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.