ye olde mysteries

I might have missed a book in there somewhere, but I was back and forth to the hospital a lot last week/end, for my mom, so I didn't get a ton of reading done.
Finished Dissolution by C.J. Sansom the other day; it was a mildly fun book about a hunchbacked attorney in the days of Cromwell and Henry VIII (right after Jane Seymour died), by the name of Matthew Shardlake, who is sent by Cromwell to investigate a murder in an abbey (monastery?  I should really learn the difference, if there is one, and I think there is, as I feel rather ignorant right now) due to be shut down following Henry & Cromwell's "dissolution" (get it??) of the monasteries (and abbeys??).  Most importantly, it was a triumph for the blog system.  I came across the book somewhere, noted the title in the blog, and eventually checked it out of the library and read it.  Score!
Characters were decent, and while the plot was fairly straightforward, and the twists predictable, it suited the mood/energy level I was dealing with, and I enjoyed it.  Enjoyed it enough to pick up the sequel Dark Fire yesterday, in any case.  In this one Shardlake returns to solve a murder AND an unrelated case of some Greek Fire (and re-discovered formula) going missing in London.  Except I would bet money they will turn out to be related, but whatever.
OH, right.  Predictable.  After Dissolution (or before?  I'm confused now), I read the latest "Mistress of the Art of Death" book by Ariana Franklin, A Murderous Procession.  It was good, but nothing special.  I keep thinking the first one (Mistress of the Art of Death) was really good, and the second one was pretty good, and the third one was kinda crappy...I would say this one was decent?  At this point, as I discussed with my mom (who borrowed and read the first two from me, and gave back the third half done) the other day (Noni brought this latest one for me when we were all at the hospital for mom's surgery), I am reading them because I have become fond of the characters, not because the plot is so great.  And the writing would be okay EXCEPT FOR WHEN SHE TRIES TO INTRODUCE A SECOND, SCARY/CRAZY BAD-GUY VOICE.  Yuck.  So bad.  STOP.  Oh well.  Could have been worse.  Turns out C read Mistress at the beginning of the month, so if I can actually get places on time I will meet up with her and loan her the rest, so we'll see what she thinks.

it's been a week?

I could have sworn I wrote about the last Maisie Dobbs book I read last week - in any case, as expected, The Mapping of Love and Death, by Jacqueline Winspear, was quite enjoyable.  However, as I was reading this, the seventh book in the Maisie Dobbs series, I realized that I had not read the 6th, Among the Mad.  I know that I meant to, and, honestly, I would have sworn that I had read all the ones that have been published since I first discovered the series.  In fact, now that I consider it, I think I saw Among the Mad at Harvard Bookstore, then went and did a little digging, discovered it was the sixth in the series, and got the others out of the library.  So maybe I got distracted?  Still and all, the title seemed so familiar.  But the events that were referred to in Mapping were not familiar, and it was clear there was a gap between where I was in Maisie's & her companions' stories, and where Mapping picked up.  In any case, I have now checked Among the Mad out of the library, and I am sure I will be able to enjoy it despite knowing some of the major developments now.

But, as I was saying, Mapping of Love and Death was good.  Not the best as far as mysteries, but Winspear draws her characters and settings so well, it's just nice to escape into that world for a while.  I could use a place to escape to this week, so I am pleased to have Among the Mad at home.  Mapping did seem different from the other books in the series, though, in that there wasn't the usual setting out of Maisie's backstory (how she came to be a lady detective-cum-...psychologist?).  It was nice for me, because having read five other books about her, I didn't need the history lesson; that said, particularly given some of the circumstances of this story, I think that a reader new to the series would be a bit confused as to just what Maisie Dobbs does/is, how she got to be that way, and what some of the relationships between characters are all about.

After Mapping I read Jennifer Lee Carrell's Haunt Me Still - and, honestly, not sure I wish I had.  I really, really enjoyed Carrell's first book, The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling the Smallpox Epidemic, which I picked up from a  bargain bin at the COOP one day.  Now, that book, about the efforts to introduce "variolation" (inoculation - I think, sometimes I get inoculation and vaccination confused, but I THINK inoculation is giving a little bit of the smallpox virus, so you don't get full-blown smallpox, and vaccination is using the cowpox [cow/vacc-] virus as figured out by Jenner and then Pasteur) that were simultaneously undertaken in England by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (such a great character) and in Boston by Zabdiel Boylston, in the early 18th century, is fantastic.  I mean - really, really fun to read and super informative.  Now, in the end papers to Haunt Me Still, Speckled Monster is described as "a work of historical nonfiction" and that is absolute bullsh*t.  It's totally a novel - JLC follows Montagu and Boylston about their day-to-day lives and imagines feelings and conversations - but it is a great novel jam-packed with historical fact and "local color," as it were.  After reading it, I was excited to discover Interred with Their Bones, her novel featuring a Shakespeare scholar-cum-theater director [I am using cum a lot today, weird.] where there are lost manuscripts and murders and she goes racing around Widener to escape a killer!!!  Except it kinda sucked.  Not at all gripping, the bad guy turns out to be exactly who you thought all along, and it's just ludicrously improbable.  I mean, there is only so much disbelief I can willingly suspend.  At least, for that calibre of writing; maybe the same plot in another author's hands would be more compelling.  But she wrote one wicked awesome book, and has a great first name :) so I gave her another chance and grabbed Haunt Me Still from the library.  I...I don't even know.  Honestly, I am not even sure that the whole story makes sense to me, now that I've read it, and it could be that I'm just not smart enough, or was just missing something, in part because I read the second half after getting a bunch of bad news, and my concentration was completely shot, but I think the plot just didn't really hang together if you examine it at all closely.  Suffice it to say the Scottish Play turns out to be an actual guide to a black magic rite involving bloody (and bloody) sacrifice...oh, and let's throw John Dee in there too.  Okay.  Yeah.

Additionally, T(2) send me a link to a Boston Globe Magazine article, an excerpt from that new Emily Dickinson biography, so that reminded me I wanted to read it.  First, though, I should finish the book about the Pilgrims I started over the weekend.  Definitely not easy / escapist enough for me right now, though, so it will have to wait.  In the meantime, just started Dissolution by C. J. Sansom, which I think I saw / came across a reference to somewhere and wanted to read - and, because I then said that in this blog, I remembered!  And was able to track it down!  Honestly, I'm only a few pages in, but I'm not so sure it would have been a terrible thing if I had forgotten about it, but I am sure it'll be an acceptable time while-away-er (whiler away?).  It's a mystery set during Tom Cromwell's abbey-dissolving days under Henry VIII, featuring a hunchback, Protestant, lawyer-cum-detective [okay, that cum I put in just because I could - but, still, it works].

more stuff I read on the bus

Last week I loaded up on books for the trip to (Thursday) and from (Sunday) NYC to visit CS, S, and R.  I had two paperbacks in my purse for the trip there, and two in the suitcase for the way back, since last time I only figured a book per trip and was stuck staring out the window most of the way, both ways. 
What I did not take into account was that I would be out drinking until almost 2 Wednesday night/Thursday morning, then packing until after 3, and then getting up at 6:30 a.m. after some three hours of sleep.  My head was spinning in the shower (seriously, why do I think tequila shots on a weeknight are a good idea?), but I got myself to South Station by 8, for my 8:30 bus, and promptly curled up in the corner and tried to sleep.  I never quite fell asleep, but I rested as much as possible which meant I only got through half of the first book I brought with me (and intended to leave with R), The Accidental Mother by Rowan Coleman.  It was actually surprisingly enjoyable, although wicked, wicked predictable.  But it was sweet, and funny at times, and Coleman does a nice job with the characters of the children (3 and 6 year old girls).  There was more heft to the book than there could have been, and it passed the time well, although I think the second half was stronger than the first.  Although that could also have been because I was really resenting being awake when I first started - I was exhausted and dehydrated and queasy, and definitely more than a bit pissy and ready to see / find any flaw in the story, characters, or writing.  For a book I really thought was kind of dumb at first (I only bought it because it was on sale for under $5 at Barnes and Noble, and I figured it would be fluff for the ride), I might look for the sequel (The Accidental Family), and see what happens to the characters.



I will not, on the other hand, be looking for the "sequel" to the book I started on the ride home on Sunday, after I finished The Accidental Mother.  At some point this spring, I must have seen or heard of the book A Corpse at St. Andrews (or, apparently, A Corpse at St. Andrew's Chapel - not a good sign I just read the book and don't know the name), because I found it scribbled on a scrap of paper.  It turns out that it's actually "the second chronicle of Hugh de Singleton, surgeon" and I went looking to see if the first book in the series was available used at the Harvard Bookstore on Wednesday, before I left, so I could read them in order.  I am so glad they didn't have it, because it would have been a waste of money.  Corpse wasn't awful, but I certainly didn't feel like I was missing anything by not having read the first book, and that's despite the fact that the author, Mel Starr, has a really annoying habit of making what are no doubt meant to be tantalizing references to past and future events & escapades in the main character's life, which read like blatant inducements to buy the other books.  The actual story was serviceable, but nothing about the writing or characters made me want to read anything else in the series, or by the author.  There was even a teaser chapter for the next book, and I didn't even bother to read it...just skipped straight on the the newest Maisie Dobbs book I finally got (long line of requests ahead of and after me, so I need to get cracking on it), yay!

random update

Was perusing Barnes & Noble's website just now, came across The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton; I really enjoyed that, and The House at Riverton, both of which I read before I started this blog (I assume, because I just searched for Morton and didn't come up with anything).  Anyhow.  An author to keep an eye on.  Forgotten Garden weaves in the Secret Garden, so how can you go wrong??  Okay, well, you could, you could go really wrong, and I would be incandescent with rage because I love that book, but this was more about Burnett, not Mary, et al., so it worked.  It was subtle, and felt respectful, not gratuitous or like the author was trying to profit from Burnett's work/following in any way.   Riverton, which I believe was her first novel, and had another title outside the U.S., was not quite as strong, but still very good.  Morton does a nice job with the tensions between social classes and age groups, and her prose is quite nice, too, so the books are more substantial than they might seem.  These would be totally fine for a plane, train, or automobile ride, but still smart and thought-provoking. 
Oh, and, this blog totally is worth it, because by checking on the dates of publication, I just saw that she has another book coming out in November - which I will totally keep an eye out for, now that I don't need to worry about writing the date and title down on a scrap of paper I will never see again...

Addition: not as good, but great beach/travel reading and worth keeping an eye out for more: Christi Phillips.  She wrote The Rossetti Letter and then The Devlin Diary, a series featuring a young female historian - diff. time/place than Willig, and darker, but same general "let's have an attractive historian researching the past and trace mysteries in two time periods" thing.  What can I say - improbable semi-romances that develop in archives appeal to me :)  In any case, don't think/know that Phillips has anything in the chute at the moment, but I'll add her name here so at some point when I search "books I want to read" it will come up and prompt me to check occasionally.

More updates

This blog is rapidly getting more and more boring, but that's fine.  The important thing is when I recommended a book to C. last week, and wanted to double-check the author's name, it was super easy!
Finished East of the Sun by Julia Gregson this weekend (last week?  Not sure).  It was okay, nothing special.  But decent enough that when I was digging around for books for this week/end's bus trips yesterday at Barnes & Noble I grabbed some book about a nurse in the Crimea (no, not THAT nurse in the Crimea) by her.  So, we'll see - it was a paperback, and I had a coupon, and I bet it'll be better than the other books I picked up for the rides (I think there is generally a reason things end up with a $4.98 sticker).  

Saturday-Sunday I read The Miracles of Prato by  Laurie Albanese and Laura Morowitz: similar in as much as the story moves along, but definitely nothing special.  The writing was a little frustrating as there were times when random words were thrown in that I think were just meant to add some historical verisimilitude (I think one of the authors is a novelist, and one is some sort of non-fiction person, so I think it was just too much "local" color).  Story's about Fra Filippo Lippi and how he falls for a novitiate posing for him - entertaining, but a bit overwrought.

Weekend update

Am so far behind on my "book reports" - 1) Haunting Bombay, by Shilpa Agarwal, was really quite good.  A little uneven; parts were fantastic, parts not so much - the big surprises were not really that surprising, and the author and/or editors seem to not be quite sure what to do with the "Indian" stuff - ie, which words are italicized, which not, which need to be explained, which not, and that can get a little bumpy.  Ha - they did NOT choose to translate "benchot," but now I know how to spell my favorite Hindi swear, good times.  Over all, I really liked it, though, and I would definitely recommend it (with reservations, to the right people) and look for other books by the same author.  OH MY GOD, MIGHT TAKE THAT BACK.  Just googled Agarwal, and went to her website to see if she had any other books - and there is a TRAILER for the NOVEL.  WTF?  It is the most cheesy, ridiculous thing I have ever seen - ye olde exotic India.  Bah.  But...the book was good, so I guess I should let it go.  There's a reading guide on the website (haven't looked at it), but I think that makes sense - as I read the book I was thinking this would be a good novel for a book club to take on, because there's lots of room for interpretation and debate.  
After Haunting Bombay I read The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti which I just loved, loved,  loved.  I finished it on the T, and I was trying to hard not to cry at points, and not many books make me tear up, but it was touching and sweet, along with moments of finely delineated cruelty and ugliness and more than a few hilarious lines and scenes.  There were also a few words I had to go and look up, which I always appreciate in a book.  My only issue with the book was that I was never totally clear on when in time it was happening; I was thinking early nineteenth century at first, but then I was thinking maybe just before the Civil War?  A copy of James Fennimore Cooper's The Deerslayer plays a role in the book, and when I checked on the publication date, I knew we had to be talking post-1841.  Additionally, there was a lot of talk of older orphan boys being drafted into the army - but there was no mention of the war (that I recall), and they seem to have been mostly used out in the West, so maybe the Mexican-American War (late 1840s)?  That might make sense: the army needed free boys, but wasn't drafting - because there were all sorts of men wandering aimlessly around, so it DEFINITELY wasn't during the Civil War.  Ultimately it didn't really matter to me that I didn't have a firm idea of "when" we were in time, with the story,  but it was a minor, nagging issue.  Oddly enough, I am experiencing the same unsettlement with the book I'm reading right now, East of the Sun (or something like that), which is about English girls in India in the late 1940s (or 50s?), but the whole thing where the random white girls are swanning around being all memsahib-y while their husbands play polo with their regiments through simmering unrest is so totally classic English-in-India that it could be the 1840s or 50s and I keep forgetting when, exactly, we're supposed to be, until there's a mention of, say, Gandhi, rather than the sepoys.  In any case, more about that book later, when I have finished it.  Finally, we have
Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered, Smart-Ass, or why you should never carry  Prada Bag to the unemployment office, by Jen Lancaster.  I am not sure now, but I think I requested this book from deposit after reading that Lauren Willig was reading/liked it (or the author?), figuring that since I like LW's books, I might like what she likes.  That said, at first I HATED it.  I mean, seriously, Lancaster comes across as a raging b*tch, for real.  And I know that "raging b*tch" is a way over-used phrase, but "shrieking, insensitive, self-centered harpy" doesn't begin to describe it.  I almost put the book down after the first few pages because I hated the narrator so much, but I was stuck on the T (it didn't help that I was still trying to blink away tears from finishing The Good Thief) so I kept reading.  And I guess I'm glad I did.  Lancaster is definitely funny, and sloooooowly some evidence of nice character traits started to emerge.  The book is a memoir of sorts that takes us through Lancaster being laid off, and her increasingly desperate search for work, including the blog she starts chronicling her life, the job hunt, and the job rejections and pitfalls.  And the time she brought the Prada bag to the unemployment office.  Eventually the blog gets her noticed by a literary agent, and she gets a book deal (for Bitter), but not before hitting some really rough times with her boyfriend/husband.  It's a pretty predictable progression - she gets nicer as life gets harder - but it works.  I think we were supposed to find her initial horridness funny, but it was just too over the top for me (honestly, I was baffled for most of the book by why her boyfriend was even with her), but by the second half of the book I was laughing more, maybe because then she seemed more like a real person and less like a caricature.  Finished the book Friday night (3-4 days ago), and not sure how I feel.  Liked parts, hated parts, not sure if I loved any parts.  Don't feel like it was a waste of time, but not sure if I would read more by her...maybe.  Jury's out.