late might not be better than ever

But in any case,  a while ago I read Cereus Blooms at Night, by Shani Mootoo; enjoyed the story & characters quite a bit (imaginative and unique, but believably familiar at the same time, if that makes sense.  The dialogue irritated me, though - literally, almost, in so far as it didn't make me angry as much as it sort of chafed at my brain and mental ear...  Mootoo, who I think is from Trinidad (already returned the book, and am too lazy to look it up) & sets the story in a imaginary West Indian place, attempts to replicate a...general West Indian patois?  I have no idea if it's even authentic or not, but it comes and goes willy-nilly, and when it comes, it feels forces.  Perhaps if it had been more consistent it wouldn't have bugged me so much, but it just didn't seem like it fit.  The post-colonial and gender/sexual identity issues, on the other hand, were handled lightly and gracefully, and were an absolute delight.  I see now that she has some other books, and I think I would definitely read one or more of them...
I would also maybe read more by Claire Harman, author of Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World - a bit on the light side, to be sure, but interesting.  Harman traces Austen's early writing and publishing attempts, and how her cult was slowly (well, in fits and starts, some very, very fast) grown over the years.  Very chatty tone; I think I would have preferred something a bit more scholarly, but it worked well for pre-bed reading.  Another small complaint would be that she references a lot of images not all of which are reproduced in the book, so some of them are kind of hard to picture, but I suppose there may have been prohibitive costs associated with some of the images.  My fingers are too cold to type more about it, but it was fun, in any case - and gratifying to know how many super smart people think she's nifty...
Additionally, I finally learned more about the most deliciously "cheeky experiment" (thank you, Guardian, that wouldn't get said in an American paper), in which someone tried to get only barely-disguised versions of Austen's books published, and was rather soundly rejected: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jul/19/books.booksnews.  I HAVE to think that a lot of the rejections were because the books were so obviously Austen's classics, even if the letters didn't say so - one imagines the manuscript was picked up, a page or two was read, and it was immediately dumped in the "no way in Hell pile" where it was later picked up by another person entirely, who wrote a bland rejection letter without reading the mss.  At least, I hope that's what happened!

Also fun (for me, anyhow), but MUCH more scholarly was Susan Hardman Moore's Pilgrims: New World Settlers and the Call of Home, which I've been wanting to read for a while, and then had to read for work, so that worked out.  Really interesting book about the Puritans (and others) who went to Massachusetts / New England in the 1630s and 40s and then ended up going back to England.  The strength of the book definitely lies in her case studies, where she follows the lives of individuals who came over and then returned.  She's weaker on the math: there aren't all that many numbers, and the ones she has start to fall apart a little when you get into how she arrived at them.  Still, excellent work for what it is, if not what it aims to be.

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.

Yay, Marla!

Firstly - finished the latest Inspector Lynley novel last night, will talk about it later (and then give it to Mom as a Mother's Day "gift" because I not the awesomest daughter ever - but I am going home a day early to keep her company, and running to the train after work, with just the briefest stop to pack, so I don't have time to buy something new, as planned!).

More importantly, there's a review by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in the New York Times Sunday book review of Marla Miller's new book, Betsy Ross and the Making of America!  I'm so excited; I've been waiting for her to get that project into print since I was in grad school.  She was such a great teacher, and I loved The Needles Eye, so I'm as excited for her as I am excited to read it.  Not sure how I feel about the review, though.  On one hand, I think it's mostly positive, but Ulrich gets a little snippy towards the latter half, and suggests that Marla got carried away with the whole mystique of the thing.  I will need to read the book for myself of course, and certainly I have no doubt that Marla was mad enthusiastic about (and maybe even somewhat affectionate towards) Ross, but I suspect she didn't go overboard.  And some of it may be Ulrich, too.  She totally has her own slant towards women's history / material culture, etc., and it's not always quite in synch with Marla's, so I wonder if this is just a case of the classic academic "it's not what *I* would have written, so I think you're wrong / I'm going to criticize you" situation.  That said, I am super happy for Marla that the Times chose Ulrich to do the review, because just the name alone lends a certain gravitas to the review and, by extension, Betsy Ross.  Hmm.  Okay, just re-read the review.  And there are some nice bits.  But it's def a little snarky, and I am getting defensive, so before *I* start letting my own ax-grinding needs take over my assessment, I will stop :)

update

Just realized I had a half-way through critique of Changeless; it actually grew on me by the end.

More importantly, there are reviews of Soundings in Atlantic History out!!!  Best one is probably the piece by Peter Coclanis in the April, 2010 American Historical Review.  Full text at
http://betterlivingthroughhistory.blogspot.com/ - check it out!