Read:

Mrs Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale (UK printing)

Very easy-to-read non-fiction piece about a notorious divorce case (one of the earliest after a civil divorce was made accessible to the general public in England in 1858), in which a woman's diary, containing either her feverish fantasies or the (semi-)details of an actual affair were the cornerstone of the case.

Nice look at both the people and events (leading up to, during, and after the trial) and also at the wider context. I think in part this was necessary to make up for a limited field of action and evidence, but extended sections on other cases, in particular, do not feel out of place or like interruptions and they add to the overall impact of the book. I also appreciated, and I think non-specialist audiences would, too, that there are no footnotes, and simply un-numbered endnotes at the back.

It's not a great work of scholarship, but it's fun and easy.

I'd like to check out her other books at some point - The Queen of Whale Cay and The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (fiction and nonfiction, respectively, I think?).

Cleaning house

I was looking for something to read on the plane to/from DC Fri/Mon (WHOO!) and realized some of the books I have on my "to read(?)" lists I've actually already read, so:

Making Haste from Babylon: the Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World, Nick Bunker, 2010.  Really enjoyed this one; had been meaning to read it for a while, and then had to read it for work when we got to the chapter on the Pilgrims.  Good stuff.  A lot of wandering around in the hedges & stopping to smell the flowers (literally - Bunker loves to set a scene by getting down into the weeds, and giving detailed descriptions of the local flora & fauna), but very informative, and I kind of liked that it was pretty wide-ranging and not super focused.  A LOT of information, but not at all scholarly or academic, in a good way - I think it's very accessible for non-historians, although it could be a bit dry, I guess...I didn't think so, but I know I am not the normal non-academic audience either.  More English history than American, by far; this is very much about the background in England (and Leiden) of the Pilgrims, and really has nothing much to say about what went on over on this side of the pond.  Lots to say about English politics, religious disputes, and social life, though.  I'd assign it in an undergrad English history class, only an advanced or grad class on the Pilgrims specifically, if the imaginary class were operating out of an American history department.

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.

Not too much going on...

...in my reading life - or real life, for that matter!  Quiet week, which I think I needed, so that was good.  Didn't get all that much reading done, though, since I mostly just curled up with my overstuffed DVR and old episodes of The Wire (new life goal: to be able to say "sheeeeeeeee-it" convincingly).

Library is making me return The Ideological Origins of the British Empire, by David Armitage, which is a bummer, since it's wicked interesting.  It also, at the same time, totally puts me to sleep, which is weird.  So I've been enjoying reading it for 20 minutes or so before bed - it's thought-provoking and fascinating, and then suddenly I'm out like a light.  Perfect-o!  Plus, I think Armitage is married to Joyce Chaplin, who is my academic girl-crush, so that's just kinda cool.

But I guess someone else at Harvard must be having trouble sleeping, and doesn't want to rely on melatonin, because it's been recalled.  Oh, well - more time to plow through Season 4!





Finished Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, which I've been meaning to read for a year or two (two, I think?), since it was listed in a "great books for Halloween" piece in Real Simple.  Finally got around to it, and I guess it was fine, but I really didn't find it very compelling.  The introductory notes said that it's been made into a movie twice (The Haunting and then House on Haunted Hill - although the author of the introduction said not to bother with the 1999 version, but I'm looking now, and it's got Taye Diggs, so, can you go wrong?) and that kind of makes sense - it seemed like a very visual book, but I just wasn't feeling the atmosphere, and was having a hard time picturing the setting.  But a haunted house is definitely appropriate for Halloween, so it was a good book for cuddling under my down comforter, heating pad at my feet, and reading with the faint sounds of little kids shrieking coming through the windows...
I also hadn't realized that Shirley Jackson is the same person who wrote that short story "The Lottery" which I read in middle school or high school (high school, maybe?) - AND which was a tv movie or something with Keri Russell, who I kinda loved because when I first saw her in something it was some God-awful teen soap (it was basically the O.C. before the O.C. was created, I think), but she had gorgeous, crazy curls.

So, yeah - that was Sunday, Monday I drank and thought about fun books, and on Tuesday or Wednesday I actually "sold" some paperbacks to the Harvard Bookstore, earning me a whopping $9 and change in store credit.  Totally worth it, even if it wasn't super lucrative: I'm sure to use the credit sooner rather than later (like on the days when I end up buying books because I'm waiting for Hong Kong to cook my take-out spicy green beans), and it got a stack of "never going to read again" books off my floor).  And now it's Friday, and I'm about two-thirds of the way through my other "scary" book that I started in the week before Halloween, The Prayer of the Night Shepherd.  I don't know exactly why I keep reading these Merrily Watkins books by Phil Rickman.  The mysteries aren't that mysterious, the literature ain't exactly great, and each time I finish one I think "huh, well, hmm" or something along those totally damned with faint praise lines.  They're really pretty much microwave popcorn.  Fills you up and kills some time, and at least it's not total junk, but it's not really great for you either.  But I am rather fond of the characters - and in this one we're dealing with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a group calling itself The White Company, so that's fun.  Except the real White Company is so much better!