Rounding up the reading
Because it feels like time to do one of these.
Read for review or research:
Ellen Bayuk Rosenman, Unauthorized Pleasures: accounts of Victorian erotic experience (2003): quite good, perhaps not tremendously useful for my particular purposes (too much close reading of rather specific texts, not enough wider context), but was exceedingly good on problematics of Victorian masculinity; Frank Mort, Capital Affairs: The Making of the Permissive Society (2010), which was really very good and an absorbing read, and lots of really useful stuff, even if, geographically, it's working with a very contained area of London (but this does work); Marcus Collins, Modern Love: An Intimate History of Men and Women in Twentieth Century Britain (2003), really useful primary research, marred by a rather clumsy analytical framework, also, v heteronormative; Barbara Tate, West End Girls: the real lives, loves and friendships of 1940s Soho and its working girls, memoir by a woman who worked as a prostitute's maid in Soho in the late 1940s, full of interesting material; Nicky Hallett, Lesbian Lives: Identity and Auto/Biography in the Twentieth Century (1999), more about life-writing and representation than actual social history (and mostly the Usual Suspects) and not so much entirely weak on various contextual things as having been written prior to a swathe of nuanced historiography on women in Britain and same-sex desire and discourses of same, which is hardly the author's fault, but just not particularly pertinent to my purposes; Valerie Estelle Frankel, From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine's Journey Through Myth and Legend (2011), currently working on my review - not sure I am entirely sold on the Jungian/Campbellian theoretical framework for analysis....
Other non-fiction
Lois Gould, Mommy Dressing: A Love Story (1998) (re-read) - a fascinating memoir by a daughter of her mother, a noted fashion designer, who was clearly a terrible mother but very gifted, also trapped within a very specific generation/class context for women doing things in the world; Jane Conway, Mary Borden: A Woman of Two Wars (2009) - I realised that I didn't find Borden very sympathetic, plus would have been more interested in rather more detailed discussion of her books, rather than her activities running hospitals in both world wars (and did rather find myself sympathising with the various individuals presented as thwarting her/hostile to her endeavours...); Ruth Herschberger, Adam's Rib (1948) - I discussed this here and quoted from the Josie section here - I thought as a whole the book faded out a bit towards the end rather than giving a stomping conclusion, but there's some excellent stuff there; Naomi Mitchison, Vienna Diary (1934, recently reprinted) - diary of her going to Vienna to take aid to the socialists there who had recently been violently suppressed, and to report on the situation - vivid and readable; Florence King, Deja Reviews (2006) - somehow a significant % of these struck me as cranky and mean rather than amusing as she used to be, or maybe they just don't benefit from being read as a collection.
Sff
Sheri Tepper, The Waters Rising (2011) - ummmm, this has faded a bit, which might be because it was a bit predictable, a bit by the numbers?; Barbara Hambly, Blood Maidens (2010), and although this series has always been fairly low on my Hambly list of favourites (which still means it scores pretty highly), and I could probably do with re-reading the predecessor volumes, I enjoyed this and would recommend; Karen Lord, Redemption in Indigo (2010), I loved the narrative voice and style even if I found the actual story on the slight side; Ann Bishop, Shalador's Lady (2010), because these are absorbing idtastic reads providing you don't think too closely about the whole setup; J D Robb, Indulgence in Death (2010), which perhaps ditto; L A Banks, Minion: A Vampire Huntress Legend (2003) - still not getting into urban fantasy, and somewhat resistant to a book which has the background legend plus three sections of prologue before hitting the main action; Catherynne M Valente, Deathless (2011), very impressive use of Russian legend/history; Amanda Downum, The Bone Palace (2011), very good - preferred it to The Drowning City, though I'm still not sure to what extent that was just a few viewpoints too many and my reading it in rather too scattered snatches; N K Jemisin, The Broken Kingdoms (2011), I like what she's doing but didn't entirely warm up to this.
Mysteries, thrillers, etc
Elizabeth George, This Body of Death (2010), okay, props for getting back to Moar Havers, but introduction of highly dysfunctional female cop as Lynley's temporary replacement DO.NOT.WANT, also general ickiness; Dana Stabenow, A Night Too Dark (2010) - not sure this would be the best place to start but a strong contribution to the series; and apart from the J D Robb already mentioned, that seems to be all the crime for the recent period, though am possibly on the point of giving up on Dick Francis with Felix Francis, Silks (2008) - clunky.
Litfic
Charlotte Yonge, Friarswood Post Office (1860), not bad for one of her improving tales for the lower orders, I thought; Cathleen Schine, Three Women of Westport (2010), which I was a bit meh about though I finished - up to date riff on Sense and Sensibility that a review I read made sound more exciting than it turned out - I have liked some of Schine's works in the past but my experience with them has been mixed; J I M Stewart, Use of Riches (1957), about which I already posted; Elinor Glyn, The Visits of Elizabeth (1900) - well, Elizabeth was less annoying than Ambrosine, though the excessive naivete was somewhat irksome, and one could see the outcome galloping up from a long way off; Rachel Ferguson, The Brontes Went to Woolworths (1931) - re-read - are we actually supposed to like these people? I did find them a bit irritating in their combination of conscious eccentricity and class assumptions; D E Stevenson, Mrs Tim of the Regiment (1932), pleasant, again with the naive first person narrator, and that 30s thing of nice married women who nonetheless arouse deep, yet chivalrous, devotion in the hearts of men who are not their husband (see also, Ann Bridge); Clemence Dane, Regiment of Women (1917) - read for a paper I'm writing - iconic novel of morbid female relationships in girls' school setting; E M Delafield, What is Love aka First Love (1928) - also read for research though I think length of paper means I'm actually going to have to leave out passage concerning character in this who is stylish 1920s modern girl with shingle crop and monocle and lack of sentimentality and utterly het love-life; Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898), which I don't think I've ever read before, major influence on later fictional diary genre, surely? nb 'Elizabeth' doesn't seem to do any actual digging, weeding, slug-bashing etc but just orders about sometimes recalcitrant gardeners on Prussian estate; H G Wells, Ann Veronica (1909), read for background for another paper - was surprised to note that it does actually pass the Bechdel Test in that there are scenes with AV talking to other women about suffrage, the position of women, etc, but as the authorial attitude towards the other women is a bit condescending, feel that somewhat vitiates the value of this; and because I suddenly felt like it, rereads of a couple of rather late G B Sterns, Unless I Marry (1959) and Dolphin Cottage (1962), pleasant enough.
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