Karen
This book about social obsession with the conduct of women and girls from the Victorian era to the present is well written and thoroughly footnoted and indexed. Its main focus is on Britain, but it references similar situations in the US. Some of it was familiar territory (fears that educating girls and young women would flatten their chests and shrivel their ovaries, unfitting them for motherhood–or, if it didn't do that, it would make them so strong minded and unwomanly that no man would want them), but some was new to me.
I didn't know about the Victorian obsession with the idea that pimps and shady characters were waiting in train stations and in doorways to kidnap innocent (white) young women and sell them into slavery. As I read this chapter, I recalled reading Sherlock Holmes stories where things like this happened, and that suddenly made sense. Apparently this fear led to the establishment of bills in Parliament and many societies for the protection of young (again, white) women and their virtue, but evidence suggests that there was no such epidemic of young women being kidnapped and forced into prostitution. As Dyhouse says late in her book, it is sometimes hard to tell at the time what is an issue of real, pressing concern, and what is being blown into a moral panic.
From this retrospective position, many of the worries people had about educating girls alongside boys, allowing them to move out of the family home to live on their own before marriage, opening a more complete range of professions to women,etc. appear completely overblown. Others, no matter how much we might wish they were settled (e.g., access to contraception and abortion), keep coming back as topics of controversy. This book shows us a progression in the state of the public attitude toward women, and chronicles the problems that resulted for society as well as the difficulties encountered by those who tried to change those attitudes.
Very well worth reading.
The story of the battle of Agincourt told from the perspective of an English archer. The archer's story isn't that great, but it is a vehicle for telling about events leading up to the battle, how the battle was fought, and for portraying some social conditions of 15th century England–all the interesting stuff. The descriptions of battle are grisly, but fascinating. If you wear the visor of your helmet down, for instance, you can't see what's happening around you, but if you wear it up you're vulnerable to being shot or stabbed in the eyes, since your opponents aim for anything uncovered by armor. Needless to say, many people in this book die from being stabbed in the eye or shot through the eye with an arrow or crossbow bolt.
In addition to the novel itself, this book has a nice selection of related material in the back. There is a brief essay about the use of longbows in English warfare and what it took to shoot a longbow well. Right after that is Henry V's Saint Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's play. Finally, there is an interview with the author about the battle of Agincourt – not informative compared to the essay on the longbow, but still interesting to read.
Overall, I enjoyed this, but I probably won't seek out more books by Bernard Cornwell.
There is a lot going on under the surface of this novel that I know I missed, because I don't know anything about the game of go or Chinese and Japanese history and literature. Themes of violence, battle and war, honor, and the constricted lives of women are present in this story of a Japanese soldier and a young Chinese girl meeting in a Manchurian town over a game of go. Although the book is almost 300 pages, chapters are short, spare and quick to read. I finished it in 2 days. This solemn story will stay with me for a while.
I read this for a book discussion that I wanted to attend. Some things about this story I really liked–the writing about the woods and mountains of Alaska, the wildlife and the cold, and the life of people who were trying to make a living in a beautiful but harsh environment. Also, I liked the sense of mystery about the snow child and how she is treated as a part of the environment for much of the story. I loved the idea of a retelling of the Snow Maiden fairy tale in this environment, but I thought that aspect of the story was handled clumsily, especially toward the end. Still, I enjoyed reading it and am looking forward to hearing what people have to say about it at the discussion.
A fun read, told in true crime style, about a real jewel heist that took place in London in 1913. The author profiles the times, the neighborhoods that were the settings for the action, the major characters and the events in the story in highly readable style. Lest you be tempted to think she was making up the details she includes (such as quoted conversations), there are notes for each chapter, an impressive bibliography, and an index. There is also a poignant epilogue which tells what happened to many of the characters after the main events of the story were over. If you enjoy Sherlock Holmes or other detective fiction, you'll enjoy this book.
I did enjoy this novel about the relationship between three Henrys: Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV of England), his son Prince Hal, and Harry Percy (Hotspur). It's a complex psychological portrait of these three historical characters. Bolingbroke and Hotspur are old friends, drawn into a political drama that has leapt out of their control and has broken the trust in their friendship. Bolingbroke and Hal are father and son who have never had an intimate knowledge of each other, so they have no trust. Hotspur and Hal have a kind of foster-relationship which both struggle to protect and of which Bolingbroke is jealous.
In common with the other Edith Pargeter novel I've read, The Heaven Tree, the hero Hotspur is too honest for his own good. The significant female character, Julian, is in love with the hero, but fearless and independent–a female counterpart to the hero. However, I rate this book only three stars because there is no real role for Julian to fill in the story. Despite the fact that she is one of only two female characters in the story, and she is supposed to be so independent and fearless, her function in the story could be filled without loss by someone else. She seems only to be there to serve as an affirmation of Hotspur's honesty and integrity. That annoyed me, especially in a story so deep in other ways.
This book has many of the same features of earlier books in the Lymond Chronicles series: adventure,feats of skill and daring, irritatingly autocratic behavior on the part of the hero, intricate politics, deadpan humor and more than a little melodrama, together with characters and events from history. It contains important developments in the story of Francis Crawford of Lymond, so if you're reading through the series, you can't skip over it. Also, it has some truly enjoyable parts, so you probably won't want to skip it. Still, this book doesn't do a good job of being a novel in its own right. It feels more like a chapter than the other books in the series.
Philippa Somerville is one of the highlights. Also, for the first time in the series you get snatches of Francis Crawford's perspective. Set in Russia and England, in 1557.
I found this in the children's section at Common Good Books. It's a quick and charming read, telling the true story of the Cottingley Fairies. I liked that Mary Losure avoided telling the story in a simplistic way. She doesn't just present the girls, Elsie and Frances, as liars, or become an apologist for fairies. She suggests explanations for why the girls behaved as they did, but doesn't push any of them as absolute. Her delicate handling of the story allows subtleties to come out.
In this book, the light-hearted, mischievous fun of the previous books in the series is gone. In its place, we are given deepening loss and sadness. In previous books, Francis Crawford was the character who possessed secret information on which the plot turned, and that, along with his extraordinary talents, made him powerful. In this book, there are layers of secret information that give others power over Crawford, or that simply make Crawford aware that his world is not quite what he thought it was.
The story is engrossing, as it takes its cast of characters from Europe to North Africa to Constantinople, in their mission to destroy Crawford's enemy, Sir Graham Reid Malett, and to find the child they believe he is holding hostage. The young English girl, Philippa Somerville, becomes a major character as she matures.
This book is about the culture of cats–big cats as well as house cats, wild cats as well as domesticated cats. The author, who is an anthropologist and has also written books about dog and deer behavior, has many fascinating stories to tell about the behavior of house cats, lions and tigers in the wild and captivity, and American pumas. The book meanders a bit–it doesn't progress toward a central argument so much as give many examples of cats teaching/learning culture from different types of cat life.
This is NOT a cute book of cat stories, though. I had to take a break from it for a few weeks because I found it too hard to read about dwindling wild cat populations, unwanted tigers being sold to people who provide “game” for hunters to shoot, zoos euthanizing tigers after they've passed their breeding age, and so forth. These depressing topics were discussed in a matter of fact way, but I was not in a frame of mind to be able to deal with them one after the other, page after page.
I was surprised by Thomas's argument for why the life of a circus tiger was better than that of a zoo tiger–especially since I have recently received a rash of emails from an animal rights group which wants me to oppose animal circuses in my city. Also, her description of the time she spent in the Kalahari with a community of bushmen, observing, among other things, their relationship with the lion population there, was very beautiful. I recommend this book, but approach with care if you are sensitive.
In Game of Kings, Francis Crawford was a mysterious character who turned out not to be what he seemed. In this book, which involves undercover work and diplomacy (heavy duty acting, in other words), we have more information about what he's up to and why, but we don't know how to put it together to understand his character. We see Crawford as a spy, a soldier, a roustabout, a charismatic leader, a talented musician who has been forced by circumstances to make music secondary to his career as a mercenary–but we don't know what he will ultimately make of himself. Francis Crawford seems to be unclear about this too, and while he is on a reluctantly accepted undercover mission, other characters constantly exert pressure to try to make him serve their own interests. The main interest of this story is seeing how Crawford resists that pressure while making some movement toward discovering his own purpose.
Well, the other interest is Dorothy Dunnett's robust picture of court and city life in the middle of the 16th century, with all of its political action and intrigue. This story takes place among courtiers, menagerie keepers, soldiers, spies, artisans running illegal printing presses and visitors from Ireland looking for help to throw the English out of their country.
The plot is more sensational than Game of Kings, and the emotional tone verges on melodrama at times (and I don't mean this as a negative thing). While Game of Kings can stand on its own, this book is clearly part of a series. Some issues (and characters) are introduced that seem incidental in this story but become central farther along in the series.
One of my all time favorite novels. I recently reread it and remembered why I like it so much. It's set in 1547. The hero, Francis Crawford, is a fascinating pain in the neck–a disgraced younger son, wanted in Scotland for treason and murder, he seems to be bent on antagonizing his upright older brother and living a debauched life with his band of mercenaries. We see Crawford as others see him, only from the outside, with incomplete information and filtered through preconceptions, so that his actions and behavior look appalling. As the story progresses, we, along with the other characters in the book, start to see that there is more to Crawford's story than we initially thought.
Learning Francis Crawford's story is one of the pleasures of this book. Another pleasure is the wit and humor with which the story is told. You do have to read between the lines to appreciate some of the humor, though. For example, it took me a long time to get that when one of the mercenaries complains that his elbow has been making war on his stomach, he means that he's been drinking too much. Also, for those who love historical fiction, Francis Crawford's story is woven into the story of Scotland's struggle to keep England from seizing the child Queen Mary Stuart and marrying her to the young prince (and then King) Edward Tudor of England.
Another aspect of this book that I love is that characters quote and reference renaissance poetry in French and English, and quote Latin to each other. You don't need to read French and Latin to understand and enjoy this book, but it adds a layer of authenticity to the story that it references literature of the period and a layer of strangeness to Francis Crawford's character that he quotes poetry as he irritates and mystifies everyone around him.
I've had people tell me that they found this book hard to get into. Stick with it–the beginning is disorienting, because you're not sure what's going on. It's OK–the people in the story THINK they know what is going on, but they're mistaken. Give it time to clear itself up. When it does finally clear up, you will be moved and delighted.
I liked the characters and stories of Leonard and Mitchell (the two suitors). The main character, Madeline, is rather thin by comparison (except in the imaginations of her suitors). I was drawn into the book and stayed up late to read the last 100 pages, but found it unsatisfying. At Madeline's final “yes”, I thought “OK, now her story can begin”, which is not that different from the feeling I have after the heroines in traditional “marriage plot” novels accept their marriage proposals, that it is dishonest to end the story there.
So, don't read this expecting to have a story about a woman. It's really a story about the suitors of a young college girl. The woman's story hasn't started yet.
In Dorothy Dunnett fashion, in this story of Macbeth, King of Alba, Macbeth is a nearly invincible hero. From his youth, he holds his own through all sorts of daunting challenges to his life and position (Earl of Orkney and then King of Alba) by a combination of intelligence and daring which no one seems to expect of him. The one heroic characteristic he does not possess is good looks, which makes him a kind of romantic hero. He is called “tall as a ship's mast,” ungainly, with crow-black hair, a beaked nose, and a uni-brow. He rarely smiles, so people have trouble reading him. In spite of all that, he inspires intense love in some of the people who come to know him (and some of them have an odd way of showing it).
This book is enjoyable for its characters and its sense of the mixture of Norse, Celtic and Saxon cultures that were maneuvering around for power in England, Scotland, Norway and Denmark in the 11th century. However, it is difficult to keep straight all the characters and the significance of the moves they make. Dorothy Dunnett tends to imply rather than tell, and to rely on her readers to catch on to the far reaching consequences of a single character's death or marriage to one woman rather than another. There are maps and genealogical charts to help the reader along, but I had to be OK with the fact that I couldn't follow the fine points of the politics of the story.
Luckily, there is enough to enjoy without following every political twist and turn. The character of Lulach is especially intriguing, and there are a couple of really delightful bishops.
This is the first Neil Gaiman book I've read, and I am disappointed. The story was unoriginal, the style was cutesy (except for the sex and gore) rather than whimsical, and his Faerie was strangely undefined–it was a hodge podge of odd landscapes and characters that were conveniently there so that the protagonist could have a sort of threatening adventure, but it didn't seem to have a life and logic of its own. This just felt like lazy story-writing.
This was a ripping good adventure tale, set mostly in 10th century Denmark and Sweden, but also containing voyages to Islamic Spain and to Kiev. Red Orm, the hero, is charming and the story is full of Viking battles, romance, and deadpan humor. I enjoyed every page and sighed with satisfaction at the end.
Funny and sad story of a smart little girl growing up in a troubled family in early 20th century Ohio. Said to be autobiographical. I picked this book out of a Little Free Library as I was passing by. I have one other book by Dawn Powell on my shelves which I enjoyed very much, but she is not an author I ever hear or read about. If you enjoy acerbic humor, read a book by Dawn Powell!
Such a pleasure to read. I simultaneously root for Cromwell and am disgusted with him. One of my favorite things about this book is that the characters are fully drawn, with motivations that we come to suspect or understand, and yet the familiar ambiguity about whether Anne and her lovers were actually guilty is preserved. As Hilary Mantel says in the author's note, this is not a book about Anne Boleyn, it's about Thomas Cromwell. Still, there is ambiguity about Cromwell, too. Does he understand himself as well as he thinks?
There's a lovely piece about Thomas Wyatt, the poet suspected of having an affair with Anne Boleyn before she took up with King Henry, refusing to allow that poems that seem to be about his own life could be taken literally. At the time, Wyatt was being coy with teasing friends, but the argument becomes very serious when Anne's downfall begins.
I also especially liked the several places where Cromwell explains Henry's behavior, either to his own nephew and son, who are being brought up to be courtiers, or to his fellow officials. His read of Henry is clear-eyed and pragmatic, but for my 21st century mind it is hard to fathom why, seeing so clearly, he would want to serve such a person. And there is why I like to read novels about the 16th century–I like to wonder how those people thought about their world.
I read this over two days when I was sick, and really enjoyed it. The writing about nature's cycles and the insight into the character's foibles are just lovely. The story seemed disjointed to me–more like a series of short stories put together than something that was meant to hang together as one–and then I read that it began as a series of letters from the author to his son. That fact also explained why there were no explicitly female characters until more than halfway through the book. I loved how the characters recognize and forgive each other's flaws and see it as their duty to step in and set each other right when one of them starts to go off the rails.
As the title suggests, this book contains answers to common questions non-Native people have about Native Americans–everything from “What are coming of age ceremonies?” and “Should Leonard Peltier be freed?” to questions that seem downright rude, like “Why do Indians have so many kids?” The questions are answered by the author in a personal tone. He is careful to say that he is answering from his own perspective and that if you ask a different person the same questions, you are likely to get some different answers. The book is divided into chapters on terminology, history, religion and culture, education, politics, etc., so you can skip straight to the topics that interest you, or you can read straight through (like I did).
I enjoyed reading this book. I learned plenty that I didn't know (and that I would have been afraid to ask), and I appreciated Treuer's matter of fact approach to all of the questions he addresses. In fact, I would say this is a gracious book. In his conclusion, he writes, “Don't imagine Indians, understand them. Keep asking questions, reading, listening and advocating for change. Don't tolerate stereotypes, and don't be afraid to ask everything you wanted to know about Indians. And if you're native, give a meaningful response to those questions rather than an angry rebuke. It really does make a difference.” This book models that spirit of welcoming honest questions and giving meaningful answers.
This is a lovely book. It is the author's extended meditation on the place of fairy tales in Western culture, alongside the relationship of Western (or Northern European) people to their forests. Each chapter features a walk through a particular forest in the UK, with discussion of the history of that forest, its make-up and condition, management practices that have been used there, and some issues that stand out for the author. In one chapter she visits the site of an ancient forest that no longer exists, and finds traces of the forest still showing through between the houses, roads and parking lots of a modern town. In another, she visits a conifer plantation in Scotland, not a natural woodland at all, and meditates on the tradition that has robbers, thieves and other “bad guys” hiding out in the forest. Each chapter ends with a fairy tale, reworked to address or highlight some of the issues she discussed in that chapter. Some are amusing, some are frightening or sad, some are solemn and beautiful.
I wanted to read each chapter slowly. The tone is personal and the topics aren't comprehensive, but they seem to reflect the personal interests of the author. I was fascinated by the information about forest management practices, and the assertion that the healthiest forests were ones that had been “cultivated” to produce firewood and used as grazing land for livestock such as pigs and goats. Observations about characters in fairy tales were fascinating too–characters who worked in the forest such as hunters and wood cutters are likely to be good guys, animals who talk are always worth listening to, fathers are likely to be too wrapped up in their own affairs to protect their children, but sisters are invariably loving and good.
If you like fairy tales and you have a love of walking in the woods, I recommend this book to you.
I had to keep myself from reading this in one big gulp. The premise of a woman who's been missing for 20 years coming back and saying she's been with the fairies is appealing to me by itself, but this book has much more to offer than a good humans-encounter-fairies story. It is also a beautifully detailed story about family relationships and healing of friendships. In particular I loved the side story about the young boy Jack unwillingly being drawn into a friendship with Mrs. Larwood, the “mad old bitch” across the street. I really loved this book and wish there was more of it to read!
I confess that I did not read the entire book, but I leafed through it many times and read the first two chapters. It is a fascinating and beautiful book about the fraught relationship of the Dutch to the water that surrounds them; about the battle to hold back the sea from land wanted for conventional farming, but also to make use of the sea; about the importance of the sea to the Dutch financially as well as culturally; and about new efforts to work differently with the sea in light of rising sea levels due to climate change. There are pages and pages of photographs of water works, art installations, cultural events, and plans for water projects that have not been built, as well as reproductions of works of art that illustrate the place of water in Dutch culture, from paintings of storm tossed boats at sea representing hard times in human life to paintings commemorating famous floods in Dutch history, to more contemporary representations of human life alongside water.
I borrowed this from a library and I'm sad that I have to return it without being able to spend more time with it. It's a book to savour.
