about Shelley's father when he'd met his second wife: "The professor is COURTING," his friend Charles Lamb said. "The Lady is a widow (a disgusting woman) and the Professor has grown quite juvenile. He bows his head when spoken to, and smiles without occasion...You never saw...anyone play Romeo so unnaturally."
It's interesting to me that our culture (in the US) generally has a negative reaction to people being head over heels in love. Smiling without occasion, that's just the beginning of the end. And here's Godwin's view on prison.
Godwin told the prisoner he hoped this time alone would allow him to "reflect on his error." Perhaps being imprisoned would let him feel "the beauty of universal benevolence."
The padded out bits didn't bother me hugely, and I think it's an important angle on Shelley's inspirations. Recommended if you like the annals of nutso old science.
The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry that Built America's First Subway by Doug Most
Well, this rivalry wasn't that big, or wasn't represented that well in the book. It was still an interesting book, particularly if you have any interest in engineering. Lots of digging and accidents and "oh no we've run into a dead body."
Again, interesting, though not as dramatic as the subtitle states. A solid history read otherwise.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
This was one of my suggestions for my book club, which most of them didn't enjoy. We vote on suggestions though, so I don't feel bad, they all had time to look up more information about the book. Most of them had issues with the style.
I really liked it and pretty much everything about it. I loved the living house, I loved the changes in time, I loved the fragmentation as Sethe's emotional state builds, and the path her character takes. The writing is full to brimming with emotion and it's a novel that must speak to the heart to be loved, I think. All of Morrison's choices made solid character sense to me.
I was one of the last in the bookclub to finish, and was apprehensive after so many people weren't liking it. Looking forward to reading more by Morrison.
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
This is the hot new YA fantasy novel. It was a good read, though I'm not blown away by it (I'm not a huge fan of fantasy though, and it had the "love at first sight, drawn to a person for no reason" trope that I hate). That's what I like about Juliet Marillier (and Sharon Shinn for that matter), her love relationships build over time generally. Difference between YA and adult fiction, I guess.
Marginalized group living under oppressive rule of ultimate evil group, young woman's family is gone, her brother taken before her eyes and to get the rebellion to rescue him she must go undercover and serve the sadistic local ruler who killed her parents. Who can she really trust, etc...
It's one of those that ends in the middle of the story, though from what I can tell it won't be a long series or even a trilogy, just two books. Where it left off it felt like it really wouldn't have taken another whole book to resolve things, but we'll see.
Not a bad read at all, but maybe over-hyped. If you're a big fantasy or YA fan you'll probably want to pick it up.
Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon by Michael O'Brien
I'd initially put this on my list without looking closely, thinking that it was about Abigail Adams. It's actually about Louisa Johnson Adams, the wife of John Quincy Adams, and the only First Lady born outside of the US (English mother, American father, grew up in England and France). Her marriage, while not terrible, wasn't great either, and Adams was not a loving person in general, and didn't believe love-match marriages were a good thing.
The book is part biography of Louisa and part travelogue of her journey from St. Petersburg to London, taking forty days. Not too far into her journey Napoleon escaped from Elba, increasing the chaos and danger of the trip.
It was a generally interesting read, but nothing amazing. Recommended for Presidential/First Lady history readers. Mostly made me want to break out the family tree to see exactly how I'm related to the Adams men.
Just Send me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag by Orlando Figes
This book springs from an almost certainly unique collection of letters. As with many Russians who had been captured by the Germans during WWII, Lev Mishchenko was sent to a gulag after the war ended. His pre-war sort-of sweetheart, Svetlana Ivanova, and he wrote each other for the eight years of his imprisonment in the Pechora labor camp (and they even managed a couple of visits). There are 1,246 letters in the collection.
What is unique is that the letters survived, given the danger in keeping them (especially as many were smuggled in), and particularly that Lev's letters to Sveta survived. Just being related to a prisoner could spell disaster for a person on the outside, let alone being in contact with them. Lev saved and hid the letters from Sveta and when a certain number accumulated they were smuggled out of the camp and back to Sveta. It is an invaluable archive of life in that period and in a labor camp.
I picked this up as it was the only title by Figes my library had on audio (what I really want to read are his books The Whisperers and Natasha's Dance). It was very interesting and, since much of it is quotations from the letters, so personal. I was braced for a very unhappy ending to their tale, but was pleasantly surprised. Lev is eventually released and he and Sveta are able to marry and finally make a life for themselves.
General recommendation if you're interested in this part of history.
The Dust That Falls From Dreams by Louis de Bernieres
I saw bryanoz's review of this and it immediately went on my to-read list. Thankfully my library obliged me by ordering the audiobook for me, as the readers were very good and brought something extra to this wonderful book.
It's first and foremost a family saga, taking place before, during, and after the First World War. If there's one book that perfectly encapsulates the change of mood (and some changes in society) between pre and post-WWI Britain, this is it. The writing is beautiful, but even more so the characters are so alive. The book seemed so realistic to me that at times it felt like a memoir.
A perfectly stunning read. After finishing I felt the only thing I could do was pick up the trashiest novel I own (well, the first in the only series of trashy novels I own). Trying to pick up another serious fiction title just after would have shone badly on the new book (probably) but I also just wanted to hang on to this one and its characters a bit longer.
Heartily recommended. This is one I'll definitely want to re-read.
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
I try not to be embarrassed about anything I read, but the Anita Blake series comes pretty close (especially since I believe more people are familiar with the later books). It has the reputation of being full of sex, but the main character doesn't have sex until the sixth book in the series (and she narrates them, so it's not like we're seeing other characters' sex scenes). I read and enjoyed the first nine and then it just got a little too ridiculous to continue.
Anita Blake is a professional necromancer, raising zombies for a living mostly for the purpose of clarifying wills, telling the family where XYZ is, etc... She is also on retainer with the police department's preternatural crimes unit. In this world vampires have been living opening for two years and while the surface is mainstream the underbelly of vampire politics is not. Blake is a professional when it comes to hunting down rogue vampires who have broken the law and in their community she's known as the Executioner.
The books aren't horribly written, and Hamilton was wise in letting Anita narrate them. They are casual, and Anita's sarcasm is there on every page. Hamilton also lets her be scared, and be realistic about her own abilities vs a vampire's supernatural speed and other powers. Anita has a full life outside of interacting with vampires, she has female friends, she has a history. They're fast reads, with the action rarely stopping and lots of gun talk. I first read these when I was 17 and 18, but they're still really fun reads today, and I've re-read my favorites many times. All the books involve a police case, which usually end up wrapping Anita up in vampire politics.
This was first published in 1993, and it seems like they mark the start of a turning point in vampire fiction (these involve all sorts of preternatural creatures), away from the Anne Rice style and towards the more urban "what if vampires were just a mainstream part of life." When True Blood came out I couldn't help feeling it was a bit of a rip-off of Anita Blake only less well-balanced. I gave the first book from the series it's based on a read but the writing was just so terrible.
The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander
This is the book that the Disney movie The Black Cauldron was very very loosely based on. Alexander said that as a book movie it's a failure, but just as a movie it's good.
This one is quite as fun as The Book of Three, which happily pokes fun at the epic/high fantasy tradition (perhaps unusual as these were published in the 1960s). The Black Cauldron has less of that and is more of a partial "read the next volume" story. It does have some very fun scenes, particularly with the witches.
The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck
I feel like the name Rinker Buck predestines you to do something like buying a covered wagon and team of mules, and embarking on the Oregon trail with only your brother who you mildly dislike along to help.
If you're looking for a true history of the trail, this isn't that book. It has a lot about the trail and the periods of migration and issues faced by travelers, but more of the book focuses on the author's journey and his relationship with his family (particularly his brother Nick and his father).
It was an interesting read, and a good enough book. Nothing particularly amazing, but good. I also appreciated that Buck didn't try to be a trail purist and eschew modern gadgets and things. That wasn't the purpose of the trip. While really totally immersing yourself in a period of history can be helpful in learning some things (ala Ruth Goodman's farm programs), that wasn't the purpose of this trip.
I feel like this would be a nice light history travel/beach book.
Coot Club by Arthur Ransome
This is the fifth book in Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series, but this book contains neither Swallows nor Amazons. Instead it focuses on Dick and Dorothea Callum, who met the Swallows and Amazons the previous winter and had great adventures with them. Dick and Dot are eager to learn to sail and assume that staying with a family friend on her rented yacht will give them the opportunity to learn. Unfortunately it's too large to sail with one person and two beginners, but Mrs. Barable enlists three local children to teach them. Tom, twin girls Port and Starboard, and the 'pirate' crew of the Death and Glory are members of the Coot Club, a bird protection society, whose activities have landed Tom in the drink with some 'foreigners' (people on holiday).
A wonderfully fun and vivid read, I truly love this series (enough that I'm carefully rationing the books. Ransome not only writes children very accurately, but adults as well. I appreciate that Mrs. Barable is not an average adult, but also isn't the stereotypical 'perfect adult' (to children) that you find in some children's books.
When I get that time machine I'm giving the whole series to child-me. I can't wait until my niece and nephew are old enough to enjoy this series.
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist
The magazine The Economist, in reviewing this book, complained that slave owners were portrayed negatively, and that says everything about why this book is necessary. When people let guilt over our country's past blind them to historical facts they do as much or more damage than vehement racists.
This is an important book, dealing with an extremely important subject. The past is not simply the past, and telling people they should focus on something else or that "the past is past" (and notice how supporters of current use of the Confederate flag tell people to get over the past while yelling about their 'heritage') is both dismissive and ignorant.
One strength of this book is that it merges the big picture with the every day, human facts of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. If you have any high school students in your life, get them this book. The way slavery and the Civil War are covered in schools all over the US (IF they're covered at all, which is not a given) ranges between ineffectual and downright false.
Absolutely recommended.
Letting It Go by Miriam Katin
This is a graphic memoir of Katin's reaction to and attempts to come to terms with her son announcing he's moving to Berlin (requiring her to fill out forms stating her Hungarian origins which will allow him to claim citizenship and give him an EU passport). She is a lone voice of overwhelming concern and despair at his decision, and finally agrees to visit Berlin.
Katin is one of those artists whose sometimes scribbly fill style and usually simplistic faces, can temporarily blind you to just how impeccable her drawing skill is. Her graphic memoirs are very quick reads, and it's really worth taking your time over the pages to appreciate her drawing skills.
An interesting read, if the arc of her emotions and the way they're compressed in the book do seem a little too pat and perfect overall (that's life vs the telling of it though).
The Imposter's Daughter by Laurie Sandell
Another graphic memoir. Sandell's father is the absolute ruler of the household. He is always telling stories of his dramatic past, and while Sandell absolutely worships him, he also has a really frightening temper. As she gets older and he loses a teaching job she's forced to notice the problems he causes in their lives and the way his personality has shaped how she treats her sisters and others. When he takes out a credit card in her name and she intercepts the envelope she is shocked but mollified as he agrees to cut it up and does so in front of her. A while later when she wants to get a card herself she's shocked to find that the card she saw him cut up has been fully maxed out. She requests a credit report and finds multiple cards under her name and it's the same with her sisters. Soon after she discovers he has lied about his college degrees.
While the memoir is about trying to figure out her father and the enormous pile of lies she grew up in, it is equally (perhaps more so, really) about her struggles with relating to others and an addiction to ambien and alcohol. If you only want to read it to find out what her father's deal was or the truth behind the lies, this isn't the book for you (and in the end that is never fully resolved, though it seems likely to me that he simply has a narcissistic personality disorder).
My Mother's Wars by Lillian Faderman
This is Faderman's biography of her mother mostly dealing with her decades in the US up until Lillian was born. It's written in a novelistic style, with occasional breaks where the author laments for her mother's hardships and struggles with wishing her mother had severed relations with her father while being conscious she wouldn't exist otherwise. Her mother, Mary (often used in place of her real name, Mereleh), came to the US from Latvia in 1914 when she was 17 or 18 and becomes a garment worker. Sponsored by her much older half-sister and her husband, they soon kick her out due to her desire to spend her nights dancing, basically (she wanted to be a professional dancer). A chance meeting with a younger man begins a relationship that will last, on and off, for over ten years. Morris is educated and from a well off family, and will not marry her while his mother lives. Much of the book takes place in the run up to and during WWII, with Mary growing frantic as there's no way to bring the rest of her family to the US or get them out of Latvia at all.
It was an interesting read in many was, but Faderman refers to her childhood only a few times and in the shortest, most vague ways. I had a hard time buying into the depth of knowledge and emotion in telling her mother's stories without any detail of when or how her mother talked about all this to young Lillian. I constantly expected there to be at least a few paragraphs about that, but there really wasn't anything. Faderman talks of her aunt Rae being the rock to her mother's instability but with no details of that life at all (Mary and Rae were opposite personality types, and Mary shared as little as possible with her, and even avoided seeing her much until the late 1930s, so Rae wasn't the source of this history). The book basically ends at Lillian's birth.
Her mother's struggles with living through the Great Depression and participation in strikes against one of the factories she worked in were the most interesting parts of the book to me. The book didn't go into Faderman's relationship with her mother enough to really sustain interest in it or understand why Faderman felt led to write this book. I could write a novel of my mother's life from what I know of her decisions and the time-line of it, plus snooping through letters and journals. However, it would simply be a novel at the end of the day because getting my mom to share anything about her childhood or young adulthood is like pulling teeth (let alone getting her to share how she FELT about anything during those years). Yet with vague statements I could probably make it appear that my mother had shared her past wildly and fully and that her sisters had added lots of information to that as well.
Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace RE-READ
One of my favorite book series, which follows Betsy from age seven or so up through her wedding. I actually stopped reading them when she got close to teenage, in part because we didn't own the later ones and because the idea of growing up was absolutely repellent to me as a kid. I mostly pretended it would never happen to me.
Betsy and Tacy are great characters though, and the books are based on the author's own childhood (meaning they're more indicative of Edwardian life than the 1930s and 40s when they were originally published). When I worked in a bookstore I pushed this series onto many parents and the kids always liked them, so I think it's fair to say they still hold up for modern kids.
The first four books gradually increase in reading level in keeping with Betsy and Tacy's age. It's a great starter series for your book loving seven or eight year old.
Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis RE-READ
I suggested this book for my bookclub's historical mystery theme month, and it was voted in. This is the sixth book in the Falco series, and an especially funny one for me (being familiar with the theatrical world). I chose this one in part for the humor, but also because Davis has totally hit her stride by now and Falco and Helena are pretty settled in together. I think the first ten you can skip around quite a bit without trouble, and Davis is good at filling the reader in without being annoying about it.
Falco needs to get out of Rome, and reluctantly takes on a spying mission for Vespasian. Helena goes too, and they head for Petra (in modern day Jordan). While there they discover the body of a recently murdered man who worked for a traveling theatre group. Falco convinces the operators to take him on as he hunts for the murderer (while also working as the theatre's writer) and they travel around the Decapolis. Falco also works on an original play The Spook Who Spoke, which is basically Hamlet, and all the actors have quite a negative reaction to it. It makes for a great running joke.
It's always fun when Falco is abroad, and I just love how Davis packs in the history. Falco is more progressive than many of his peers, but still a product of the time with all the prejudices that implies. Still my favorite historical mystery series and that's unlikely to change. Hope the book club like it, but if they don't it's their loss.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Mongomery RE-READ
Though I grew up obsessively watching the late 1980s mini-series of this book and the first sequel, I didn't read the books while I kid. I think mostly because the editions we had were mass market paperbacks which I associated with Boring Grown Up Books. I read the first four books in the series around ten years ago, and then got kind of bored with Anne being all grown up and married.
The book is just so wonderful. It is absolutely perfect comfort reading and Anne is one of those characters who captures your heart pretty much immediately and never lets go. Now I have a very strong need to watch the mini-series again, especially since the casting is so perfect.
A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook
While this title sounds like it might be science fiction, it's actually a history and examination of several purpose-built, instant cities, constructed with the aim of being modern which generally meant being Westernized. It focuses on St. Petersburg, Shanghai, and Mumbai as the historical examples and looks at Dubai as a more modern equivalent.
Pasting from Wikipedia, as it says it better than I can:
For example, "(a)ll of the questions St. Petersburg raises are still with us: Which way should a city face: outward to the globe, or inward to the nation? What is global and what is local? Is cosmopolitanism a threat to native ways and self-sufficiency or a necessary condition of progress? What does modernity look like, separate from its Western conception?"
According to the author, "We need to understand (these cities) because they’re the places that matter today. I describe them as 'dress rehearsals for the 21st century.' People used to be fascinated with them because they were so unusual. Now, we need to be fascinated with them because the project for which they stand - urbanization/modernization of less developed regions - is the project of our time."
It was a very interesting book, and well done. It rotates through the cities focusing on different periods of their development. Since the chapters are divided by city it's also easy just to read about Dubai or Mumbai if you want to focus on recent history.
Lumberjanes Volume 1 by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and others
I kept forgetting to pick this one up, but the first volume only came out this year, so I guess I'm not too late.
This is a middle-grade/YA issue comic, originally slated for a fixed one-off storyline but then expanded. It's a lot of fun, and I love the art style. I also love the way the writers use the names of notable women (who are largely missing from school history lessons) in situations where a character is exclaiming, so we get "Oh my Bessie Coleman" etc...
Enormously fun, can't wait to see more.
Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir by Liz Prince
I think I'm officially too old to read anything else where young women are going through the process of unpacking internalized misogyny (anything associated with femininity is bad/worthless, etc...). Prince recounts her childhood of being a dedicated "girls suck," "not like other girls" tomboy.
I have been there, I get it, I just can't keep reading about it apparently. Good book for teens and college age women, probably. In many ways I'm just tired of gender in general, and I don't understand how anyone can talk about gender in this world and mean anything except societal gender norms.
Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar by Tom Holland
Tom Holland wrote one of my favorite books about ancient Rome, Rubicon, and this one almost measures up to that quality (the others I wouldn't really bother with). I am partly biased as I just love Julius Caesar.
If you want the rundown Julio-Claudian emperors in a more readable style than Suetonius' Twelve Caesars (though that also covers the year of the four emperors and the Flavian emperors), this might be the book for you. It covers the ground well and is helpful in terms of dealing with the aspects of society more alien to to us.
It was good timing, in some ways, as I just recently watched all of the first season of HBO's Rome (practically my favorite show of all-time). Generally recommended. It's a nice refresher on the period without having to read separate books about each of the main players.
Katherine by Anya Seton
This is one of the major (dare I say foundational,) works historical fiction, published in 1954. I absolutely loved it, particularly the last two thirds of the book or so. It follows Katherine as she goes from being a sheltered convent girl to marrying a well-placed lord and on to being the mistress of John of Gaunt (third surviving son of King Edward III, born 1340).
Seton was known for her research and given the that she was not a historian and there wasn' the same breadth orfresearch or ease of access in the 1950s, she does a very good job with accuracy, particularly in portraying life in general in this period. It certainly felt more grounded and realistic to the period that most other books of fiction set in this time (though I'm not expert). While some of her speculations have turned out to be partially or wholly incorrect, I don't think she ever asserted that they were absolutely accurate anyway.
It was a really satisfying read and I'd recommend it to historical fiction fans and biographical novel fans, or those wanting some Plantagenet history without any dryness. If you don't know Katherine's story already I'd read the book before looking it up. More fun if you don't know how her life goes.
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
This is a well-written and extremely necessary book for a variety of reasons. One of them being the almost certainly false idea that rates of autism exploded in the US in the last twenty or thirty years (meanwhile girls and people of color are still underdiagnosed).
Silberman gives us the history of the study of autism and the important work of unpacking wrong ideas about the condition and correcting our general ignorance about it. He details some incredibly abusive 'experiments' and they are seriously upsetting.
I wish I had clever or insightful things to say about the book, but I highly recommend it. Anyone with children or who works with children should especially read it, and at least one book by an autistic writer (Temple Grandin perhaps). It's not a children's disease, and autistic adults are often overlooked unless they have some savant ability, so really everyone should read it, but people who work with kids especially need to understand how to adapt their programmed behavior.
Walt Disney Uncle Scrooge And Donald Duck: "Treasure Under Glass": The Don Rosa Library Vol. 3 by Don Rosa
Third volume in the Don Rosa series. Some reprints from the two volumes of Donald Duck cartoons that came out a while back. Pretty confused about the overlap, but oh well. You have to buy these volumes up quick, as often not that many are printed.
Rosa is my favorite artist and writer for Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, after Carl Barks, of course. However, he sometimes falls into the same casual racism found in the Barks stories. Given the time when Rosa started writing and drawing Duck comics, this is really bothersome. I hope it's only an issue in these early works. In the fourth volume, containing half of his Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck stories, he is more typically overturning the racism of the 40s and 50s stories, so perhaps he got called on it enough to change those issues. It doesn't happen in every story or every other story (I think only in two out of the nine in this volume), but it is so distasteful and depressing.
These stories are all from the early 90s, and there's probably more racism in the Disney cartoon Rescue Rangers (honestly, there are some awful bits), but we do want to hold our idols up to a higher standard than the average person on the street.
Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser
I don't feel the title of this really relates that much to the content. I never got any sense of WHY Lesser loves to read, but instead got "here is what I think makes for a successful book." As she's one of the founders of the Three Penny Review I felt like the title should be "Here are things to keep in mind if you're submitting to the Three Penny Review."
Lesser is a literature dissecter, something I don't think I could ever be with regards to fiction. And during all this dissecting and talk about character vs plot and authority in writing she says right smack in the middle of the book "The work speaks to you or it does not. That is all you can finally say." Then she says a whole lot more.
Admittedly, this was never going to be a book I loved and she rubbed me the wrong way in the beginning. She characterized two female authors as "narcissistic" because they focus on their own voices and experiences. Knowing people with narcissistic personality disorder her usage of that word annoys me, but also I feel like she'd never levy that charge against a male author. Just like women who focus their fiction around women are always getting "but can they write men?" when male authors are excused or even applauded for leaving out women entirely.
Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery RE-READ
It's odd to read this and the following two books and see how and where all the events in the 80s mini-series, Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, were pulled in. As usual it's wonderful to be with Anne Shirley, perhaps the most beloved character ever, at least for bookish girls.
This volume pales a bit in comparison with the first, but mainly that's due to Anne having to be a bit more serious (and, for my older reading self, there's not enough Marilla). Excellent books though, really excellent.
My maternal grandmother took a long summer trip to Prince Edward Island and I always wonder if she was a fan of the books. She died when my mother was a teenager, so unless she made a big deal about it to my mom or her sisters it's a question that may never been answered. Five Little Peppers and How They Grew was the firm family book on that side (great-grandmother was born in 1878 and was 44 when grandmother was born, so perhaps that's not surprising, Anne may have misbehaved too much for her tastes!).
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
I really enjoyed this novel right up to the very very end where I feel Atkinson did something wholly unnecessary. While this is a companion piece to Life After Life, which involves a novel concept where the main character can do things over to get a different result, I don't think A God in Ruins needed to be anything other than good, solid historical fiction.
The book follows Teddy, an RAF pilot working in a bomber crew during the war. We go back and forth in time, and I forget now if the different threads were in order. As in a chapter on the beginning of his war, then the beginning of his marriage, etc... I felt the ordering of it worked perfectly though. We see who he is at various periods and then we see how he became that person, we see his grandchildren struggling and then see how their characters were formed.
It's a wonderfully written slice of this time period and these mindsets. It asks questions we've long struggled with, and reminds us that we cannot accurately put ourselves in any historical event because we already know the outcome. Since I wasn't expecting a similar format to Life After Life and knew it was a companion rather than a true sequel, I think that let me enjoy it on its own terms as a separate book.
Again, just that tiny bit at the very very end letting me down. I could happily re-read it though.
Ms. Marvel Volume 2: Generation Why by G. Willow Wilson
This is such a fun series, and one of the (seemingly) few Marvel/DC series actually appropriate for and marked to kids. The shift comics took over time, decided to keep marketing to the same generation and just grow up with them, is something I find distressing and annoying. Leaving kids behind is a large part of why issue comics were struggling for so long.
The writing is still great and the story interesting, though the first two issues in this volume were drawn by a new artist and then the last three were by the previous artist Adrian Alphona. Then in the third volume none of the stories are drawn by Alphona. This threw me a bit (for one thing, why?), as Alphona's art is part of why I was so drawn into the comics. It's a great style, perfect for these stories, and it's quite different than most mainstream superhero comic art. The other artists are much more traditionally mainstream and it loses so much character.
Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured by Kathryn Harrison
I've never read much about Joan of Arc before, though I know the basic "what everybody knows" stuff. It's such an unusual bit of history, and something that still makes me go "Hold on, really?" I think that's a bit of a common reaction given all of the fiction devoted to her.
Harrison uses the fiction as well as the historical record, providing quotes from various plays and novels and how the authors of them changed or added to Joan's story. I'm still wondering whether or not that added much or just confused the issue, but obviously I didn't find it hugely bothersome.
Certainly an interesting read. Harrison seemed to get into it quite well and I think was good about bringing up the murkier or more unknown issues in Joan's story (though of course I'm not really equipped to judge that).
Generally recommended, and it was very readable.
Ms. Marvel Vol 3: Crushed by G. Willow Wilson
None of the issues in this volume were drawn by Alphona, unfortunately. It's not horrible art, just different (except for the last bit, which seems to be a guest appearance from the new S.H.I.E.L.D., just the most typical mainstream art and was constantly off-model for all the characters, which is something that really bothers me).
I was always a comics nerd, but never mainstream superhero comics (Asterix, Tintin, Pogo, Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck, various artists and series that were in Funny Times, etc...). This means I'm finding it really strange that in this universe the superheroes are real but also there are still comics about them? Comics which are strangely accurate apparently? I don't know. I know for Marvel and DC readers that's probably the least strange thing ever.
Apparently Alphona is back doing all the art in volume 4 and again I ask why all the changing? I'm not really used to issue comics like this though.
Trumbo by Bruce Cook
I got this as an audiobook ER win, as the book has been re-released to accompany the movie that's just come out recently (which looks great). Interestingly, to me, there don't seem to be any revisions to the book which was originally published in the 1970s.
Cook is forthcoming about his admiration for Trumbo, and tries to bring this up when it would appear to be coloring the book's content. He's open about his process and who he's spoken to, and what their relationship with Trumbo was/influences on their opinion.
I read Johnny Got His Gun in high school and it has certainly stayed with me over the years. However, I didn't know much else about Trumbo or the fact that he was blacklisted. Good biography, up-front, honest writing, recommended.
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
It's apparently my month for biographies! Joan of Arc, Dalton Trumbo, and Malcolm X would make an interesting dinner party...
This is a very thoughtful biography, which a figure like Malcolm X needs. I do feel Marable slightly ignored the fact that today Malcolm X is still perceived as a pure criminal by most of white America (and certainly those parts in charge of middle school and high school textbooks), while they pick and choose small pieces Martin Luther King Jr to focus on. In the book he basically states that this has changed already.
The word reinvention also makes the various shifts in Malcolm's life seem deliberate and calculated, whereas I saw it more as a natural cycle of maturation and learning. It's a worthwhile read, and one that I think is necessary to understanding the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
One does wonder how so many people ignored the fact that Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam from 1934-1975, was enriching himself to a huge degree. This is while all members needed to tithe a certain amount of their income to the group AND sell a certain number of copies of the group's magazine each month. This is particularly obnoxious as one of the main charges of the group was that middle and upper class blacks weren't doing anything to help those less well off. There was certainly a serious cult atmosphere around him, and of course in terms of orthodox Islam it would be (and was) considered a heretical sect. It's really a great shame that Malcolm X wasn't taken under the wing of a better person or that he didn't break away sooner.
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
This book! Written in 1921, a grandfather of 20th century dystopian fiction, the first work banned by the Soviet censorship bureau (according to Wikipedia), smuggled out to the west for publication in English in 1924 the first Russian edition wouldn't appear until 1952. I read the translation by Clarence Brown, published in 1993. I liked his thoughts on the translation effort in the forward. I think it's one of those books that you can basically talk about forever.
I'm going to copy and paste the synopsis:
"We is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State, an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass, which allows the secret police/spies to inform on and supervise the public more easily. The structure of the state is analogous to the prison design concept developed by Jeremy Bentham commonly referred to as the Panopticon. Furthermore, life is organized to promote maximum productive efficiency along the lines of the system advocated by the hugely influential F. W. Taylor. People march in step with each other and wear identical clothing. There is no way of referring to people save by their given numbers. The society is run strictly by logic or reason as the primary justification for the laws or the construct of the society. The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulas and equations outlined by the One State."
One of the strengths is certainly the dark humor in it, and the twisting of aspects of our lives. D-503 notes that the primitive ancestors were drawn to dance because of the wish to all be uniform, with no one standing out or being unique.
This was mostly a great read for me, but the recurring racialized comments D-503 makes about I-330's other lover left a horrible taste in my mouth. Zamyatin didn't do anything to make me feel like that was another symptom of OneState's control (vs Zamyatin's own prejudices).
Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life by Colin Ellard
This book is generally about the psychology of place (referred to as psychogeography), though I feel Ellard strays in a few chapters that deal with technology. There are some interesting studies related here, both about how spaces affect us and how we're sometimes influenced by what we think we're supposed to like/want in a space (versus what makes us happy). A section on the use of paper maps vs lists of directions on phone or sat .nav. has me feeling vindicated about my championing of the importance of paper maps and map reading skills.
I do feel Ellard sometimes conflates an issue. Twice he talks about his children not being suitably impressed by a dinosaur bone but opting for the video of how the dinosaur looked when it was alive (also moon rocks) and this being an issue of devaluing of authenticity blah blah blah. Those are two totally separate things and I don't think you can compare them. If they didn't feel any difference looking at a real dino bone vs a plaster mold, then that's an issue to talk about. Just like I'd rather see the pictures and footage taken on the moon by the astronauts than look at a moon rock in a case (vs in a room full of rocks and minerals I will gravitate toward a moon rock).
Pretty interesting book generally well written, though I felt it strayed from the stated purpose too often.Not the best of the popular science genre, but not the worst either.
The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon
This is Graedon's first novel, and for a first novel I think it's a pretty good start. Her concept was interesting, technology taking over, doing too much for us and humans catching a virus from that somehow. I'm not a huge science fiction fan, especially with dystopian stuff (though this is more dystopia lite, I think), so bigger fans of the genre take this review with a grain of salt.
While the concept was interesting I think her pacing was off, and a bit all over the place. It made it harder to see what her real focus/climax was. Also two of the main characters seem ridiculously slow on the uptake when it comes to the disease, which is always something I find bothersome.
As I say, first novel, and a good effort for a first novel. If you find the concept interesting read it, but have it in your head that this is a novice novelist. The audio edition was pretty well done, and I think highlights the word flu issue better than print reading does.
Coventry by Helen Humphreys
I loved this short novel and sped through it. The vast majority of the book takes place over one day and night in Coventry, covering the first huge civilian bombing raid of the city during WWII (Nov. 14 1940).
I've always really enjoyed Humphreys writing, though found the plots (or lack of plot) in two of her earliest novels wanting (Afterimage and Leaving Earth), compared to her 2004 novel Wild Dogs. I loved her little vignettes in The Frozen Thames as well. This one has been on my list for a while and it was a joy to read.
She follows two women who had a brief encounter in 1914, how their lives got to their current points in 1940, and how they're drawn back together on the night of the bombing. It's more about character and reactions to the event than a firm plot, but it worked perfectly for me.
El Deafo by Cece Bell
I asked my library to order this last year, but apparently they didn't connect the order with my request as they never let me know it had come in!
This is a graphic memoir written for children. Bell lost her hearing around age four due to meningitis. Hearing aids allowed her to hear but the sounds were difficult to understand, requiring proficient lip reading and context guessing to understand people. A more powerful type of hearing aid was given to her to use for school (requiring the teacher to wear a microphone around her neck), but of course it made school life difficult and her fellow children weren't good about understanding her situation and she worried about people befriending her out of pity.
El Deafo refers to the superhero name she gave herself, partly born of the fact that teachers often forgot to turn the mic off, so she heard them in the house, the teacher's lounge, etc..., and thus knew things no one else did. I quite enjoyed her drawing style as well.
If you're getting this for a child (particularly a d/Deaf or hard of hearing child), be sure to read the afterword with them first, as it deals with the fact that this is one experience and covers the different ways people see themselves and how some are part of the Deaf Community and some are not (and don't want to be), some see it as a disability and some do not, etc...
The book is well done, and was a great read as an adult too (I'm a sucker for anything dealing with childhood). Definitely recommended.
Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler
This was a book club pick. I loved Butler's Fledgling, but this isn't what I'd have picked as my second Butler read. It consists of just two short stories, at least one of which was completed long before her death. Now, stuff like that, I often think it's a mistake to publish it. Butler didn't continue shopping it around to anthologies and such, she set it aside and I think it should have stayed set aside (different when a writer finishes something just before they die or had been seeking publication already, etc...).
The stories are good, but not amazing, and not really worth publishing on their own in my opinion (though I believe this is only available as an ebook). Both of them feel like they should be part of a longer work or were meant to accompany longer works. The worlds are detailed and and fully crafted but the stories are two short to really give us a feel for them (particularly in the second story, Child Finder).
Something for the Butler completest, I guess.