The library has recalled TWO books I was in the middle of & now I have to return both As If An Enemy's Country, by Richard Archer, and also The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, by Jack Weatherford. I was enjoying both and am wicked sad. But apparently Widener has wanted the latter back for a while, and now wants a "replacement" fee, so I didn't really have a choice. Yet more overdue fines to ignore, oh well. But I only have a week to do the revision of my paper, starting when I get the comments back tonight, so I guess fewer distractions are for the best.
In other sad news, my baby brother just found out that thanks to his wicked low housing lottery number, he's going to be living in Sylvan next year, barring some miracle. I actually tried to make him feel better by pointing out that "at least" he "will only be a rape trail away from" his friends. Which came out wrong, needless to say. Then I suggested maybe he try to split up two friends who were planning on living together in Grayson (where he wants to be for some reason - go O-Hill!), and swoop in and take their room; my great plan was to find two girls, tell each one that the other said she was a fat sl*t, and then wait for the fight to start. Which didn't just come out wrong, but actually is wrong. My final recommendation was to emulate our third, imaginary brother, who M & I told N lived under the stairs (and N was younger by enough years to believe us), and just squat in Grayson until he gets a room. Clearly, it was time for lunch. Am feeling much less evil-mastermind-y now that I've eaten.
Showing posts with label Richard Archer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard Archer. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
procraaaaaaaaaaaastination
I should be revising my essay for class right now. Or doing my taxes. Or doing my dishes.
So, I will chat about the books I am reading right now.
Currently working on four books:
Started Portrait of an Unknown Woman earlier this week. Moving through it slowly, in bits and pieces, maybe about ten to fifteen minutes a night. It's enjoy it, and I think if I just took it and sat down to read I'd get drawn in, but it's not grabbing me all that much. So far, it's a little predictable - smart chick, who trusts women's/folk medicine, but loves a man who is a formally trained doctor (ie, thinks Galen is a god and bleeding people is good medicine), conflicted feelings about her stepfather, More, as he's getting more and more crazy religious, etc. Probably going to be some kind of crisis where she will need to stand up for herself, blah blah blah. I don't know. I thought I liked it, but the more I think about it, the less impressed I am. Just seems, I don't know, really familiar somehow. The silk merchant one was better. But I am really not all that far in, so I will reserve judgement. Not a great sign, though, that I can put it down so easily.
What I did not want to put down, on the other hand, and was very sad to find I had left at the office Tuesday, and happy to get back today, however, was the Medical Detectives book. Yay! Really, the more I read of it, and the more I thought about it even when I wasn't reading the book, I was just so impressed with the quality of Roueche's writing. It's erudite without being pedantic - an expansive vocabulary, that is mildly impressive, but not in a way that it forces itself on your attention - and he has this gift for telling a story succinctly, and moving the narrative along, but still weaving in little asides and not-super-critical moments that are great and don't disrupt the flow of the story. Roueche is also really good at letting the "characters" in his stories tell their own with minimal authorial mucking around on his point. Clearly he is writing and editing the pieces in a way that emphasizes the personalities and creates characters out of actual people, but it doesn't feel artificial or forced. You read the stories and half the time you don't even think about the fact that someone wrote it - wrote, edited, re-wrote, cut and added bits - and that its not just a depiction of exactly what happened. And then you realize the fact you didn't even really notice the author is a sign of just how impressive a writer the author is...Stephanie Barron (if that is her real name, not sure, I think maybe it's a pen name?) is kind of awesome. I seem to recall having mixed feelings about A Flaw in the Blood
(her last book about...um, something...about hemophilia and...murder? scandal? whatever), but I think I enjoyed it at the time, but I have loved the Jane Austen mysteries
she has written since I read the first one years ago - have gobbled them up - and I started The White Garden
today, and digging it. Whoops. Inadvertent and terrible pun. But it's true, so I'm leaving it in. I only took it with me this morning because the two books I was reading at the apartment were too heavy to lug around, and the Roueche was at Harvard, and I knew I might want something to read while I waited for the bus to Cambridge. Really pleased, though - considering I only brought it because it is a slim-ish paperback, I was well-rewarded. Took me a little while to get the rhythm of the writing and story, but once I did, I got caught right up in the story - the two stories, actually. It's one of those tale-in-a-tales, with an unlikely duo (because when are they ever likely) who I assume are going to bone (shout out to L, even though she doesn't read this, but if she had actually come out tonight, I would be out drinking right now, not home putting off my homework) at some point, tracing a historically important manuscript...the story of which is also unfolding. It's not high art or anything, but fun, and definitely coming from a smart person, even if it doesn't require much in the way of brainpower on the part of the reader. But it actually makes me want to read more about the Bloosmbury crew, so if it leads to some smartening, that's a good thing.
And smartening brings us to our fourth and final contestant for my attention of the evening,
Richard Archer's As If an Enemy's Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution. I've been reading a little bit before bed at night, and I am liking it so far, but I have a few reservations. I think Archer is a good writer, and the history here seems solid, but I don't know...I think maybe the editing is a bit spotty? There's something about it just feels a little off, a little rough. God. Even I can't believe I am complaining about the quality of editing in a published book, when I should be doing a much-needed revision of my own work. Or taxes. Or dishes :) Anyhow, I'd better head to bed, it's getting on towards midnight, so better I call this night a wash, and get up early (hey, there's always a first time) to do some writing...
So, I will chat about the books I am reading right now.
Currently working on four books:
Started Portrait of an Unknown Woman earlier this week. Moving through it slowly, in bits and pieces, maybe about ten to fifteen minutes a night. It's enjoy it, and I think if I just took it and sat down to read I'd get drawn in, but it's not grabbing me all that much. So far, it's a little predictable - smart chick, who trusts women's/folk medicine, but loves a man who is a formally trained doctor (ie, thinks Galen is a god and bleeding people is good medicine), conflicted feelings about her stepfather, More, as he's getting more and more crazy religious, etc. Probably going to be some kind of crisis where she will need to stand up for herself, blah blah blah. I don't know. I thought I liked it, but the more I think about it, the less impressed I am. Just seems, I don't know, really familiar somehow. The silk merchant one was better. But I am really not all that far in, so I will reserve judgement. Not a great sign, though, that I can put it down so easily.
What I did not want to put down, on the other hand, and was very sad to find I had left at the office Tuesday, and happy to get back today, however, was the Medical Detectives book. Yay! Really, the more I read of it, and the more I thought about it even when I wasn't reading the book, I was just so impressed with the quality of Roueche's writing. It's erudite without being pedantic - an expansive vocabulary, that is mildly impressive, but not in a way that it forces itself on your attention - and he has this gift for telling a story succinctly, and moving the narrative along, but still weaving in little asides and not-super-critical moments that are great and don't disrupt the flow of the story. Roueche is also really good at letting the "characters" in his stories tell their own with minimal authorial mucking around on his point. Clearly he is writing and editing the pieces in a way that emphasizes the personalities and creates characters out of actual people, but it doesn't feel artificial or forced. You read the stories and half the time you don't even think about the fact that someone wrote it - wrote, edited, re-wrote, cut and added bits - and that its not just a depiction of exactly what happened. And then you realize the fact you didn't even really notice the author is a sign of just how impressive a writer the author is...Stephanie Barron (if that is her real name, not sure, I think maybe it's a pen name?) is kind of awesome. I seem to recall having mixed feelings about A Flaw in the Blood
(her last book about...um, something...about hemophilia and...murder? scandal? whatever), but I think I enjoyed it at the time, but I have loved the Jane Austen mysteries she has written since I read the first one years ago - have gobbled them up - and I started The White Garden today, and digging it. Whoops. Inadvertent and terrible pun. But it's true, so I'm leaving it in. I only took it with me this morning because the two books I was reading at the apartment were too heavy to lug around, and the Roueche was at Harvard, and I knew I might want something to read while I waited for the bus to Cambridge. Really pleased, though - considering I only brought it because it is a slim-ish paperback, I was well-rewarded. Took me a little while to get the rhythm of the writing and story, but once I did, I got caught right up in the story - the two stories, actually. It's one of those tale-in-a-tales, with an unlikely duo (because when are they ever likely) who I assume are going to bone (shout out to L, even though she doesn't read this, but if she had actually come out tonight, I would be out drinking right now, not home putting off my homework) at some point, tracing a historically important manuscript...the story of which is also unfolding. It's not high art or anything, but fun, and definitely coming from a smart person, even if it doesn't require much in the way of brainpower on the part of the reader. But it actually makes me want to read more about the Bloosmbury crew, so if it leads to some smartening, that's a good thing. And smartening brings us to our fourth and final contestant for my attention of the evening,
Richard Archer's As If an Enemy's Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution. I've been reading a little bit before bed at night, and I am liking it so far, but I have a few reservations. I think Archer is a good writer, and the history here seems solid, but I don't know...I think maybe the editing is a bit spotty? There's something about it just feels a little off, a little rough. God. Even I can't believe I am complaining about the quality of editing in a published book, when I should be doing a much-needed revision of my own work. Or taxes. Or dishes :) Anyhow, I'd better head to bed, it's getting on towards midnight, so better I call this night a wash, and get up early (hey, there's always a first time) to do some writing...
Friday, March 26, 2010
Correction
Said on Wednesday that I had "tried" to read the third Sebastian St. Cyr mystery, but it turns out I actually did, in fact, read Why Mermaids Sing, by C.S. Harris, from cover to cover. I was totally confused for a second because it was on my "read, now I need to find somewhere for them to live" shelf, instead of my "waiting to read" or my "started, moved on to something else, will come back to it" shelves, but then I flipped to a random page in the middle, and realized I not only knew the story, but knew how it ended. So, clearly not the most life-changing of books, but I do think I enjoyed reading it in a desultory, casual way. And I will almost certainly read whatever the next book is in the series, at some point. Although not because I am dying to figure out what is going on with the main character's personal life, the amazing tribulations, twists, and turns of which have actually been disappointingly predictable. And when unintentional incest and maybe dead / maybe not dead people are predictable, and it's not a soap opera, that's pretty sad. But now I am thinking I am totally going to spend some time this weekend watching General Hospital, instead of doing my essays, homework, or taxes, yay! Of course, I also have a gajillion books apparently waiting for me to be picked up from Widener and the BPL, plus the random ones I've been picking up recently, so I should really focus on my fun reading, at the very minimum - someone's recalled Wench, from me & it's due 4/1 now, so that at least has to be read! Don't even remember what it's about, but the title still makes me giggle, so I am looking forward to it. Should be finishing up the P.D. James I got the other day, Innocent Blood
, some time this evening, given that I have some extra time on the bus getting to and from my electrolysis appointment. Not looking forward to that, but am just going to try and lay back and think of England...er, hairless armpits. As If An Enemy's Country
is also waiting for me to pick it up, but I think that I will be in too much pain to focus on that, so James it is...and then Wench
! Hehehe. Yep, makes me laugh every time - God help me if it ends up being some super serious book.
, some time this evening, given that I have some extra time on the bus getting to and from my electrolysis appointment. Not looking forward to that, but am just going to try and lay back and think of England...er, hairless armpits. As If An Enemy's Country is also waiting for me to pick it up, but I think that I will be in too much pain to focus on that, so James it is...and then Wench! Hehehe. Yep, makes me laugh every time - God help me if it ends up being some super serious book.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Patience, thy name is sure as hell not mine...
The library STILL hasn't ordered the new Richard Archer book, As If An Enemy's Country, so I went ahead and requested it, so hopefully whoever is in charge of ordering history books will get right on that. In the process of checking the ISBN number for Enemy's Country, for the request form, I saw on the book's Amazon page that Jack Rakove's latest, Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America, is coming out on May 11; will definitely need to keep that one in mind as well. Can't wait for either!!!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
More books I should read...
Was on my way to get lunch today when A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game, by Jenny Uglow, caught my eye - and not just because of the author's name! Honestly, it was mostly that the title amused me, and I am sure if the book had had a different title or cover I might not have even stopped to look at it (the Restoration has never been a hugely favorite period of mine), but I did stop, and I think I will need to add it to my list of books to read... Definitely a library book, though; it's been out since November of 2009, so there's no reason why it shouldn't be in the Harvard libraries somewhere, and it's definitely far enough from my fields that it's not worth paying for. I still have my eye on that pre-Revolutionary Boston book by Richard Archer, though! And that could be worth buying...but probably not only a month out, though - I should at least wait until I can get it cheaper, if not for it to be in paperback. But library would be best; it's still not in Hollis, but hopefully soon, or I will request it - if I don't give in and buy it first!
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