What have you read lately?

[spork]

[. . . ]

Can anyone recommend either a good non-fiction tome about poisonous poisons, or else an SFF book in which poison really takes center stage?

Not quite an answer to your question, but you might be interested in Blind Eye by James B. Stewart. It's about Michael Swango, whose poison of choice for co-workers was arsenic. For his patients, it was lethal doses of medication.

[apl68]

Nobody has yet mentioned The Elements of Murder:  A History of Poison, by John Emsley.  It's the only book on the subject I've ever read.  It's quite well-written.  There are sections on mercury, arsenic, antimony, lead, and less well-known elemental poisons such as copper and barium.

[apl68]

I just read a donated copy of a recent reprint of The Red Air Fighter, by Manfred von Richtofen, aka "The Red Baron."  In 1917, while recuperating from wounds, he wrote up a short memoir of his war service prior to his injury.  It seems to have been subject to quite a bit of wartime censorship and editing, but it was not just ghost-written.  There are now and them some pretty frank passages.  The Red Baron comes across as very pleased with himself and his war service.  He was, not surprisingly, the sort who loved the thrill of danger.  He mentions the deaths of a number of his friends and colleagues without saying a lot about how they affected him.  Reticence was normal for a man of his time and social position, of course, and the wartime editing wouldn't have encouraged too much emotion either.  Still, one does get the impression of Richtofen as a man not much given to reflection.

Remarkably enough, the Red Baron's memoir was published in translation in Britain while the war was still going on.  In fact, it was evidently published before Richtofen's death in April, 1918--the original British preface, which was included in this edition, makes no mention of it.  The author of the preface speaks of the German pilots as worthy opponents, with whom one would be glad to shake hands once the war was over.  The Red Baron would not be around to do that.

[ergative]

Hegemony, spork, apl68, thank you so much for the recommendations! I'm going to go with apl68's in the first instance, since it seems more directly attuned to my cravings at the moment, but I'll keep the others in mind too!

[ab_grp]

Now we're back to the Silo series (Howey) with the follow up to Wool, Shift.  I fell asleep within seconds of my husband starting to read, so I have no idea if it's good or not yet but will report back.  The first one was inconsistent but had some worthwhile parts, I thought.  I know we discussed it a bit earlier in the thread.

Finished this one a couple nights ago.  It was a fairly interesting story, and better than the first book (in my opinion).  It was suspenseful at times and had some thought-provoking ideas about society, as well as some intriguing characters.  However, it felt somewhat disjointed, like it was trying to do too much.  There is a lot of back and forth between timelines and locations that can get difficult to follow and to try to keep in mind what is happening when with respect to what other occurrences.  We will still likely read the third book at some point.

Now we are back to the Expanse series (Corey) with Cibola Burn.  We're not too far in yet, but it was interesting to come across the mention of the Nipah virus, since that is currently causing problems in India.

[mamselle]

For poison, there's a short section on the development of cyanide (Prussic acid) in this article:

   https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/a-cautionary-tale-about-science-raises-uncomfortable-questions-about-fiction

Not that I recommend trying it at home or anything...

M.

[apl68]

The History of Henry Esmond, Esquire, by William M. Thackeray.  Henry Esmond is not as well-remembered as Thackeray's Vanity Fair.  It is definitely full of Thackeray's characteristic wit and satire.  The title character--who confusingly alternates between referring to himself in first and third person--is the child of a prominent family in late 17th- early 18th-century England.  Harry is involved from boyhood in several plots on behalf of the exiled Stuarts; serves in Marlborough's campaigns in the early 1700s; falls in love with a kindly lady and later the lady's no-good daughter; and learns that he has an improbably melodramatic and convoluted origin story.  In the end (and this is not a spoiler, because it's mentioned in the original introduction) he goes off to colonial Virginia and establishes one of those old southern families that claims aristocratic British origins (Most of which are in real life totally bogus--at the time of the Civil War the average southern planter family was only three or four generations removed from indentured servant origins).

The exciting details Esmond's eventful life are embedded in a typically long-winded Victorian novel.  You either have the patience to read through all that purple prose for any nuggets that are concealed within it, or you don't.  I do, so it was a worthwhile read.  Ivanhoe was quite a bit faster-moving, if that tells you anything.  Much of Henry Esmond's interest has to do with the historical setting.  England/Britain went through repeated succession crises between 1688 and 1715, with repeated rebellions in the Celtic periphery and fears of renewed civil war at home.  In between these events there was lots of political debate and intrigue.  Thackeray gives a vivid picture of how unstable and divisive the situation was during the period.  A recurring theme of the novel is the idea that political allegiances--Esmond's and many others' as well--are driven as much by personal feelings as by actual principles.

Quite a few actual historical figures--Addison and Steele of Spectator fame, Jonathan Swift, the Duke of Marlborough, even the Old Pretender himself--appear as characters.  Thackeray's history frequently doesn't square with what I recall from my studies of the period years ago (No, the Old Pretender did NOT sneak into England incognito in 1714 in hopes of being there to seize the throne when ailing Queen Anne died).  Now I want to refresh my knowledge of the period.  Making plans to do so in the next few weeks, as I have opportunity.

[mamselle]

You might then like the book I've been working from as a reference for my colonial burying ground work: "The English People on the Eve of Colonization: 1603-1630." (Notestine/Harper).

It's older, but very useful for the dates and the basics; I've also been working from "Puritans and Papists in Elizabethan England," which starts a bit further back but gives some of the entangled political/politial skirmishes that issued from the 16th c. tacking of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth across the river of "cuius regio, religio" and that led to the intrigues you've just mentioned.

Also Hosteter's "America at 1750," from this side of the puddle, or any of the Atlantic Rim historians.

And coincidentally, I came here to note I've just re-read "Death Comes to Pemberly," by P.D.James, which ends with some interactions with the colonies (I won't say more to avoid spoiling it). "The Carolinians" is one of the "bodice-ripper-but-not-too-bad-historically" novels treating of those folks who showed up on this side of the Atlantic in one guise, while not entirely being the folks they were on the other side, when they left.

After all, once your shipmates are gone, who's to know?

M.

[FishProf]

Bill Bryson's Neither Here Nor There.  It's a travelogue from ca. 1990.  It was interesting to compare hos description of the places I have been (1-2 decade later) and places that have drastically changed since he was there.  Also, I like his snarky style.

[apl68]

You might then like the book I've been working from as a reference for my colonial burying ground work: "The English People on the Eve of Colonization: 1603-1630." (Notestine/Harper).

Read that in grad school, as a matter of fact. I seem to recall it being pretty good.  I'll have to look it up again sometime.

[spork]

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright. Family members of people killed in the 9/11 attacks who read this book probably wanted certain employees of the NSA, CIA, FBI, and White House to be hanged.

[hmaria1609]

From the library: Travels with George by Nathaniel Philbrick
The author retraces George Washington's regional tours during his presidency.  It's got travelogue tossed in the mix.  I'd read a comparable book titled George Washington's 1791 Southern Tour by Warren L. Bingham (History Press, 2016)

And coincidentally, I came here to note I've just re-read "Death Comes to Pemberly," by P.D.James, which ends with some interactions with the colonies (I won't say more to avoid spoiling it).
M.

I saw the adaptation of the novel on "Masterpiece Theatre" in 2014--lots of familiar faces in the cast!  I didn't read the novel.

[ergative]

And coincidentally, I came here to note I've just re-read "Death Comes to Pemberly," by P.D.James, which ends with some interactions with the colonies (I won't say more to avoid spoiling it).
M.

I saw the adaptation of the novel on "Masterpiece Theatre" in 2014--lots of familiar faces in the cast!  I didn't read the novel.

I read that when it came out. I remember thinking that it felt a bit slow and plodding, lacking the wit and zing I'd expect from a Jane Austen fanfiction.

[mamselle]

Hmm, I hadn't noticed that. I've read a lot of P.D. James, though, and maybe I'm just used to her longer descriptive passages.

I admit, in the first one of hers I read, "Holy Orders," I skipped over some of the descriptions the first time through, to get to the plot points, but then I realized that, in doing so, I'd missed some important details that she'd embedded in the descriptions.

I've read most of the rest of her work since then. Maybe it's a different approach to conveying plot: I've often thought of writing an essay on, say, the difference between Austen and Mann in their use of dance scenes; in this case, Austen conveys plot while things are moving (hence the zing to which you allude) while James uses the essential nature of contemplative settings and more placid background musings to get her points across.

So maybe she's trained me to read her, like Dickens, at a different pace, or something.

Interesting, I hadn't thought of that before.

Thanks--

M.

[apl68]

Catastrophe 1914:  Europe Goes to War, by Max Hastings.  One of many books that came out for the centennial of World War I.  It's a very good one.  Hastings focuses less on the intricacies of what caused the war and more on the actual outbreak of fighting and the first several months of it.  It's an accessibly written history by somebody who has nonetheless clearly familiarized himself with the most authoritative literature on it.  Hastings presents the story from a wide range of points of view--soldiers, officers, refugees, home-front civilians, and civilian leaders.  And also a variety of nationalities, although not surprisingly there's a greater focus on the Western Front.

Hastings is one of the most fair-minded historians I've read.  He tries hard neither to sentimentalize nor demonize any of the individuals or groups that he writes about.  You see that in his treatment of World War I commanders, for example.  They're hard men to like--their attitudes and values were not much like those of today, and they made decisions--and mistakes--that cost great numbers of men their lives.  But they were also men called upon to do a virtually impossible job, at a time when mass armies and mass firepower guaranteed appalling casualties no matter what strategies and tactics the commanders attempted.  They made mistakes, but they weren't, contrary to what you still often hear, a bunch of criminally incompetent blunderers (Well, there were exceptions).

Probably the best book on the opening months of World War I I've seen.  It even supersedes Barbara Tuchman's classic The Guns of August.