[Book Reviews] Books at least partially about Europe
Hello, Internet! Madly behind on book reviews again. This time I'm splitting by literary geography. Next up, North America.
A holiday present from my dad, David Hoffman's "The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal" was a pretty readable recounting of America's running of Adolf Tolkachev in Moscow under the noses of the KGB. Tolkachev was an engineer with substantial access to documents describing the future direction of development of Russian aviation systems, and he was a walk-up volunteer to American intelligence at a time when operations in Moscow were effectively shut down. Hoffman does a good job of describing the psychological modeling concerns of the agents handling the Tolkachev case, the outcomes they tried to guide him towards, and the different tensions from within the various American governmental departments. It's full of tension and by the end, you get the sense that the spy is squeezing himself to do as much damage as possible before time runs out for him one way or another. Three and a half determined "I'll show you all!"s out of five.
Maire Brennan's "A Natural History of Dragons" Our narrator is charming, and I think that's half the delight of this book. It belongs to the genre of "set in a vaguely Victorian era, but less awful" -- readers familiar with the historical era on which it is based may keep twitching, waiting for the narrator's gender to hold her back more than it does. Still, I prefer that -- reading a book about how a bright young scientist is totally crushed by her sexist repressive society wouldn't have been nearly as fun. I enjoyed her growing understanding of the natural world around her, and in particular her development of a social consciousness and understanding of how she wasn't doing particularly well in relating to her local allies. The spoiler at the end of the book was disheartening, though I'm still going on to read future volumes to see how our heroine fares. Three and a half dawning awarenesses that one might have behaved poorly out of five.
One of the creepiest books I read this year, "In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin" is a compelling story about a disturbing time in history. The American ambassador to Hitler's Germany has a difficult job -- he's not well respected by his political peers at home, his family is unconventional, his passion lies elsewhere, and his philosophy is a poor fit for the situation he finds himself in. He's a quietly understated heroic figure for much of the book, but as one watches the rising tide of authoritarian fanaticism, cultural restructuring to support an autocratic militaristic state, and the cheering-on that's done by much of a scared populace, it seems so frustrating that there's little he could do to prevent Hitler's ascension to power. I felt particularly strongly for the Jews in exile, holding mock trials as their most effective form of diplomatic protest when they could see what was coming and it didn't stop it. Augh. Chilling reflections on some of the current trends in American politics; those who do not know history, etc. etc. Four and a half worries about historical trends out of five.
Much like "In the Garden of Beasts", Erik Larson's "Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania" is as much an atmospheric piece of history as it is a story of a looming disaster and the mechanics which allowed it to come to pass. Excellent fleshed-out detail of the passengers on board the Lusitania, the captain's mind, character, and modes of decision-making, and the known and coincidental events which converged into the well-known disaster. I particularly appreciated his well-placed sourcing of historical facts, and gentle nudges towards where an interested reader might go to learn more about each particular aspect. It was emergent through the story who was likely to survive, as we have far more accounts from the survivors than we do of the people who died, but that can't really be helped. Four senses that something has gone terribly wrong out of five.
"The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan" was a loan from moodyduck and an excellent recommmendation on her part. A wonderful look at the surfacing and work of one of the twentieth century's most brilliant mathematical minds; I'm astonished that I had never heard of him before being lent this book. I appreciated the author's sensitive handling of everyone's "oh how unlikely!" reaction to Ramanujan's origins, and the difficulty of living in a new country that he experienced in his years working in England. I came to this book for the math, but I was pleased to read a story of intellectual recognition and cooperation across cultural and communication barriers. Reading about the deprivations of the Great War and their effect on Ramanujan's health was painful to read -- what a loss of a person and a mind! But what a spectacular body of work he left anyway! I could have wished for a little more math in the book, but I'm sure there are math texts for that, heh. Four and a half unusual notations out of five, and my favorite of this batch.
Man, nothing kills your childhood crush on a character like reading about him when you're nearly forty and he's seven years old. Despite that, Katherine Kurtz's "The King's Deryni" was an introspection-producing return to Gwynedd after many years away. It's full of backstory about characters that you hopefully already know and love... if you don't, this is going to be a dense and difficult way to make their acquaintance. The book is deep on court protocol and less so on characterization. Alaric has a childhood just angsty enough to explain his justifiable concern for daggers in his back later on, and many of the villains of later trilogies surface here briefly, but relatively little screen time is given to their development and motives. (For the first time, this book made me wonder if perpetually rebelling Meara kinda had a point or not.) Lovers of magical or feudal ritual will find a lot to like; there's plenty of that here. Three and a half pomp and circumstances out of five.
I expected to learn a good deal about Italian art from "The Venus Fixers: The Remarkable Story of the Allied Soldiers Who Saved Italy's Art During World War II", but I was delighted by how much I learned about Italian history and geography in passing. Thorough in its coverage of Tuscan and Florentine art history and rehabilitation, some of the particular tidbits of interest in the work show up merely in passing. (Coverage of how the homosexuality of some of the corps members was pointedly Not Discussed was particularly interesting; I hadn't given a lot of thought to their personal lives, but of course that would have been a property of the era. As if war wasn't difficult enough!) Reading this book inspired an interest in visiting Italy, though I think I'd have a lot more reading to do before I went. From the Nazis to the Borgias, architecture to archaeology, there's a lot to be learned in a short and chaotic time. I have already loaned it to an art-loving friend, two minutes after I finished. Three and a half salvaged masterpieces out of five.
It's difficult to assign a number of stars rating to 500 pages of mythical brain spaghetti, so reviewing "Celtic Queen Maeve and Addiction: An Archetypal Perspective" is necessarily nonlinear, heh. I'm not terribly familiar with Jungian analysis, so I was kind of picking up the relevant parts of what it means to be a therapist in that context as I went. I am pretty familiar with Maeve and the various legends surrounding her, and I appreciated the many places where the author prods my understanding of the mythology by looking at it from an unexpected angle. So, I came for the Celts and stayed for the addiction therapy advice. If only I remembered my dreams, I'd be interested to see whether the book's contents percolated through, heh. But I learned a good bit about the Jungian engagement with the founder of the 12 step program, and how the program approaches addiction from a religious perspective, and that was valuable. Marching giant ants next to your tiny holy boat out of five.
This entry was originally posted at http://ivy.dreamwidth.org/517155.html and has
comments there. Please feel free to comment on either site; comments rock.
A holiday present from my dad, David Hoffman's "The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal" was a pretty readable recounting of America's running of Adolf Tolkachev in Moscow under the noses of the KGB. Tolkachev was an engineer with substantial access to documents describing the future direction of development of Russian aviation systems, and he was a walk-up volunteer to American intelligence at a time when operations in Moscow were effectively shut down. Hoffman does a good job of describing the psychological modeling concerns of the agents handling the Tolkachev case, the outcomes they tried to guide him towards, and the different tensions from within the various American governmental departments. It's full of tension and by the end, you get the sense that the spy is squeezing himself to do as much damage as possible before time runs out for him one way or another. Three and a half determined "I'll show you all!"s out of five.
Maire Brennan's "A Natural History of Dragons" Our narrator is charming, and I think that's half the delight of this book. It belongs to the genre of "set in a vaguely Victorian era, but less awful" -- readers familiar with the historical era on which it is based may keep twitching, waiting for the narrator's gender to hold her back more than it does. Still, I prefer that -- reading a book about how a bright young scientist is totally crushed by her sexist repressive society wouldn't have been nearly as fun. I enjoyed her growing understanding of the natural world around her, and in particular her development of a social consciousness and understanding of how she wasn't doing particularly well in relating to her local allies. The spoiler at the end of the book was disheartening, though I'm still going on to read future volumes to see how our heroine fares. Three and a half dawning awarenesses that one might have behaved poorly out of five.
One of the creepiest books I read this year, "In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin" is a compelling story about a disturbing time in history. The American ambassador to Hitler's Germany has a difficult job -- he's not well respected by his political peers at home, his family is unconventional, his passion lies elsewhere, and his philosophy is a poor fit for the situation he finds himself in. He's a quietly understated heroic figure for much of the book, but as one watches the rising tide of authoritarian fanaticism, cultural restructuring to support an autocratic militaristic state, and the cheering-on that's done by much of a scared populace, it seems so frustrating that there's little he could do to prevent Hitler's ascension to power. I felt particularly strongly for the Jews in exile, holding mock trials as their most effective form of diplomatic protest when they could see what was coming and it didn't stop it. Augh. Chilling reflections on some of the current trends in American politics; those who do not know history, etc. etc. Four and a half worries about historical trends out of five.
Much like "In the Garden of Beasts", Erik Larson's "Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania" is as much an atmospheric piece of history as it is a story of a looming disaster and the mechanics which allowed it to come to pass. Excellent fleshed-out detail of the passengers on board the Lusitania, the captain's mind, character, and modes of decision-making, and the known and coincidental events which converged into the well-known disaster. I particularly appreciated his well-placed sourcing of historical facts, and gentle nudges towards where an interested reader might go to learn more about each particular aspect. It was emergent through the story who was likely to survive, as we have far more accounts from the survivors than we do of the people who died, but that can't really be helped. Four senses that something has gone terribly wrong out of five.
"The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan" was a loan from moodyduck and an excellent recommmendation on her part. A wonderful look at the surfacing and work of one of the twentieth century's most brilliant mathematical minds; I'm astonished that I had never heard of him before being lent this book. I appreciated the author's sensitive handling of everyone's "oh how unlikely!" reaction to Ramanujan's origins, and the difficulty of living in a new country that he experienced in his years working in England. I came to this book for the math, but I was pleased to read a story of intellectual recognition and cooperation across cultural and communication barriers. Reading about the deprivations of the Great War and their effect on Ramanujan's health was painful to read -- what a loss of a person and a mind! But what a spectacular body of work he left anyway! I could have wished for a little more math in the book, but I'm sure there are math texts for that, heh. Four and a half unusual notations out of five, and my favorite of this batch.
Man, nothing kills your childhood crush on a character like reading about him when you're nearly forty and he's seven years old. Despite that, Katherine Kurtz's "The King's Deryni" was an introspection-producing return to Gwynedd after many years away. It's full of backstory about characters that you hopefully already know and love... if you don't, this is going to be a dense and difficult way to make their acquaintance. The book is deep on court protocol and less so on characterization. Alaric has a childhood just angsty enough to explain his justifiable concern for daggers in his back later on, and many of the villains of later trilogies surface here briefly, but relatively little screen time is given to their development and motives. (For the first time, this book made me wonder if perpetually rebelling Meara kinda had a point or not.) Lovers of magical or feudal ritual will find a lot to like; there's plenty of that here. Three and a half pomp and circumstances out of five.
I expected to learn a good deal about Italian art from "The Venus Fixers: The Remarkable Story of the Allied Soldiers Who Saved Italy's Art During World War II", but I was delighted by how much I learned about Italian history and geography in passing. Thorough in its coverage of Tuscan and Florentine art history and rehabilitation, some of the particular tidbits of interest in the work show up merely in passing. (Coverage of how the homosexuality of some of the corps members was pointedly Not Discussed was particularly interesting; I hadn't given a lot of thought to their personal lives, but of course that would have been a property of the era. As if war wasn't difficult enough!) Reading this book inspired an interest in visiting Italy, though I think I'd have a lot more reading to do before I went. From the Nazis to the Borgias, architecture to archaeology, there's a lot to be learned in a short and chaotic time. I have already loaned it to an art-loving friend, two minutes after I finished. Three and a half salvaged masterpieces out of five.
It's difficult to assign a number of stars rating to 500 pages of mythical brain spaghetti, so reviewing "Celtic Queen Maeve and Addiction: An Archetypal Perspective" is necessarily nonlinear, heh. I'm not terribly familiar with Jungian analysis, so I was kind of picking up the relevant parts of what it means to be a therapist in that context as I went. I am pretty familiar with Maeve and the various legends surrounding her, and I appreciated the many places where the author prods my understanding of the mythology by looking at it from an unexpected angle. So, I came for the Celts and stayed for the addiction therapy advice. If only I remembered my dreams, I'd be interested to see whether the book's contents percolated through, heh. But I learned a good bit about the Jungian engagement with the founder of the 12 step program, and how the program approaches addiction from a religious perspective, and that was valuable. Marching giant ants next to your tiny holy boat out of five.
This entry was originally posted at http://ivy.dreamwidth.org/517155.html and has
comments there. Please feel free to comment on either site; comments rock.