Two down, one up, three to go

Current book count: three.  I finished The White Garden and Portrait of an Unknown Woman over the week/end (respectively), but started Changeless last night.
Pretty not overwhelmed so far (I really have issues with the whole "underwhelmed" thing).  I remember really enjoying the first book in the series - "The Parasol Protectorate" - not loving it, but enjoying it.  It was funny, and entertaining, with some funny parts and something of a mystery...I think.  Actually, now that I am trying to remember what I liked about it, I can't come up with anything that specific.  I think I thought the main character was interesting, but looking back, she is maybe kinda totally pedictable and feels very familiar (even including the whole "no soul" thing).  And it's not like vampires and werewolves are exactly thin on the ground in popular literature these days...and it's very barely steamy, or punky, for that matter.  Seriously - do people just like using the word "dirigible" and figure if they put it in a book that makes it steam punk?  Not that it isn't a super fantastic word.  If I ever write a book I will definitely try to fit it in.  Not that I think that's ever going to happen, since I am writing about other people's books right now - and ones that aren't that great maybe - instead of working on my essay revision, which actually kinda matters.  Hmm.  And I am not sure I even know exactly what steam punk is, but it seems like it should be a little cooler, or at least a little less predictable.  But I DID really like Gail Carriger's story at the time...when I was on pain medication.  Hmm.  Well, we'll see.  I shouldn't go back to reading it, really, until I finish the revision (but I DID finish my taxes Friday - gah, seriously, I owe the feds $666?!  Number of the devil indeed - and last night was a total bust, so I needed something to do), but I'll keep an open mind.

Glad I did the same for Vanora Bennett's Portrait of an Unknown Woman; I ended up enjoying it quite a bit - and I now totally want to go learn more about Hans Holbein, so score on that account!  I was just about to write that it took me a while to get into Portrait, but that's not really accurate.  I never really "got into" it: I read the whole book (and it's a fairly fat book) a few pages at a time.  But I came back to it each time mildly eager to read more.  It was quietly compelling, if that makes sense.  And Bennett ended up moving past what I thought was supposed to be the big surprise (and wasn't) in another direction, which I liked.  Nothing big, nothing exciting, just small changes and events that are very significant in the lives of the people they happen to, mirroring the monumental events that surround them.  According to a note at the end of the book the story was initally inspired by the Holbein interpretations on the website of some guy named Jack Leslau (http://www.holbeinartworks.org/) which I definitely want to check out now, after reading Bennett's explanation of all the hidden meanings in a few of Holbein's works & how they were inspired by his dealings with the More family.  The inside cover of Portrait has a copy of a Holbein of the More family which I kept flipping to as I read the book, and I never even check maps in books (which is bad, since I bet I would get a lot more out of some stories if I actually understood what was going on in the way the author wants me to).  Would have been nice if I had known that the portrait the author is describing for most of the book is not the one that's printed - I was getting wicked confused.  I also want to try a biography of Thomas More again - Bennett has a bibliography in the back I might mine...including one by Peter Ackroyd, and I have enjoyed his novels, so I would give a nonfiction of his a shot.  Shoot.  Unless the Ackroyd is a novel??  Because she has Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time listed under "On Richard III and the Plantagenets" - great mystery story, but most definitely a novel.
As is Stephanie Barron's The White Garden - a wicked fun novel.  And another one that makes me want to
go learn more, so double win.  Barron (can't think of her real name) is just a lovely writer: everything rings true, even when she jumps back and forth in time, and she has a very relaxed & confident voice which I find appealing.  There are also these discrete passages of pretty, smooth prose that just make you go "aah" and relax a little more into your seat/bed/whatever; sentences that just seem so right - where they are, how they're put together - strong but delicate at the same time.  Pretty isn't a good word, but I'm thinking I use lovely too much ;)  All her books are mysteries, and they're strong enough, but the impact of her books lies in her writing, and her characters, not in the who-dunnit parts. 

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...

Covers, 2

Back to Vanora Bennett in our discussion of the differences between covers geared for different markets.

The first book of hers I read was Figures in Silk; I took it out from the library, but I first saw the book with the (hard)cover at left: clearly historical fiction, but the image doesn't "read" trashy to me.  I do not think I would have noted down the title, and then looked it up, if I had seen the paperback cover,  below, or the British cover (with cheesier title, Queen of Silks).  And why?  Bosoms.  A low-cut bodice is a beautiful thing - of all people, I am the last to deny that - but it has nothing to do with the quality of the book, and I really am pretty sure there is some kind of mathematical relationship, where the more cleavage is showing on the outside of the book, the less brains will be evident on the inside - this is, of course, clearly different from real life, and real women. 

Viva la cleava!

I suppose rather than complaining, I should take a lesson, that just because I might be a little embarassed to take a book up to the register, it doesn't mean it's not a good book.

And maybe I should just get the hell over myself, since I suppose this could all be some sort of intellectual snobbery on my part.  I mean, I am sure I have enjoyed some of those books by that lady, that they made a movie of, the Tudor escapades...lalala, can't think of her name now...Philipa Gregory!  Anyways.  Trashtastic covers, yeah, but a) doesn't mean they're trash books, and b) maybe even the fact I am calling them trashtastic is just me being super judgy, which is not cool.  But...in argument FOR judging, tell me I'm wrong:

Do these look like the same book at all???  I saw the cover on the left, and grabbed for it, before I even recognized the name/subject.  The cover on the right, okay, not too showy, but still - would have maybe been something I picked up for a plane ride, MAYBE, but it would have been something I casually flipped over, in passing, along with lots of other stuff, versus catching my eye & making me take note.  And, okay, yes, this is SO shallow, but if one is going to spill out of my bag at work, which one do I want my Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian boss to see?  Yep.  Ha - speaking of that, I saw this thing online, book covers that say "War & Peace," etc., in big type (obv fake) for your pink-covered books on the subway.  Cute.

International Covers: Or, "What Up With the Covers Being Bosom-ified to Catch the Stupid People Audience?"

I was just on Vanora Bennett's website, and was noticing how different the covers for the UK and US, not to mention hardcover and paperback, versions of her books are, and I thought it would be an interesting (for me, anyways) topic to explore and then talk about here.  Then, not even thinking about it, I went to Lauren Willig's website, and when I was reading about her upcoming book tour stops, I noticed she had a blog posting of her own about the ways the covers of just one of her books have changed based the audience they're being marketed to.  Really, really interesting.  I hate to say it, but it's all about snob factor, I think.  Which I just remarked in the comments on Willig's blog, whoops!  Hope she does not remember I emailed her a while ago, because the covers only disappoint me because I think they don't even HINT at the awesomeness inside...maybe I should have written that, lol!
I think the whole cover issue becomes even more convoluted when you have genre-crossing books, like Willig's - historical fiction, mystery, contemporary fiction, romance.  And they do seem to emphasize the "romance" (a/k/a bosoms and beads) on the covers of the paperbacks and mass-market offerings.
Let's take a look.
This is the version of the Secret History of the Pink Carnation that I first picked up years ago, at the little bookstore kiosk in South Station, while I was on my way to D.C. for a work trip (I think).  I remember being drawn to the matte cover, as I always am, and liking the old-fashioned illustration, and the title line with the parchment & seal kind of look.  When I turned it over and read the back, I was hooked when I heard "graduate student," even though the romance parts made me a little wary, but I wouldn't even have turned the book over in the first place if the cover hadn't caught my eye while I was casually browsing.  If, however, I had seen the cover below, which will be the "mass market paperback" cover (October, 2010 release), I wouldn't even have paused - I would have thought "romance schlock" if I had thought anything at all about it, and kept moving on.  Plus, I mean - it looks Victorian, so how are the spies supposed to be fighting Napoleon??

update

Since apparently it's not just C and myself who read this, I feel the need to add that C just texted, in reply to my "wtf with these essays?!" kind of message "Haha.  I'm staring at barbarella's [name changed to protect the guilty of heinously abusing a word processor], trying to figure out anything to say.  Why does she only profile chefs she clearly wants to bang?"  This, ladies and gentlemen (well, ladies, as far as I know) is entirely true, which makes the awfulness even worse.  If someone wrote so poorly about me I would take my chances with a human-monkey hybrid before choosing to repopulate the planet with that person.  Although that whole last-man-on-earth scenario has always seemed totally stupid to me, because if my only choice was to fate my children to a life of incest, and my descendants to a life of problematic, and likely ugly, inherited phyical and mental issues, I really don't think that would get me in the mood.  But the boredom, maybe.  Eh.  In any case, to keep up the pretence this blog is a "book-log" and not just me b*tching to the cosmos, I started Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett yesterday, after I finished The Reincarnationist.  Bennett also wrote something called Figures in Silk which was a fun, if somewhat fluffy, historical fiction/romance, but with an interesting look at the development of the silk trade in England, tied to all that craziness with the Shore girl & the War of the Roses.  I feel like I learned a lot, but I would need to check to make sure the information was correct - but the author lists sources for more reading, etc., on her (rather interesting) website (which you can read here; also interesting, but topic for another time - why are UK covers generally so much cooler?  also, just realized she's written some other stuff - should look into it if still feeling positive after Portrait) so I think it is.  I also think this new one should be good - but, somewhat, loosely, to my point, the main character is one of Sir Thomas More's adopted daughters, and I think More could totally be like this guy in the essay.  I mean, super promising, and then kinda huge let-down, inspiring all sorts of violent thoughts.  Can't quite get a grip on More, though, seriously; read a great biography of his daughter & his relationship, and have TRIED to read one about him, but Wolf Hall and The Tudors are just so much more.  Oh...I should really just think of Jonathan Rhys-Meyers whenever I am mad.  I just went from 0 to blissful in about a second.  I know The Tudors is not a book, but it gets a link & image anyways :)  Okay, calm now.  Will take another shot at my homework.