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