Last bag!

Also last walk to work (well, bus stop - I DID have a huge bag of books) today from the apartment - Monday I'm moving and then Tuesday I'll be commuting to Cambridge from Brookline for the first time...


Mostly books I never get around to reading, like:

Lightning Rods - Helen DeWitt (2011)
Not sure why I have this; I read something else by the same author, I think, but if it's the book I'm thinking of, I didn't love it, so I'm not sure that I would have sought out another one.


In the Kitchen - Monica Ali (2009)
I think because Brick Lane was checked out?

The Abruzzo Trilogy - Ignazio Silone (2000)
Well, OBVIOUSLY because it's all stories set in Abruzzi[/o]! And also because it just makes me sad how little comes up when you search for books about (or in, or vaguely near) Abruzzo.

Dirty South - Ace Atkins (2004)
Heh. The title just makes me laugh. I am totally sure I grabbed this one off the shelf based on the spine along.

Leeches - David Albahari (2011)
I either read something else by Albahari and really liked it, or read something I really liked and then Albahari was mentioned either in a quote on the back or acknowledgements or something?

A Feather on the Breath of God - Sigrid Nunez (1995)
The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy (1958, 2007)
These two are both totally different, but also both kind of concerned with the whole coming-of-age / blossoming into womanhood / etc. thing. And well praised. They're also both small paperbacks and I am really tempted to hold on to them and just pack them since they wouldn't take up too much space.




And a book I read half of last Aug./Sept (I think):

Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape - Kirk Savage (2009)
I really liked this book, solid public history, but it's larger than a normal book and pretty heavy, which made it next to impossible to read in bed, and that's pretty much the only place/time I had to do any reading over the last year, so it kind of languished on the blanket chest.

And one I read half of some other time:
Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree - Tariq Ali (1992-2000: confusing)
I liked this, I'm not sure why I never finished it. I think I was always waiting until I could give it a good chunk of sober, not-exhausted time, and never found it...

More than halfway there!

Today I brought in the third of four big bags of books, huzzah! The system has gotten a bit confused, so some are books I've read and others are books I never got around to reading.


The former:
Ruth Rendell, The Saint Zita Society (2012)
Okay, but kind of boring.

Eowyn Ivey, The Snow Child (2012)
I really rather liked the writing here - calm, confident, subtle but with these glimmering lovely phrases - and the plot, about a couple in the Alaska Territory in the 1920s who find, or create from their longings and the winter itself, a little girl for them to love is original, although clearly inspired by a Russian fairy tale (from before fairy tales were so safe) that also features in the book. The characters are nicely drawn and, appropriately enough for an author from Alaska, the environment - the land and the animals and the weather and the seasons - is a remarkable character on its own. Plus, I just really like the author's name. More at: http://www.eowynivey.com/snowchild.shtml

Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died A Lot (2012)
Wicked funny; what else can I say? It wasn't the most enthralling of plots/mysteries for Thursday Next to unravel, but I feel like with this series, it's not about plot (other than the hilarious randomness of the plot, of course), but about going along for the really funny ride. And there were lots of puns and snarky little quips and in-jokes, so it was a good ride. I also LOVED the Richard Dawkins reference:

'So religion could trump science after all,' said Miles with a smile. 'That'll be a turn-up for the books.'
'Mind you,' added my father, 'at least you forced Him into revealing His existence.'
'That was unexpected,' admitted Joffrey, 'and very welcome - the billion or so former atheists now on board [with a universal-deity religion, combining all previous religions] really boosted the membership and bargaining powers.'
'Didn't Dawkins shoot himself when he found out?'
'Yes,' replied Miles sadly, 'a great shame. he would have been excellent GSD bishop material. Single minded, a good orator, and eyebrows that were pretty much perfect.' [81]

I ALSO appreciated "running is overrated anyway, and sport only makes you sweaty and smug and wears out the knees." [7]

Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home (2012)
Really well written story about a adolescent girl in the late 1980s whose world is turned down when her uncle is diagnosed with AIDS and then passes away, and as her relationship with her parents and sister falls apart as she discovers, and negotiates the existence of, her uncle's partner. Strangely lovely; the author captures the turbulence and insecurities of the protagonist's age well, and makes a series of unlikely situations and events believable and relatable. More at: http://www.randomhouse.com/book/214920/tell-the-wolves-im-home-a-novel-by-carol-rifka-brunt

Connie Ann Kirk, Emily Dickinson: A Biography (2004)
Ugh. I think I read half of this forever ago, because I felt bad I didn't know more about Dickinson, esp. as an Amherst-lover, and maybe because I was going to read a different bio or a novel about her and wanted background? In any case, I never finished it.

Charles Hill, Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order (2010)
This one was good, but I wasn't familiar with all the texts, so I kind of unintentionally gave up on the book because I wasn't getting that much from it. It's a cool idea though: http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300163865


The latter:

Amanda Eyre Ward, Close Your Eyes (2010)
A mystery of some kind?

Andrea Stuart, Showgirls (1996)
I thought this was a biography of Josephine Baker, but apparently it's about a lot of female stars, from Marlene Dietrich to Madonna. So...I might not check it back out. I thought Stuart did a good job with Josephine Bonaparte, so JB seemed like it would be interesting, but I'm not sure this is really high on my list.

GRRR

And in today's installment of "my procrastination skills are way better than my planning skills" we introduce Shopping Bag #1 of Books I Checked Out and Never Got Around to Reading's contents:

The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafron, trans. Lucia Graves (2004)
Saw it somewhere?

Some Sing, Some Cry, Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza (2010)
I think...one of the authors wrote something else I had heard good things about?

Hood, Emma Donoghue (1995)
It's the woman who wrote Room, I HAD to read her other stuff. But it's this sad-looking, beat-up library binding and never jumped off my shelf at me...

The Case of the Missing Servant: from the files of Vish Puri, India's 'Most Private Investigator', Tarquin Hall (2009)
I actually started this one, and never made it past the first few chapters. Oops.

The Birth House, Ami McKay (2006)
I think I picked this one up because I read something good about McKay's recent book, and it wasn't in the library, so I requested this one instead. Something about old-timey Canada.

Rebel Yell, Alice Randall (2009)
No clue. Maybe I just saw the title on the spine one day and thought it was funny?

The Last Brother, Nathacha Appanah, trans. Geoffrey Strachan (2010/2007 French)
No idea.

The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock (2011)
NO idea. Especially because, this sounds mean, but the author sounds like a hillbilly, so I don't really see myself being instantly captivated by the spine...

GAH

 MOVING.
It is NOT FUN.

Last night (post sitting around and then being rejected for jury duty, barely-pre the beginnings of the sore throat that was a full-blown 100 degree fever when I woke up) I was complaining to D about not knowing where to start packing (one week before move day, awesome job, self) and he said "books." Which is always the obvious answer because the things I have most of are books and clothes/shoes. However, I realized just after doing the cookbooks and food books (two HEAVY boxes of just those) that I was going to run out of boxes really quickly. So, after conferring with R, I decided to make a list of all the library books I haven't read yet, return them to the library over the course of the week, and get them back later, so I don't need to worry about moving them. There were over two grocery bags full of books I haven't read yet. Including one that I have apparently renewed five times - and it's a six month borrow. Yikes.

I also have a grocery bag full of books I've read and haven't written about, so I lugged most of them back today. Since there's no way I will have time to review them until after the move, and by then I just won't, they are, in no particular order:

Brom, The Child Thief - retelling, sort of, of Peter Pan. Surprisingly good. 2009.

Tana French, Broken Harbor - I think I recalled this from myself, whoops. Obviously great. 2012.

Oliver Potzsch, The Hangman's Daughter - okay. 2012 (English translation by Lee Chadeayne)

Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre; and Other Episodes in French Cultural History - so great. 1984. [I had flagged "The Rousseauistic readers of prerevolutionary France threw themselves into texts with a passion we can barely imagine, that is as alien to us as the lust for plunder among Norsemen" (251) and a quote from Marc Bloch "'A good historian resembles the ogre of legend. Wherever he smells human flesh, he knows that there he will find his prey.'" (263)]

Laura Miller, The Magician's Book: A Sceptic's Adventures in Narnia - really enjoyable. 2008.

Chris Adrian, The Children's Hospital - REALLY interesting / engaging / challenging. 2006.

History Through Fiction

Teaching history by using fiction (novels, plays, movies) as a means of introducing topics has always interested me; the author of this piece I stumbled across on Commonplace, Sara L. Schwebel, makes the additional point that depending on when a piece of historical fiction was written, unpacking the book (or screenplay, etc.) itself can also be a historical exercise:

Amos Fortune, Free Man - New Uses for a Children's Classic

[I also think it's interesting that I rather liked this piece, although it's not all that original or mind-blowing, and one on the study/memory of the War of 1812 in Canada in the same issue, and neither appear to have any comments - are all the historians on summer vacation???]

Also, I should probably read Amos Fortune, since I never have. And I should probably re-read The Witch of Blackbird Pond, since it's great. More to the point, both Harvard copies are checked out right now, and I really don't want to call a copy back since I a) am trying not to bring any new books into the apt right now and b) don't want to be a jerk, but I would like to read Schwebel's book, Child-Sized History: Fictions of the Past in U.S. Classrooms (2011).

Wednesday's Four!

In no particular order...

The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon's Josephine, Andrea Stuart (Macmillan, 2003)
I actually really rather enjoyed this, so I kind of wish I had written about it sooner (I think I read this a LONG time ago - late April, if my archived g-chats with my brother are correct). But I was in the midst of the Great April-May 2012 Bender (what - I was just supporting my friends!) so I suppose the fact I read it at all is pretty good. Stuart's a good writer, and I felt like I learned a lot, although I would have appreciated more context - Josephine turned out to be an interesting subject, but as a woman in a world where women's roles and rights were rapidly changing, as a creole who came to the very center of the center and then was pushed back out again, as the consort (and then discard) of one of the world's most powerful and polarizing figures, I would have loved to have heard more about what was going on around Josephine and how she, and her life, fit into that environment and were shaped by it / reflected it. I was also fairly pleased that Napoleon, not surprisingly, comes off as something of an insecure, egotistical douche, since that's always kind of how I pictured him...
[NB: I think this was published in the U.S. as Josephine: The Rose of Martinique]

*****

Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire, Flora Fraser (Knopf, 2009)
God no. To everything. I read this after Rose of Martinique, figuring I'd ease into Napoleon himself by approaching indirectly, via the women in his life, first, but this one ended my brief affair with the extended Bonaparte clan. I figured this would be something fun, I mean, the woman DID model for the Borghese Venus (which is still a gorgeous statue - seeing it in person years ago was cool), but d*mn, the woman was a whiny tramp. In all fairness, she seems to have had some really bad luck with her male companions, so maybe shopping around, while not the best idea, was understandable, but she's really not an appealing character at all, at least in Ms. Fraser's treatment, and if you come off like a childish, spoiled b*tch in your own biography, that's not good.

It also didn't help that this was a really terrible biography, totally sensationalistic and really, really speculative. I mean, I'm inclined to believe that Pauline did NOT sleep with her brother Napoleon, but I think if an author is going to bring up the subject of possible incest in a biography, she should be d*mn well prepared to take a stand, one way or the other, and back it up, not basically suggest it might well have been an issue, but that it wasn't a big one.

Referring to a possibly "more credible" rumor of incest (more credible than some others, that is), Fraser writes "The truth is, it seems almost inevitable, given the strong sex drive for which Pauline and Napoleon were both renowned, given, too, their mutual affection, their clannish affinity, that they should have experimented sexually together. Perhaps neither of them considered such sexual congress, if it took place, of great importance. Growing up in Corsica, they had been surrounded by examples of intermarriage among relations, even of technically incestuous unions such as those between uncles and nieces prohibited by the church. Marrying within the immediate community thus remained the norm on the island well into the nineteenth century."

WHAT THE WHAT???

I seriously almost thew the book across the room when I read that. So...liking sex and loving your sibling makes it "almost inevitable" that you'll end up having sex with your sibling? WHAT? And, I can't believe I'm even saying this, but there's incest and then there's incest. Uncle/niece, gross, certainly to our modern sensibilities, but not unheard of and not even close to the same as brother/sister. To say that because in Corsica people frequently married people they were related to, it wouldn't have been weird for Pauline and Napoleon to fool around, is like when people say it's less-bad if someone from the South fights dogs. Times a million. Yes, the norms you are exposed to growing up do shape what you consider "normal" or acceptable. But there are limits. In most places in the world, at most times in history (I think, I haven't exactly researched this), sex between siblings has been frowned upon. Seriously frowned upon. Fraser is stretching here, to put it kindly. Less kindly, and to quote one of the best lines from season-whatever of Pretty Little Liars, "b*tch crazy." (Seriously, the actor who plays Spencer - Troian Bellisario? - delivered that PERFECTLY).

Anyways, I really don't remember much else about the book after that point...

*****

The Lost Army of Cambyses, Paul Sussman (Thomas Dunne Books [St. Martin's Press], 2002)
A thriller, I guess you could call it? Opens with the death of a Greek mercenary in a sandstorm in ancient Egypt, then switches to a modern-day race to track down antiquities thieves and terrorists who are going to use the proceeds of a spectacular archaeological find to fund terrorism. And people fall in love. Or something like that. Predictable, the big reveal wasn't, but somewhat entertaining.  I think I had grabbed this forever ago because I liked the title, then never read it, then read it and was confused about why I had picked it up...

*****

India Black, Carol K. Carr (Berkeley Prime Crime, 2011)
Awful. I feel like I read something good about this, and requested it, and then it came and when I picked it up from the library I almost returned it because of the cheesy cover and the cheesier tagline: "A Madam of Espionage mystery." Yup. That's the series: "A Madam of Espionage." It wasn't even that terrible, I guess, it's just one of a million. Smart woman in Victorian England does her own thing (in this case, madam-ing and crime solving) despite pressure from men and The Man, there's a young, diamond-in-the-rough rapscallion to help out and be helped out, and a mildly brooding, very attractive man who eventually realizes that her independence and wits are even better than her looks. Blah.