more Regency mystery...

Finally read the second Tracy Grant mystery, Beneath a Silent Moon, starring Charles and Melanie Fraser.  I think I preferred the first book, but I don't really remember it all that well.  This one got a bit convoluted, and I, for one, have some problems sometimes with British books, particularly the Regency-era ones, because I get confused by the names - everyone has a first name, a last name, a title...  It was fun enough, though, and good for a cold, snowy day when I stayed home and mostly just slept and ate stew.  Not sure what is next on the list - strangely, I got NO books for Christmas, which has to be a first.  Of course, I have literally shelves-full of books I've bought and books I've borrowed from the library, but nothing's jumping out at me.  Which is maybe a good thing, since I REALLY need to clean my apartment today, rather than just sleep and read and eat...like, yesterday.  It was magical, but time to get back to real life.


Oh - and was just picking up and found A Vengeful Longing, by R.N. Morris, on the coffee table, under a pile of magazines and other books (including Dick Minear's latest offering!!!) - I think I read it at the same time as the Chevalier book? Don't really remember now, but I think I finished it and then moved on to Perdido Street.  In any case, I really enjoyed it.  It's the second, I believe, in the "St. Petersburg Mystery" series, starring Dostoyevsky's detective from Crime and Punishment (so freaking amazing), Porfiry Petrovich.  I remember I saw it on the outside bargain table at the Harvard Bookstore, and almost grabbed it, but then remembered I should really be spending my money on Christmas presents, so I held off until I could check Hollis, and sure enough, the library had it.  I'm wondering now if they didn't have the earlier book (A Gentle Axe), because I don't know why I wouldn't have started with that one...
I don't think it mattered all that much, but there were several references to events that happened prior to the opening of the book, and I wasn't sure if they were meant to be a bit mysterious, or if I would have understood them if I had read the first book.  In any case, I thought the writing was great: well-drawn, nuanced characters, that you get to know a little, but also stay at arm's length; wonderfully descriptive settings, with evocative details - the persistent flies buzzing throughout the story's hot, foetid summer were a great touch!

Not-so-Christmas-y reading

Finished China Mieville's Perdido Street Station the morning of Christmas Eve (or maybe the night before
that - I forget, things got a little...confused....Thursday night (12/23) when I went out with E all night and morning).  Mixed feelings.  For starters, and coming from a conversation I had with M & N on Christmas Eve (whoo!  both my brothers are home!), I definitely don't think the author phoned it it.  This is a super-complex world Mieville has created, with a politics and environments and history all it's own - if anything, I got the impression while I was reading that we were only scratching the surface of this made-up world of Bas-Lag.  I think the biggest problem for me was some of the steam-punk elements of imaginary science started zoning me out - I found myself skipping over the "mechanics" of a major plot development or two, because the physics and firewalls and blah-blah-blah don't interest me.  And, to be fair, most likely don't interest me because I didn't get them.  But maybe I didn't get them because I didn't try, so chicken/egg.  I'm also not a very visual reader, I don't necessarily "see" characters and scenes in my mind, but I was having a really hard time picturing the main characters.  Which in some ways is maybe a testament to Mieville's creativity (beetle heads, humanoid bodies?!) and also to my lack of imagination, but it was unsettling, and interrupted the flow of the narrative.  Oddly, the scenery and setting I had no problem pulling up images of - although I think the city of the walking, talking cacti was totally pulled from the high rise towers in season one of the Wire!

Starting Christmas Eve, before bed, and finishing up today, before my post-work nap, I read the fourth (yes?) Sebastian St. Cyr mystery, Where Serpents Sleep, by C.S. Harris (a/k/a Candice Proctor, and C.S.

Graham {with her husband}, apparently).  I ordered it from Amazon along with that Tracy Grant book, because I could never find either in the library or used - and it was actually cheaper from Amazon then it likely would have been used, which is just sad.  And yet I still love the Harvard Bookstore basement, so oh well.  I wasn't super excited to read this one, I just think they're decent time-killers, but I actually think this is my favorite so far, by far.  In previous books we were introduced to Hero Jarvis, the daughter of the series' gray eminence, the power behind Prinny's throne, but here she's a real character, and she's a good one.  Not a figure to go down in the annals of great literature, but better than the last female lead in this series.  The best part is she is initially described as practical, smart, no-nonsense, not looking for a man, and not that pretty - and she's pretty much the same way at the end, even after the inevitable hints of a slowly developing romantic entanglement.  I also give Harris credit for not jumping into the romance-y stuff.  It looks like she's going to let it develop over time, and maybe another book or two, which is not the easy answer, but a more plausible one. 

Don't think I read anything else (other than bridal magazines - yay, for R&M, and yay for being maid of honor!!!) since the last post.  Merry Christmas!

Before I forget...

I read Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures last week (?) - had to kind of rush through it, because I needed to have it back to the library by c.o.b. Friday (finished it around 1:45, on the T).  Liked it.  The writing was decent, and the story was interesting - although then I found out it was based on real people, and semi-real events, so I'm not sure how much credit Chevalier can get for the story.  But the suggested reading list she supplied at the end of the novel was nice, because I would like to go and read more at some point about Mary Anning, the working-class girl in 19th century Lyme Regis who was a prominent fossil "hunter."

New York Times - The Ten Best Books of 2010

As printed December 12th, they are:
[Fiction]
Freedom, Jonathan Franzen - on my list, haven't read yet
The New Yorker Stories, Ann Beattie - probably
Room, Emma Donoghue - SO amazing
Selected Stories, William Trevor - eh
A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan - meh
[Non-Fiction]
Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet, Jennifer Homans - have been considering
Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff - on my list, haven't read yet
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee - maybe when mom's better
Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes, Stephen Sondheim - no interest, really
The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson - on the list, waiting for it to be available

Additionally, the "100 Notable Books of 2010" have a bunch I read, have been meaning to read, or now want to read!

UMass Amherst History Department publications

Just some housekeeping posts today - first, I finally got around to reading the History Department newsletter, and there are some books, etc. I want to keep tabs on.
-the current working title of Carlin Barton's third book is Between the Axe and the Altar; can't wait!!!
-Dick Minear has a book review on http://www.japanfocus.org/, which I definitely need to read
-Barry Levy recently published Town Born: the Political Economy of New England from Its Founding to the Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009)
-Anne Broadbridge is working on her next book which is going to be about imperial women of the Mongol Empire - so cool!!!

SO behind...part 2

Yikes - okay, the books I've been reading since shortly before Thanksgiving:
I started Lauren Willig's latest, The Mischief of the Mistletoe, while I was on the bus back from Plymouth (Hatherly Family Reunion) to Boston (Charlesmark night with E).  Perfect for the bus, and then even MORE perfect for the world-class hangover I had the following morning.  Partied hard, J & E style, at Cmark (and before, and after), and for some reason known only to God, or maybe Satan, I DIDN'T EAT before going to bed.  Don't know what the f*** was wrong with me, but I woke up with the worst hangover I have had in years and years Sunday morning, and could just barely drag myself back and forth between the couch and my bed throughout the day.  The only thing that added any happiness to my day, or made my head/stomach/limbs hurt any less, was Willig - a particularly light, silly, and sweet Willig.  Jane Austen even makes a cameo, which was cute - and respectfully done [weird - feeling like I've written this before...].  And the "hero," such as he is, is "Turnip" Fitzhugh, from some of the other books, and he was written pretty adorably funny.  Obviously Willig had to man him up a little, but this story was a nice change from some of her other ones - the heroine wasn't privileged and confident, the hero wasn't dashing and strong.  I think this might actually be one of my favorites of the series, even though it's meant to be something of a side project.
The next stop on the book-train was The Savage Garden by Mark Mills.  I didn't love it, but it killed time well enough without feeling like it was dumb or a waste of time.  Set in the 1950s, at a villa in the Florence environs, it's about an English graduate student (I think...undergrad?  English academic systems confuse me) who is sent to research a unique Renaissance garden and who ends up stumbling onto a contemporary mystery (of course) that mirrors elements of one surrounding the garden's creation, and stumbling onto some romance (of course) with a free-spirited Italian girl.

What was kind of a waste of time was Gail Carriger's Blameless - and I should have
 known it.  In fact, I did know it, even before I started.  It's the third book in a really unimpressive series, but I wanted to learn the "science" behind the surprise pregnancy of the second book, and I saw it the other day at the bookstore, and it was cheap, and I have a coupon, so... sh*t happens.  This one was actually the best of the three, I think, though; at least, I don't really remember the first one at this point (it's been almost a year), but I definitely think this one was better than the last one (although I don't really remember the second one either).  Carriger digs into the "mythology" behind the whole soulless thing, with her heroine travelling to Italy (Florence, again!) to get more information about her situation and tangles with some Templars.

Went from a steampunk, alternative Victorian England to 14th century England with Susanna Gregory and
The Mark of a Murderer.  I mostly grabbed it from the library because I had decided to try and sell a copy of another book in the series that I had at home, and I remembered vaguely that I had enjoyed it, so I figured I'd find the earliest one in the series that the library had and see if I still liked it.  I guess the answer is yes?  It's okay, but not great.  Reminds me of all the other ye-olde-murder-mysteries, you know?  Brother Cadfael, or any of the others set in medieval Oxford and Cambridge.  Even that one I read a while ago about Giordano Bruno, Heresy, had a similar feel, but less of the cozy-vibe.

Last but definitely not least, after taking some time with it, last week I finished Russell Menard's Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados.  Such an enjoyable book.  Interesting and easy to read.  If I have a complaint, it's that it was too high-altitude - there was a lot of surface, and not a ton of depth.  It also lacked in "stories" and material/cultural history and social history, but over all, definitely very decent.  I wouldn't recommend it to people who aren't used to reading strictly history books, it's definitely not popular history, but it's not super academic or hard to digest by any means.

SO behind...part 1

I've been reading a decent amount since before Thanksgiving, and now it's December, and I haven't written anything down.  And I will, but before I forget, sold the following books to the Used Books department at the Harvard Bookstore today - only half of the ones I dragged in, but hey, it's $10 and change in store credit, and a slightly less teetery tower of books (that I'll never read again) on the floor of my apartment.

Quickly:
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters - not exactly my cup of tea, but I have to say, it was well-written.  A little confusing in places, but that is as it should be.  The more I think about it, the more I think I liked it / it was good, but I don't need to own it, either.
The Constant Princess, Philippa Gregory - I think this might be one of my favorites of the Gregory Tudor books; it's certainly not as "exciting" as The Other Boleyn Girl (which I think was the first one of hers I read), but Katherine of Aragon makes for an appealing protagonist, as I recall.
The Last Camel Died at Noon, Elizabeth Peters - I feel like I SHOULD like these books and their protagonist (Amelia Peabody) better than I actually do.  But I find the main characters more annoying than anything...wish Harvard Bookstore had taken the other two I had off my hands as well!
Tyrannosaur Canyon, Douglas Preston - dumb, but funny.  Read it on a plane, I think.
Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane - talked about this book here when I read it, so no need to go back over it here.  Saw the movie with N and Dad a while ago, that was kinda fun.  Totally different from the book, though, as much as I remembered of the book at the time.  And RATS.  UGH.  Had to close my eyes.

Interesting that two of the five here have movie adaptations (and a third if you count references) - I should check out Fingersmith & The Other Boleyn Girl, in its various incarnations. 

Books my baby bro is recommending

Apparently N is taking a sci-fi lit class and he really likes the book Odd John, also RUR, and The Forever War













  ("bad start but then got much, much better" - i.e., don't give up).  Skeptical: this came up when I was like "who the f is reading a book about gender-switching aliens - Ursula Le Guin - and it was N, for class.  But BECAUSE I TRUST HIS JUDGMENT (and he's watching as I type this), I will give the ones he likes a chance.  And "awesomely fantastic" is a hell of a recommendation.  And apparently the recommendations go in order of the listing here.  The first two are novels, with the first being monologue heavy, the other more action-packed; the third is a play with some Luddite themes.

MY BEST FRIEND IS STILL ENGAGED!!!!!

And today I bought The Knot Bridesmaid Handbook: Helping the Bride Shine Without Losing Your Mind; I also spent most of the last 5-6 hours at CMark telling people (repeatedly) "my best friend is engaged!!!"  Haha, whoops.  People might hate me now.  But I totally cornered a guy about high-quality South Asian wedding photographers.  So, all in all, point JENN.

MY BEST FRIEND IS ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I didn't get that much reading done.  Because I was busy celebrating.  BECAUSE MY BEST FRIEND IS ENGAGED!!!!!!! 
In between celebrating R & M's engagement and doing research on being a MAID OF HONOR (BECAUSE MY BEST FRIEND IS GETTING MARRIED!) I did do a little reading.
Finished Phil Rickman's The Prayer of the Night Shepherd; usual Rickman stuff.



Also read The Cry of the Dove by Fadia Faqir, which T gave me a while ago when she was moving and deaccessioning.  I liked it, although it took me a little while to get into it.  It was definitely sad - the main character, Salma, is a Bedouin refugee in England, driven from home after getting pregnant while unmarried.  But it was well-written.  Faqir weaves strands from a variety of different times in Salma's life together, so one page might see memories spanning decades and continents.  It was a little uneven at first, but the author hit her stride fairly early on, and once she did, I really liked the effect.




Less impressive was The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland.  Set in a small village and beguinage in 1320s England, it was an interesting topic, but not particularly engaging.  Maitland tells the story from several different points of view, sort of like Faqir's overlapping time lines; also sort of like with Faqir, I wasn't sure it would work at first.  And, honestly, not sure my mind changed.  I was worried initially there would be too much going on, too many viewpoints, and it would be distracting or get in the way of the narrative.  It did and didn't.  It wasn't an insurmountable problem, but it wasn't the best reading experience ever, either.  I'm willing to give her another shot, though - just put her first novel on my to-read list, so we'll see.





MUCH more of a priority though: The Bridesmaid Guide: Etiquette, Parties, and Being Fabulous; The Bridesmaid's Guerrilla Handbook; the Fall 2010 issue of South Asian Bride (whoo!!!  so excited I found it!); and the Fall 2010 / Fashion Issue of Martha Stewart Weddings

Not too much going on...

...in my reading life - or real life, for that matter!  Quiet week, which I think I needed, so that was good.  Didn't get all that much reading done, though, since I mostly just curled up with my overstuffed DVR and old episodes of The Wire (new life goal: to be able to say "sheeeeeeeee-it" convincingly).

Library is making me return The Ideological Origins of the British Empire, by David Armitage, which is a bummer, since it's wicked interesting.  It also, at the same time, totally puts me to sleep, which is weird.  So I've been enjoying reading it for 20 minutes or so before bed - it's thought-provoking and fascinating, and then suddenly I'm out like a light.  Perfect-o!  Plus, I think Armitage is married to Joyce Chaplin, who is my academic girl-crush, so that's just kinda cool.

But I guess someone else at Harvard must be having trouble sleeping, and doesn't want to rely on melatonin, because it's been recalled.  Oh, well - more time to plow through Season 4!





Finished Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, which I've been meaning to read for a year or two (two, I think?), since it was listed in a "great books for Halloween" piece in Real Simple.  Finally got around to it, and I guess it was fine, but I really didn't find it very compelling.  The introductory notes said that it's been made into a movie twice (The Haunting and then House on Haunted Hill - although the author of the introduction said not to bother with the 1999 version, but I'm looking now, and it's got Taye Diggs, so, can you go wrong?) and that kind of makes sense - it seemed like a very visual book, but I just wasn't feeling the atmosphere, and was having a hard time picturing the setting.  But a haunted house is definitely appropriate for Halloween, so it was a good book for cuddling under my down comforter, heating pad at my feet, and reading with the faint sounds of little kids shrieking coming through the windows...
I also hadn't realized that Shirley Jackson is the same person who wrote that short story "The Lottery" which I read in middle school or high school (high school, maybe?) - AND which was a tv movie or something with Keri Russell, who I kinda loved because when I first saw her in something it was some God-awful teen soap (it was basically the O.C. before the O.C. was created, I think), but she had gorgeous, crazy curls.

So, yeah - that was Sunday, Monday I drank and thought about fun books, and on Tuesday or Wednesday I actually "sold" some paperbacks to the Harvard Bookstore, earning me a whopping $9 and change in store credit.  Totally worth it, even if it wasn't super lucrative: I'm sure to use the credit sooner rather than later (like on the days when I end up buying books because I'm waiting for Hong Kong to cook my take-out spicy green beans), and it got a stack of "never going to read again" books off my floor).  And now it's Friday, and I'm about two-thirds of the way through my other "scary" book that I started in the week before Halloween, The Prayer of the Night Shepherd.  I don't know exactly why I keep reading these Merrily Watkins books by Phil Rickman.  The mysteries aren't that mysterious, the literature ain't exactly great, and each time I finish one I think "huh, well, hmm" or something along those totally damned with faint praise lines.  They're really pretty much microwave popcorn.  Fills you up and kills some time, and at least it's not total junk, but it's not really great for you either.  But I am rather fond of the characters - and in this one we're dealing with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a group calling itself The White Company, so that's fun.  Except the real White Company is so much better!

Happy Books (For V)

Was talking with V last night, and the subject of happy, or at least not-depressing, books came up, and I started trying to think of some.  So, the list I came up with as I walked home, for her & for me when I need a good but not-depressing read is:

The Monsters of Templeton, Lauren Groff (which I literally stocked up on copies of)
The War of the Saints, Jorge Amado (one of my favorites of all time)
Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh (wrapped me up and swept me away; only hesitation in recommending it is that we're still waiting for the next installment of the Trilogy to come out)
The Good Thief, Hannah Tinti (I seriously almost cried, on the f***ing T, because it was so darn heartwarming)
Shark Dialogues, Kiana Davenport (it's not great lit, but I really enjoy it, and it's not crap)
In the Woods, Tana French (darker than the others - it's a murder mystery, after all - but so engaging)
The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde (Fforde just makes me laugh, and giggle, and snort, and laugh some more...)

A Halloween Treat

Finished Tana French's latest, Faithful Place, last night.  I would have taken longer with it, honestly, and tried to savor it instead of devouring it, but I'm just one of the people who signed up to reserve it long before the book even made it to the library, so I had to return it by next Monday (so, for me, today).  Not that devouring it was hard - as with her last two books, the plot pulled me in, the pacing pulled me along, and the characters and dialogue were pitch-perfect and burrowed easily under my skin.

Also like the last (second) book, Faithful Place took a character from its predecessor as the main character: Cassie Maddox, the partner of the protagonist of In the Woods became the conflicted heroine of The Likeness, and now her "boss" in that book, Frank Mackey, is the very conflicted and very flawed star of Faithful Place. 

It's an interesting way of handling the books; they're not a series, per se, each story stands along, and stands steadily & strongly.  But if you can't - or can't if you're me, anyhow - read one and not read the others...but that is definitely more the writing than the story's.  Which is a great thing as far as evaluating the author's skill!  The second was more tied to the first, but this one, at least, is wholly self-contained.  It's funny because I read In the Woods, and was almost disappointed that the main character was being "abandoned" and replaced in the next book.  But then I read the next book, and fell in love.  And then, of course, was a little sad that she wouldn't be coming back in the third, and was sceptical of how invested I would get in Mackey's story.  And, OF COURSE, French sucked me right in...and I was not at all surprised.

As far as the story, it wasn't all that much of a "mystery," in so far as I suspected the identity of the murderer from wicked early, and a lot of the plot twists were fairly predictable, but I think the book, and the experience of reading it, is watching how the story unfolds, and how the characters navigate those twists.  I was still on the edge of my seat, so to speak, even if I wasn't shocked by anything.

On a total side note, Lauren Willig was at the Borders in Downtown Crossing yesterday, and I went and listened to her read from her latest Pink Carnation book - well, an off-shoot of the series, and got a signed copy of The Mischief of the Mistletow: A Pink Carnation Christmas, which apparently gets some Jane Austen into the mix.  I was wondering when that would happen...  Not going to read it for a while, since I am on my "only scary and/or bloody" books until Halloween kick, but should be fun.

THE Award Winner...and stuff

Howard Jacobson won the 2010 Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question just about when I was finishing it - and I think it was the right call, at least based on the four (four and a couple chapters of a fifth, out of six) short-listed books I read.  Of course, I just loved Room, and I don't know that I had as visceral a reaction to The Finkler Question, but over all I think the latter was a better book (and C and Parrot and Olivier were both great, but not in the same class, in my not-all-that-humble-opinion; and this jury of one is still out on The Long Song).  Jacobson deftly combined humor (both subtle and very, very broad) and melancholy, and "threw in" - deliberately, with nuance and gravitas - politics and the continuing, if often overlooked these days, prejudice against Jews.  It's possible I was more attuned to some of the deeper, darker, icier currents because while I was in D.C. the week/end previous I had had a couple talks with E. about present day prejudices, and violence, against Jews around the world and here in the U.S., but I think Jacobson's writing would have had the same impact regardless.  And it's a credit to his writing that you can think so hard about something so serious and a page later - or even later in the page - be snorting over a character's incomprehensible, but hilarious, obliviousness.  The book is also quite British, but certainly lots of the situations are universal.  All in all, well done, judging panel!
Interesting talk with Jacobson in the New York Times following the win; a much better review than I could give, in the same journal.

Housekeeping: my new plan is to only read "scary" books between now (well, last Friday) and Halloween.  So I finished Phil Rickman's Lamp of the Wicked over the weekend (or was it last week?  I was sick most of last week, thank you plane-ride, so that helped, too): the usual.  I am fond of the characters, the plot is pretty predictable.  But when you're waiting for the CVS-brand Nyquil to kick in, that's a pretty solid combination.  And while it wasn't exactly "scary" it was all about things that go bump in the night, and so forth.
I'm making a sort of exception to the scary books marathon for Tana French's Faithful Place.  Faithful readers of this blog (which I'm pretty sure number zero, but I can't resist the faithful/faithful) will know that I just adore French's books, so when I picked it up from the circulation desk on Friday I would have had a hard time not starting it, in any case, and in this case I have ten days to read it, so I figure it's got dead bodies (okay, one so far, but there might be more), and rats, so that is scary.  Kinda. 
I've dropped P.D. James' The Black Tower: it was hardly gripping me Sunday (although, to be fair, I was drunk/sick and on a plane), but then I finished C, and then read The Finkler Question, and by then it had been almost a week and I had already forgotten all the character's names, so I figure I can just start from scratch some time in the future.  In any case, sure as hell not reading James instead of French!

More award winners and stuff

Sick today, so a little mentall foggy on what I've read recently...
Read another of the Booker books, C by Tom McCarthy; I really liked it, but hard to cartegorize for sure,
or even really to discuss.  I got a little lost with the radio stuff early on - maybe I just wasn't bright enough to understand it, but there was a decent section of book (maybe the second fifth?) that was prettty boggy going.  I got back into it once the scene shifted to the Bavaria, and enjoyed it from there on.  The C theme was a little over-worked, but okay.  Again, the early chapters were a little annoyingly verbose, but by the second half I was in love with the way McCarthy was writing, particularly the descriptions.






I read the latest Stephanie Barron mystery featuring Jane Austen, Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron, while I was on the way to and in D.C. for the Fall Meeting.  Of course, I enjoyed it - Barron has a great character in Jane Austen, Lady-Detective, and I remain impressed by how believeable the books are, but I was not as in love with this installment as I have been with others.  Barron seemed to be straining a bit to maintain the historical "voice" - I mean, seriously, how many times in one book can you use the word "goosecap"??  I get it, contemporary flavor.  But let it go, too...  I don't know.  I still liked it, definitely, but there was this nagging, tiny voice in the back of my head telling me that things could have been better, at least, even if they weren't bad.  Having Jane go head-to-head with her fellow author, Byron, was super fun, though, and it was interesting having this book be set after the anonymous author of Pride and Prejudice is getting famous.  Sad, though, that the Gentleman Rogue was a significant, albeit dead, presence in this story, and I miss him so much!!!

Currently plowing my way through The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson: another one of the Booker contestants, which I have to finish in 24 hours so I can get it back, because someone else requested it.
I started The Lamp of the Wicked, Phil Rickman, longer ago than I can remember, and started The Black Tower, P.D. James, when I was in D.C., but I was too drunk (that includes on the plane home) to really focus on it...which is funny, because it was one of the ones I picked up for less than a song at the Harvard Bookstore one day when I was too drunk/hungover to deal with life...

Parrot and Olivier in America

The latest in my perusal of this year's Booker nominees, this novel by the prolific author Peter Carey left me a little disappointed.  Based more than loosely on Tocqueville's adventures in America, the book is told, in alternating chapters, in the voices of a young-ish French nobleman packed off to safety in America following the July Revolution and his older, English servant - who has also been sent along to spy on him.  It's possible this book just suffered by comparison, since I had just finished the phenomenal Room when I started Parrot and Olivier in America, but for whatever reason, the beginning was sloooooow going, particularly the chapters recounting Olivier's youth and his time in Paris prior to departing on a trumped-up tour of American penal institutions. 

The chapters told from Parrot's point of view were much more engaging, right from the beginning.  I'm sure part of this is because the former's voice was really rather annoying - indirect, inane, and self-absorbed.  This was clearly deliberate on Carey's part, and did a good job of establishing Olivier as a character, but I didn't like him, and I didn't find him funny or interesting enough to outweigh disliking his character.  Parrot has a more straightforward and broadly comic voice that I dealt with better, and the Dickensian adventures that shape his cynical adult personality are fun to watch unfold.

Olivier becomes funnier and more likeable towards the end (not coincidentally when his world starts cracking up a little), and downright useful in the closing passages, as Carey uses him to make the points we've been heading towards the whole way through.  The book requires quite a lot of willing suspension of disbelief, but it works (reminded me of Murder on the Orient Express - where can all these people come together but America?!), and I really enjoyed Carey's descriptive writing.

So, overall definitely positive, I guess (although it really took me 3/4 of the book to get there), but no Room, if we're ranking the nominees.

When I get annoyed with bad writing...

...my comments get briefer and snarkier.  To wit:

This one's for you, C...

Reader Reports

Jennifer Nickerson
September, 2010

[sep paragraphs refer to sep pieces]

A grotesque but compelling story of a woman anchored to her bed by a 195 lb. tumor, and what she is compelled to do when her husband and caretaker goes missing one night; this could have been – should have been – exploitative and voyeuristic, but it ended up being really rather sweet and uplifting. Needs some copy-editing, but the story is sound.

Funny, in its own grotesque way – there is an actual bearded lady. I’m honestly not sure if I “got” everything the author was aiming for (I think there might have been a layer of meaning I couldn’t quite reach), but the story is sweet, and relatable, and definitely memorable.

Nice exploration of the few minutes it takes a man to shoot some wild dogs on his property, and the lifetime of experiences that it takes to make up the way he feels in doing it.

I like the way it plays around with (dances around, maybe?) a vague Southern gothic sense (the genteel man-eaters – figurative, if not literal – of the title) but the ending bombs out quietly. I’m not sure if I either completely didn’t understand it, or understood it and just wasn’t impressed, but I don’t know if the necessary revisions would be minor enough to get past the author’s ego. Stronger in the first part of the story, then gradually slips in quality towards the end – the author starts spelling out things that don’t need to be (and shouldn’t be) spelled out.

Hits you over the head with “atmosphere” (saloon setting, saloon stock characters, saloon dialogue), but the story is interesting and engaging,.

Pretty little story about an adult woman returning to ballet; sensual, with the swish of a silken skirt and the blood and sweat dripping from toe shoes and leotards. Pretty and gritty might be a better description – the death of a dream is in the mix, too, along with all those fluids.

Quietly significant story of a new marriage tested by literally crippling disease and the struggle to build and maintain a family. Serious, but with flashes of humor, and sympathetic throughout.

Sad but pretty tale of the toll an infant’s death takes on a family.

Mildly funny with flashes of something deeper, but would need extensive pruning.

About ¼ good, ¾ pointless. The story of an wife at an excruciatingly uncomfortable business dinner could have been interesting, at least funny, and there were moments, but the boorish chauvinist character that could have been quickly and easily drawn was instead a hulking presence in nearly every other line, over-drawn well into the realm of caricature, although some of that was clearly intentional (I hope), meant to make a point.

Adventures in gentrification – nothing terribly exciting and new, but what is there is well-done. The main character is decently drawn, with believable and relatable reactions to the circumstances and events of the story.

The younger version of the characters from “I Miss My Friends,” more or less. We’ve seen it before, but the writing is decent. Something else from this author might be better.

Not entirely sure where to rank this: I liked the story (not great, but good more or less engaging) but it seemed really pretty derivative of Audrey Niffenegger’s “Her Fearful Symmetry” – the basic idea of a spirit floating around, observing her recently-deceased corpse, for sure, but also something about the tone and style. I can’t quite pin it down, but it was an immediate response, and one that makes me uncomfortable about recommending this piece too much. Maybe if the reincarnation angle were played up more it would feel different.

Decent premise and setting, but very predictable.

I can’t speak to its accuracy, but the generals are kind of funny, and ring true for a history graduate degree, certainly. The content isn’t as good as the way it’s written.

Needs to be taken apart in chunks and then pieces back together in a different order, and then it might be good.

Somewhat funny story about the desperation of suburban life – and when that desperation leads to hit men. Nothing special, but cute. Terribly boring, though; needs some clear-cutting.

Mildly amusing story about traveling by plane with babies in two. Funny, but forgettable. Semi-universal, in so far as many of us have been there or seen it, but no insights of humor that make the familiarity anything more than just that.

Utterly predictable, which might not necessarily be a bad thing, but in this case it’s also about ¾ too long, even if the grinding repetitiveness is meant to be a style.

Could have been an interesting story, but over (and none too carefully) written. Would require massive editing, and feels more like a prospective screenplay than an essay.

Boring story about two old men and their views on life, love, and literary works, that tries to hard to be something more than it is.

It’s helpful we have male authors to teach us things like all women who get divorced are castrating bitches who will continue to insist their ex-husbands are violent alcoholics even after the latter start turning their lives around. Not terrible, I guess.

Brief episode in the life of a divorcing man living on his run-down boat who learns to care because of a bird – I guess? Boring.

Trying too hard, and the “surprise” ending isn’t – but not terribly written, the author might have some promise, even if the piece doesn’t.

Should have been funny, or maybe interesting, but just dies a slow, quiet death.

Familiar and boring for the most part.

It’s hard to focus on the plot since the name of a primary character is alternately “Ray” and “Roy” throughout the nineteen pages of text. A less charitable inclined person might ask why we should bother reading the author’s story for content, since he so obviously didn’t bother to read it for typos.

Brings up lots of questions, like “is there a point in writing a story that makes pointed social commentary that has frequently been made before?” and “do characters have to have more than one dimension?”

Suggests the same questions as “[above]” but it takes on bigger issues and is even more obvious.

Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Ford Madox Ford all hanging out in France. This is a squashed fly on the wall perspective – we learn nothing and feel like we need to go find a tissue to clean up the mess.

Goes nowhere except to some strange literary graveyard where adverbs and adjectives go to die, piled up like elephant bones in sad heaps. Over-worked and over-written, with some weird affectation of writing “an” for “and” in lines of dialogue.

Sections are introduced by song quotes.

This is a introductory chapter of a non-fiction book on religion. And a bad one, at that.

The Girl Who Was So Not Disappointed

Oh.  My.  God.  Just finished Room by Emma Donoghue this second, and it was so f***ing amazing.  Touching and terrible, and sweet and sad, and funny, all at the same time.  Everything seemed just perfectly spot-on, although I don't really know how people would think if they were locked in a room by a vicious monster for years, so I could be wrong, of course.  But the emotions and ways of coping and communicating seem realistic.  I knew what the story was about before I started reading the book, so I wonder if coming into it blind would have changed the experience, but if anything, I think it would only have been even more amazing to figure out with the little boy, Jack, that there is a whole other world outside the room he has spent his whole life in.  This was the first of this year's Booker Prize contestants I've read, and I have to say, while I will be grabbing two more on my way home tonight, I can't imagine that they will be better - or, at least, that they will affect me in the same way and stay with me as long.  So amazing.

The Girl Who Was Disappointed

So, finished the third Stieg Larsson mystery the other day, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, and I have to say - I just don't get it.  The books are fine, but the world-wide frenzy for them?  Really?  And this one was probably the weakest - there wasn't even an actual mystery, really, it's just part two (the wrap-up) part, of the mysteries from The Girl Who Played With Fire.  Interesting, but not gripping.  Played is the best, in my opinion, but I really think the trilogy is actually a duo: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and then a two-volume sequel, which for some reason was published with two titles given to the two parts.  But I would not consider Kicked to have any credibility as a stand-alone, and maybe it's not supposed to be, but for something as hyped-up as this series, it should be.

But "Steig" makes me think of William Steig, author of such classics as Doctor De Soto and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, so that's good...

Obviously, I've read all three now, so I don't hate them.  I rather enjoyed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo when I first read it (was it years ago, now?) and the same for Played, but it's always been a casual kind of thing.  Certainly I waited until I could get my hands on a library copy to read Kicked - I will, and do, spend a hell of a lot of money on books, but not on this one.  Not even if the mass market paperback had come out right away, and that's saying a lot.

On the other hand, just started Room, by Emma Donoghue, this morning on the bus, and am so impressed.  I guess I "could" put it down, in so far as I had to, when my boss walked into the office, but I didn't want to - I think I actually felt a physical ache as it left my hands.  I can absolutely see why it was shortlisted for the Booker prize.

History for Non-History Majors

Came across the following short piece by Gordon Wood, recently - some nice points, and a good counterpoint to Limerick (see "Dancing with Professors" page, left):
"In Defense of Academic History Writing," The Art of History column, Perspectives On History (American Historical Association), April 2010.

I actually came across it while trying to track something down for the new page I just added to this blog, "History for Non-History Majors."  The title of the page is, of course, a reference to the chemistry-for-non-science-majors class I appreciated so much at UMass.  The professor (who looked like Alfred Hitchcock, especially in profile, as he stalked about the stage in front of the projection screen) passed around a bottle of goldschlager to illustrate the difference between a suspension and a solution and screened Simpsons clips to introduce classes on nuclear technology.  It was terribly simple, for the most part, and incredibly fun.  Along the way, I managed to learn some things.  Not a lot, but, then, I wasn't meant to.  The professor's stated goal was to have his students leave the class at the end of the semester with a more general knowledge of chemistry and science, and how it applied to our day to day lives.  For example, that we be able to come to informed decisions about the pros and cons of different energy sources, and which were best suited for our respective communities, were, say a wind farm or nuclear power plant be proposed in our home states.  Or how relatively dangerous the irradiation and chemical treatment (pesticides) of supermarket produce might be.

I think the books I will slowly be listing in the History for Non-History Majors page serve the same general function, leaving readers better informed about history than they were before they started.  And entertained, hopefully!
If any one of the small handful of you out there who read this has any suggestions, please let me know - especially since I realize what I consider 'light' and 'accessible' history might not appear the same to everyone...

The good, the bad, and the beautiful

Read & finished two more Merrily Watkins books over last week & weekend (and this week, finished the second of the two on the #1 bus this morning); I don't know why I keep reading them, exactly.  They're not terribly well written, and, beyond the basic premise, not all that original.  But I've grown fond of the characters, I guess, and they're easy to read without being too easy.  Plus, I was kind of dreading Sunday (helping my mother move out of our family home and into a new place is not exactly the weekend you dream of - and I HATE getting up before 10 on the weekend!), and they were a good distraction. 
A Crown of Lights (which I think is #3 in the series?) was really kind of silly, with a Wicca theme, but it was okay.  Some decent characters, and it does a good job of dealing with the increasing public-ness of Merrily's job.  I think the setting probably could have been played up more, and the local/cultural history, which is clearly important, but not explored as much as I would have liked.  One of the strengths of the series is the settings, so it would be nice to see more of that.  Maybe a little less of Jane, too; she is getting a little annoying, although as soon as I realized the whole white witchery crap was coming, I knew she'd be getting on my nerves.







I enjoyed The Cure of Souls - which dealt with the Roma and hop farming, among other things - more.  Lol comes into his own a bit more, which is a relief, although there's virtually no Gomer, after his being a rather important character in Crown of Lights, and that's a disappointment!  Less Jane was what I was hoping for after the last book, though, and in that, Rickman came through for me.  She figures into the plot, certainly, but it's a less prominent role than in other books, and it's a much less annoying role, thank goodness. 

I had actually started The Long Song after I finished Crown of Lights, but then picked up Cure of Souls, because it was just better suited for my mood on Saturday, and I'm glad I did.  I am eager to get back to Long Song at some point in the near future, maybe tonight, but it just wasn't what I needed to be reading then.  Funny, yes, but more serious and I was down enough to not want to deal with that - thinking, no, escapism, yes.

Was still feeling like hell Sunday night, when I unloaded on poor R when we talked on the phone, and on Monday morning...until the most gorgeous bouquet arrived from Twig, with the most perfect, simple & sweet note from R!!!  I went from being on the verge of tears Sunday night because I was sad, and scared, and stressed, to being all choked up on Monday again, but because I have such an amazing best friend, and I am so grateful to have her love and support and joyful presence in my life.  I put them right on my desk and they looked - and smelled! - absolutely beautiful...and everyone who saw them asked, and agreed that I have the greatest BFF ever :)
Of course, carrying home a vase of flowers made my grocery shopping a little harder (trying to balance the flowers in one hand while I got all the stuff out of my basket and onto the checkout conveyor belt was a challenge), but I managed it - AND then stopped off at cmark on the way home, where yet more people were awed by the lovely flowers.

Second Rounds, Part 2 and Other News

Finished Conspirata - it picked up towards the end a bit, but we'll see if I remember about the trilogy by the time the third book comes out, whenever that may be.
On a brighter note, C. listened to The Secret History of the Pink Carnation the other weekend when she had a long trip to a wedding, and is now embarked on The Deception of the Emerald Ring (and maybe, by now, The Masque of the Black Tulip).  I am pleased to report that she is feeling much better about the series now that the annoying narrator-voice is over with - and, as I assured her, Amy, from Pink, is the least appealing of all the heroines of the series, by far.

Second rounds

This was the week/end of going with the obvious answers...
Read the second Rev. Merrily Watkins book, Midwinter of the Spirit, by Phil Rickman.  Better than the one before it, but still not great.  Slower going, strangely - it dragged a bit.  In this one the experiences Merrily had in the Wine of Angels have led her to become an exorcist - the premise of the rest of the series, apparenly.  It's a little silly, but I like the idea of a modern-day exorcist bopping about rural-ish England.  Plus, the characters are appealing  - I'm growing fond enough of them to keep reading. 



The same is true of Cassandra Clark's The Red Velvet Turnshoe: not great, but I like the main character, Hildegarde, and the political and social setting is drawn well.












Almost done with the sequel to Imperium, Conspirata, by Robert Harris.  Oddly, I liked Imperium more than any of the other "firsts" in these series, but the second in the trilogy (I think it's meant to be a trilogy) is pretty damn boring, considering it should be more exciting - Cicero's consular years, the Catiline conspiracy, etc.  Weird.  Am plugging through, but actually read Velvet Turnshoe in the middle of Conspirata.  Not sure if I'll care enough to read the third when it comes out (I assume it's not out yet, since I think Conspirata came out this winter).

A Pig in Sh*t

So, I am going to be happily wallowing soon - saw Noni this weekend and she gave me a brand-new, gorgeous looking copy of The Long Song, by Andrea Levy, which I have been meaning to read for a while.  And with that in mind, when I was reading a little piece about this year's Man Booker short-list in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2010/sep/07/man-booker-prize-shortlist-2010), I started running through Hollis looking for what else is out there.  Managed to reserve the on-order copies of C (Tom McCarthy), The Finkler Question (Howard Jacobsen), and Parrot and Olivier in America (Peter Carey), which means I will have in my hot little hands 4 of the 6 nominees.  Room (Emma Donoghue) and In A Strange Room (Damon Galgut) were both checked out already, and I didn't think I should recall them...although one is due in 2 days anyhow, so maybe I should, before someone else get it...  That's probably enough to have on the shelf, thought, especially since - beyond the normal lack of space for my "to read" collection - I already today picked up Conspirata, the sequel to Imperium, and requested from deposit The Red Velvet Turnshoe (I don't even know what that is, but I like the name a lot!), the sequel to Hangman Blind.  Speaking of those two, I read both over the weekend.
Started Hangman Blind, by Cassandra Clark (can that really be her real name?  good for her if it is) after the Rickman book (hmm, should consider having some of those on hand for sick days).  I liked it, I guess.  A bit predictable, especially with the love interests, and some rather heavy-handed foreshadowing on the same for the next books (I was reading it and thinking, okay, it's like she's setting us up for fictional r&d ("revelations and developments" - yes, just coined that phrase...I think...) for another book, and then sure enough I was reading the quotes on the cover later, and one of them revealed that Hangman Blind was intended as the commencement of a series featuring the book's main character, Sister Hildegard.  Hildegard, a recent widow & nun in 1382 England is a decent character, not too prone to anachronistic independence or feminism.  And what she has of both (and I've read enough of these types of novels to know that you can't escape them in a heroine) is fairly legitimately explained by her being the widow of a rich man - thus, she has some exposure to the world, and learning, and also more freedom than as a married woman.  It's not perfect, by any means, but it works - enough so, clearly, that I'm going to read the sequel - and Clark does a nice job showing the unsettled nature of a time and place where Saxons struggle still against Norman overlords, even if the Conqueror is long since buried, and two popes vie for supremacy as Wat Tyler's followers look for a new direction, and a young king and his supporters and enemies try to rule England.
Imperium, by Robert Harris, was the next book, and it wasn't what I was expecting - in a good way.  Much less the toga-clad, murder-mystery pot-boiler I was expecting, and more a fun, super accessible tale of Cicero's rise to prominence.  I had put Imperium on the "to read" list because it's the predecessor to Conspirata which got a Select 70 mention in a Harvard Bookstore flyer this winter (I think this winter?) - and that, I thought, was a murder mystery that happened to be set in Cicero's Rome.  But this, purportedly the memoirs of Cicero's personal secretary/slave, Tiro, talks about how Cicero trained as an orator, prominent cases and speeches, and takes us from his initial entrance into Roman political life to his election as Consul in 64 BCE.  It really was quite fun - all the gossip and scandal and deal-mongering of today's elections and politics, but with togas :)  The issue of imperium in the Roman Republic could have been drawn out more, but that would have been a different book...

Brain dump

Yah...books I've read since DC -
In the Woods, Tana French -- So good
The Likeness, Tana French -- Even better
Abigail Adams, Woody Holton -- Also great
Band of Angels, Julia Gregson -- Eh
The Wine of Angels, Phil Rickman -- Better than expected, maybe even good

What was I thinking?

When I just went and bought a bag of books I have no space for in my apartment and had never heard of?  More to the point, what was I thinking last night, because that's really the root of today's stupidity...  I swung by Cmark last night for just "a drink or two" - and I was feeling pretty confident that I'd stick to that, unlike the last couple of times I ended up disappearing into that Bermuda Triangle of awesomeness for hours upon hours.  After all, I actually paced myself on Friday night, despite it being a birthday party & being out with T (who is a very bad influence and a whole lotta fun all at the same time). 
But Boston is in the middle of a heatwave (today is day 3, makes it official), and it was H-O-T last night, so I was craving something icy and refreshing, and I had a good iced tea & vodka over the weekend, so my beloved iced tea/lemonade/vodka it was...  And I loved it a half dozen times or so.  As I did beer, and wine...  As always, the company of the lovely V was too fun to walk out on, so I stayed to close, made some poor choices, and woke up still drunk.
Needless to say, when I finally got up the energy to leave my cool, quiet office to get lunch, it had to be take out from Hong Kong (what did people do when they had hangovers before American Chinese food existed?).  And I forgot to walk on the far side of the street from the Harvard Book Store, so of course I got sucked in to the used book trolleys outside. 
I ended up buying FIVE books (total was under $8, thank goodness, but the stop still almost doubled the cost of "lunch") which I deemed "engaging enough to distract me from the fact my head is still spinning a bit, but nothing I really have to concentrate on, or think about" - as I explained to the sales clerk, who probably wished she hadn't tried to make conversation about the book.
What are these bits of fluff? 
Hangman Blind, Cassandra Clark, 2008
The White Witch of Rosehall, Herbert G. de Lisser, 1958
Cane River, Lalita Tadmey, 2001 (whoops!  this might not actually be too fluffy after all...)
The Black Tower, P.D. James, 1975 (I just realized this is the second time I've picked up a P.D. James for "hangover reading" at the Harvard Bookstore, and I told the clerk then, too, why I had chosen it, and she got all snippy about how James was not trashy.)
The Wine of Angels, Phil Rickman, 1998 (holy crap, am I still drunk?  I totally thought this book had a picture of Florence on it, and it's actually a little ye-olde-Englishe town.  Goodness...that is the problem with trying to get books from the bottom shelf of a cart when bending down gives you the spins - you just grab!  But this is the one today's clerk nicely suggested I start with, given my condition, so I guess it's fine.)