What have you read lately?

[ergative]

Popping back in to thank onthefringe once again for recommending KJ Charles. I've finished the entire Will Darling trilogy since Monday. I've got some stressful waiting happening in the background right now* and these books were exactly what I needed to hide from it all.


*nothing bad, just stressful

[onthefringe]

Popping back in to thank onthefringe once again for recommending KJ Charles. I've finished the entire Will Darling trilogy since Monday. I've got some stressful waiting happening in the background right now* and these books were exactly what I needed to hide from it all.


*nothing bad, just stressful

Glad you like them!

[apl68]

Queen Anne:  The Politics of Passion, by Anne Somerset.  Anne reigned during a critical period in British history.  It was when, thanks to the political unification of England and Scotland, "British" history as such technically began.  The era also witnessed succession crises, lingering religious issues, and the rise of two-party politics that were so acrimonious they bear comparison with what we see in the contemporary U.S.  Britain emerged from this era as a new world power--but could very easily have collapsed into civil war instead.

For Anne to have gotten safely through her section of the era suggests that she must have been doing something right as Queen.  But she has generally gotten bad press.  She has long been regarded as at best mediocre, a rather unintelligent woman dominated by favorites.  At worst she is seen as a grotesque figure, grossly obese, a heavy drinker, and more.  At best Britain came through the era more in spite of her than any thanks to her.  From what I've seen of its reviews, the recent movie about her life, The Favorite, presents Anne in the most lurid light imaginable, assuming that all the most malicious gossip about her was true.

Somerset tries hard to rehabilitate her namesake.  She reminds us that Anne had to deal with both a painful royal family inheritance--she supported a coup against her own father, and was then thrust into a leadership role that she had never really been prepared for--and unimaginable personal tragedy--she bore and lost seventeen children.  She spent most of her life sick, bereaved, and surrounded by people who wanted to use her for their own advantage.  I don't see how anybody who studies her life could not feel sorry for her.

Somerset portrays Anne as somebody who spent her life trying conscientiously to do her duty and make the best of a very, very hard hand dealt by fate.  The author's sympathies with her namesake Anne are pretty obvious throughout.  She's done her research, though, and I'm inclined to believe that this is a pretty fair portrait.  And let's face it, one of Anne's most notorious detractors, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, was by all accounts such a piece of work herself that her side of things is hard to credit.

[mamselle]

Very helpful insight for those of us doing American colonial work from an Atlantic Rim perspective.

Thanks!

M.

[hmaria1609]

Queen Anne:  The Politics of Passion, by Anne Somerset.  Anne reigned during a critical period in British history.  It was when, thanks to the political unification of England and Scotland, "British" history as such technically began.  The era also witnessed succession crises, lingering religious issues, and the rise of two-party politics that were so acrimonious they bear comparison with what we see in the contemporary U.S.  Britain emerged from this era as a new world power--but could very easily have collapsed into civil war instead.

For Anne to have gotten safely through her section of the era suggests that she must have been doing something right as Queen.  But she has generally gotten bad press.  She has long been regarded as at best mediocre, a rather unintelligent woman dominated by favorites.  At worst she is seen as a grotesque figure, grossly obese, a heavy drinker, and more.  At best Britain came through the era more in spite of her than any thanks to her.  From what I've seen of its reviews, the recent movie about her life, The Favorite, presents Anne in the most lurid light imaginable, assuming that all the most malicious gossip about her was true.

Somerset tries hard to rehabilitate her namesake.  She reminds us that Anne had to deal with both a painful royal family inheritance--she supported a coup against her own father, and was then thrust into a leadership role that she had never really been prepared for--and unimaginable personal tragedy--she bore and lost seventeen children.  She spent most of her life sick, bereaved, and surrounded by people who wanted to use her for their own advantage.  I don't see how anybody who studies her life could not feel sorry for her.

Somerset portrays Anne as somebody who spent her life trying conscientiously to do her duty and make the best of a very, very hard hand dealt by fate.  The author's sympathies with her namesake Anne are pretty obvious throughout.  She's done her research, though, and I'm inclined to believe that this is a pretty fair portrait.  And let's face it, one of Anne's most notorious detractors, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, was by all accounts such a piece of work herself that her side of things is hard to credit.

I read and own this biography.  I knew a little bit about Anne going in because of Jean Plaidy's novels about the Stuarts.
Of interest, the book was the 2013 Elizabeth Longford Prize for historical biography.

Lucy Worsley did an episode about Queen Anne in her popular "Royal Myths & Secrets" series, available on DVD and to stream on Kanopy.

[mamselle]

And Jane Austen readers probably already know this, but Worsley's tour of all of the Austen residences is quite worthwhile, too.

M.

[ab_grp]

I guess my last update was a while ago.  I still didn't go to the eye doctor yet so am still listening to books (and my husband is carrying the burden of reading the Expanse book we're slowly reading).

Now I am listening to The Godfather (Mario Puzo; Joe Mantegna).  Despite having seen the movies a couple times and having read the book many years ago, I am getting a better understanding of the story this time through or in this medium.  Mantegna is doing a pretty good job with the narration so far.

Aside from some rather ridiculous parts, I really enjoyed this one and just picked up the movies so that we can watch them again.  I am curious to check out all the differences.  There are some story arcs in the book that are not covered in the movies, and some parts of the movies do not occur in the book.

I wish Audible could show what dates books were finished, but I think this is the list since my last post:
The Great Train Robbery (by: Michael Crichton; narrated by: Michael Kitchen) Seems to be based on an historical event.  Specifics were changed, probably to make it a more exciting tale.  I read it years ago and enjoyed it again this time.  The main character in the story (who is apparently kind of a mishmash of the real-life people to some extent) reminds me of the Scarlet Pimpernel, or maybe Pierre Despereaux (Cary Elwes's character in Psych), some kind of dashing and cunning rogue.  It's a complicated heist plan and was fun to listen to it develop and play out.  Very good performance by the narrator.  Some accented slang is a little hard to make out, but it's always reiterated in some way just afterward, as far as I can recall. 

The Apollo Murders (Chris Hadfield; Ray Porter) I am a big fan of both Hadfield and Porter.  This one was so interesting because I had listened to the true story of the Apollo 8 mission narrated by Porter, and Hadfield is a real-life astronaut who knows the technical details involved, and there were plenty of real historical people in the book.  So, it wasn't long before I forgot it was fiction, even though it is (hopefully) a somewhat implausible tale! Definitely very dramatic, taking place during the Cold War and with the space race going on.  Of course, there is murder and, of course, Ray Porter was excellent as narrator.

The Truffle Underground: A Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and Manipulation in the Shadowy Market of the World's Most Expensive Fungus (Ryan Jacobs;  Ari Fliakos)  I started listening to this one as part of a quest to expand my reading when there's a sale and there are highly rated books on topics I have not read or thought much about.  I have some interest so far but not enough to continue at the moment.  The narrator is a little annoying, as well.  I plan to get back to it at some point.

The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience (Ryan Jacobs; Joe Jameson) This one traces the history of perspectives on the brain, the brain's role, thinking, and so forth, all the way to the present (or close).  I would avoid if you are squeamish hearing about questionable research (e.g., surgery) on animals and people back in the day.  I had learned some of it before in various courses, so some was pretty easy to follow, but some was a bit over my head.

Run: A Thriller (Blake Crouch; Phil Gigante) We had read one of Crouch's books (Recursion) a while back and thought it was an interesting premise, even if some of the characters were drawn a bit shallowly.  In my opinion this book has that and more, but by that I unfortunately mean the shallow characters.  The premise is ridiculous, but even if taken at face value, some of the characters are so annoying and some of the plot points both so predictable and so "couldn't happen in a million years" that it's hard to deal with, even as a fan of science fiction.  I actually yelled things at the audio book a few times and, when it ended, said "EYE ROLL!" So, although parts were entertaining, I cannot recommend running right out to get it.  And another unfortunate aspect is that the prolific narrator was accused of and pled guilty to crimes involving a relationship of some sort that he had with a 14-year-old girl.  I don't know enough to say more than that, but I think it is important for me to take into consideration when selecting future audio books.

The Deep Learning Revolution (Terrence J. Sejnowski ; Shawn Compton) I was convinced early on that I was going to find out later in the book that it's actually (aptly, perhaps) narrated by a computer, but I guess not.  The narrator did sound more human-like as time went on.  The author is apparently a big name in the field of computational neurobiology and much of this book calls upon his own experience and collaborations.  Again, some of the material was familiar to me from grad school, but it could get pretty technical at times and beyond me.  Still, there were some interesting insights about artificial intelligence and neuroscience and how it has all infiltrated and evolved society.

Murder in Paradise: Thirteen Mysteries from the Travels of Hercule Poirot (Agatha Christie;  David Suchet) I've only listened to the first one so far ("The Plymouth Express"), but it's nice to have a bunch of short fiction tales to break up the nonfiction.  Since I have so little fiction (comparatively) in my library, I am probably going to intersperse nonfiction books to come with these stories.  The narrator is pretty great.  I am not a huge Poirot devotee, so perhaps others would feel differently, but I like his take on the character, and he does other accents very well, too. 

Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come (Richard Preston; Ray Porter) As the title notes, this nonfiction book focuses on ebola, and it focuses on outbreaks in western Africa.  There is a previous book on a similar topic and on other diseases tangentially by the same author that was a major hit years before this one.  I have not read that one yet.  This book is also not for the squeamish, as it relates in detail the physical effects of ebola.  However, what has been much more frightening to me so far (about 40% in) is listening to the events unfold as the disease goes unrecognized and is very easily spread through risky medical procedures (lack of rubber gloves or hand washing at the minimum, water used and reused).  It really has felt like watching a horror movie and wanting to yell "No! Don't go check out the noise in the dark basement by yourself! What are you thinking?!!", but perhaps with more profanity.  It's truly a frightening virus even in the best of medical scenarios, and the medical scenarios here were clearly not the best for many reasons.  It seems like a complicated setting between the limited resources and the tension between cultural norms and beliefs and the science of how viruses spread.  I agree to an extent with a NYT review that the tone is dramatic in the way that one might expect if a movie adaptation were planned, and these are tens of thousands of real human lives.  I should wait until I finish it.  Of course, Ray Porter is great as always.

[hmaria1609]

From the library: 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet by Pamela Paul (NF)

[apl68]

English Society: 1580-1680, by Keith Wrightson.  Early Modern Britain was my area of specialty in my PhD program days in the early 1990s, and Keith Wrightson was (and is) a big name in the field.  Re-reading some of his work reminds me of why I found the field so fascinating back in the day.   So much of what made the world in which we live today came out of that period.  It was during this time that England first began to be a significant colonial power, and population growth and social change did much to set the stage for the coming industrial revolution.  Political forms and expectations were also changing during this time.

It was also a formative period for evangelical Christianity as we know it in the English-speaking world.  Any serious treatment of the period has to spend some time addressing religious matters, and Wrightson includes quite a bit on them here.  During the 1600s the more radical Protestant believers gained a great deal of influence in Britain, so much so that for a time they had hopes of leading society as a whole into their vision of a good and just society.  And went on to find their hopes sorely disappointed, although, as Wrightson notes, their ideas of respectable standards of conduct would have great influence for centuries to come.

I was often struck, when I was in grad school, with how familiar the things that these believers of three and four centuries ago thought about and had to deal with seemed.  Today I can identify more than ever with how these long-ago believers were forced to deal with living in a society that had decisively rejected their values and was actively hostile to them.  They were reminded then, and their descendants are being reminded now, that following Jesus has never been about "making the world a better place."  It is really about trying to live a life that is not messed up in a world that we have messed up too badly to fix for ourselves.  We can't expect to remake society in our image.  We can only keep our exit visas from this world open, and encourage others to join us in getting ready to head for a better place, when the time finally does come.

[mamselle]

With that in mind, you might be interested in this series by IVP:

   https://www.ivpress.com/reformation-commentary-on-scripture-set

Book by book, it compiles Reformation writers' commentaries and includes observations by each volume's editor on the historical context and theological approaches each commentator was making.

Sources include homilies, essays, catechisms, and other works. It's part of their periodic survey series, which begins with Early Christian writers, then medieval, etc.

M.

[ab_grp]

I finished Crisis in the Red Zone the other day.  Whew, what a tragic, heartbreaking story.  I cried several times.  In my opinion, the African medical professionals who did their best with their few resources to care for their community and their own comrades were absolutely remarkable heroes.  I'm getting teary-eyed again.  So...

I decided I had to listen to something very uplifting next.  I had the Poirot mysteries but figured I'd see if The 100-Year-Old Man who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared was on Audible.  It was, and it was free!! That is surely a sign.  So I've been listening to that one and really enjoying it.   The narrator (Steven Crossley) is doing a great job so far.  We also have the movie to watch at some point.  Thanks again to ergative for recommending such a wonderful tale.

[Parasaurolophus]

June:

Gerhardt Maier: African Dinosaurs Unearthed: the Tendaguru Expeditions - A year-by-year account of 100 years of dinosaur excavations in East Africa (especially Tanzania). The account is exhaustive and, at times, exhausting. It also presupposes quite a bit of knowledge pertaining to dinosaur anatomy and stratigraphy. The level of historical detail is really, really impressive, but it does make for a slow read. It was really cool to read in so much detail about people returning to the site over the decades, however, and to see the overlap in local manpower between the imperial German and British excavation teams. I learned a lot, and it turns out that the Tendaguru fossils are super important. I'd have liked to know a little more about Nazi party activities on the German side, however--that bit gets a little glossed over. There's even some surprising CanCon.

Wallace Ulrich - Stone Fish: Fossils from Ulrich Quarries - Just a short promotional pamphlet, really, but I found it on the free book shelf by the ferry. It's from 1977, and not especially well written (in particular, I'm not sure whether Ulrich knows what 'tedious' means, or whether his repeated use of the term in describing the preparation process is a bit of a joke). But it offers a little bit of insight into the preparation process, which is cool.

Adrian Tchaikovsky: Shards of Earth - A new space opera trilogy following the unlikely exploits of a deep-space scavenging crew several decades after enigmatic aliens have destroyed Earth. This was fun, as usual.

Adrian Tchaikovsky: Eyes of the Void - The sequel to Shards of Earth. Also fun, although the Idris character is getting to be somewhat tedious in his utter helplessness. I look forward to the third installment, which promises to tie up the story. (It does seem like the story has gotten a little too operatic and large, but whatever--it's fun!).

[AvidReader]

English Society: 1580-1680, by Keith Wrightson.  Early Modern Britain was my area of specialty in my PhD program days in the early 1990s, and Keith Wrightson was (and is) a big name in the field.  Re-reading some of his work reminds me of why I found the field so fascinating back in the day. 

Ralph Tailor's Summer is the most engaging academic book I have ever read. If you liked English Sociaty and haven't come across RTS, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

AR.

[ab_grp]

I decided I had to listen to something very uplifting next.  I had the Poirot mysteries but figured I'd see if The 100-Year-Old Man who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared was on Audible.  It was, and it was free!! That is surely a sign.  So I've been listening to that one and really enjoying it.   The narrator (Steven Crossley) is doing a great job so far.  We also have the movie to watch at some point.  Thanks again to ergative for recommending such a wonderful tale.

I finished this the other day, though not without having a need for more tissues.  This time, though, they were because the story is just so dang sweet, and the characters so adorable, that I just want to be in their story with them.  The narrator was excellent, and I can't picture the story being read by anyone but him anymore.  I noticed on Audible that there is a second book in the series! I didn't even realize it was a series.  I might pick it up if it's on sale at some point, but the reviews are pretty mixed, and the negative consensus seems to be that the book is heavy-handed when it comes to political commentary (the further adventures involve real world leaders again, but this time from just a couple years ago).  I am not sure if that just indicates that these reviewers are probably supporters of some of the maligned world leaders.  But let me just recommend book one again, both in hard copy (or ebook) and audio version.

Now I'm listening to an unabridged version of Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street (Michael Lewis; same).  This book seems so far to focus on Lewis's career at Salomon Brothers on Wall Street starting in the 80s.  I'm not too far along in it, but there are some interesting insights into the working environment as well as the decision to make the interest rate variable and impact on the bond market and the onset of mortgage trading.  I briefly thought about looking into careers in the financial world in grad school after taking some classes involving stochastic processes and arbitrage.  It doesn't sound like the kind of place I'd like to work (and in hindsight since many of the collapses and breakdowns and excesses, I am glad I didn't!), but I do find it kind of fascinating. 

[apl68]

English Society: 1580-1680, by Keith Wrightson.  Early Modern Britain was my area of specialty in my PhD program days in the early 1990s, and Keith Wrightson was (and is) a big name in the field.  Re-reading some of his work reminds me of why I found the field so fascinating back in the day. 

Ralph Tailor's Summer is the most engaging academic book I have ever read. If you liked English Sociaty and haven't come across RTS, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

AR.

That does look interesting!  I'll have to see if I can ILL it.