latest books
May. 20th, 2013 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerRace of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett (6) This third book in the Niccolo saga begins where the last left off, in northern Italy, but most of the story takes place on two islands in the Mediterranean, Rhodes and Cyprus. In the 1460s when the book takes place, Rhodes is home to the headquarters of the Knights of St John of the Hospital. An international nongovernmental organization as we would call them today :-), the Knights were a small but influential military force and an equally important economic power. The other islands, Cyprus, suffers from a civil war between a brother and sister, both claiming to be its ruler. It also lies at the intersection of several larger conflicts, those between Christian Europe and the Moslem Levant, and between the various factions (the Ottoman Turks, the Black Sheep Turkomans who rule eastern Turkey and the Caucasus, and the Mamluks who rule Egypt). One of the feuding rulers of Cyprus, Carlotta, has recruited the Knights Hospitaller to her side; the other, James, has an army of Mamluks at his back.
Niccolo, because of his ingenuity, his contacts, and his small but potent mercanry army, has been dragged (leterally) into this conflict. Heis, by turns, threatened, tortured, and bribed to support one of the Lusignan siblings against the other. During the course of the conflict, he encounters members of his sometime-family, including familiar figures (like Katelina van Borselen) and new characters (young Diniz Vasquez, nephew of Nicco's alleged father, the murderous Simon de St Pol). Many of his loyal allies are here as well, and those who lie somewhere in between. We also get an in-depth portrait of King James II de Lusignan (also known as Zacco), and slightly less fully developed portrayals of his mother (Marietta of Patras), his sister (Queen Carlotta) and of Tzani Bey, the leader of the Mamluk contingent on the island. Oh, and we meet a new and sinister enemy, a rival both to the House of Niccolo and to the House of Riberac and St Pol.
Dunnett's skill in painting evocative descriptions of place, of moment, her amazing ability to bring sight and sound, smell and feel alive from the written page is as present as ever. Her complex plotting and masterful understatement is present as well. Dunnett makes the reader work hard; so much is laid bare, but only in passing, through allusion, or indirectly that, as Sherlock Holmes would say, "You must not just see; you must observe." These are books to savour and enjoy over time, but they are not books to be raced through or to be read as brain candy--if one does so, one will lose half the value and pleasure to be found in Dunnett's craft.
Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 by John Ferling (7) I won't go into a great deal of detail discussing this book now, but I would highly recommend it. I've always been more interested in the military aspects of the American Revolution than the political ones, and in pre-Revolutionary America than in the new republic. But the more I read about these people--not only Adams and Jefferson, but Washington, Madison, Monroe, Franklin, Hamilton, and all the rest--the more interesting I find them. Despite the title, this book deals with much more than the disputed and contentious fouth presidential election. Ferling provides quite detailed personal and political biographies of the major players as well as a good deal of the political and constitutional history that laid the groundwork for the battle of 1800. He describes the rise of faction, the tension between the conservative, urban, centralist Federalist Party and the more liberal, more agrarian Republican Party, advocates of a smaller and less powerful national government. He describes how foreign affairs and domestic policy influenced the passions and discourse of the parties, and how Adams, swept along by the extremists in his own party, found himself trying to moderate the policies of his own administration in opposition to many of his own cabinent secretaries. It shows how Adams and Jefferson, once firm friends, fell into dislike and then hostility. And the author also details (after a painstaking description of the election and its aftermath) how retirement allowed the two, eventually, to reconstruct their friendship through correspondence, up to the touching and impossibly improbable moment of their deaths.
What's fascinating about reading the history of this election is how resonant the themes of the election seem today. Perhaps not the specific issues (though some of those, even, remain), but definitely the outlooks of the two parties, their biases, their visions of the country. In particular, Ferling's Jefferson seems prophetic in his fears of what the influence of the nascent financial industry, the great capital engine of growth now worshipped by so many, would be on the prospect for true American democracy. The more I read about Jefferson, the less I like him as a person, but I confess I sympathise a great deal with his feelings about the malign influence of those who simply manipulate the flow of money. And while I am in most things much more of a federalist than a believer that the best government is the most distributed, I cannot help but acknowledge his fears were well founded that with strogn implements of national power, the feeral government can invovle the United States in dangerous entanglements abroad and overreach in its reaction to criticism at home.
At this rate, I'll be lucky if I break 30 books this year. A lot of that is because I've gotten i the habit of watching a great deal more television than I used to, mostly because it's so easy to stream on Netflix and the like. From 2009, when I started keeping track, I've read, each year, 52, 33, 47, and 35 books. Is uppose fifty is a rather high bar, especially for new books, as it would almost be one a week. I have mixed feelings about this; I know that the TV watching is sort of a coping thing: it's easy and enjoyable and feeds my love of storytelling and acting without costing much or taking, really, any effort. But I was raised to have a vague feeling that reading was a "better" thing to do because it engaged your imagination more. And while sitting and reading doesn't make one stir any more than sitting and watching TV, I do somehow feel as if TV makes one more indolent and is in part why I've become such a slug and not spent more time walking and hiking and cycling, especially during the past months when such things would be more enjoyable than they will be in the next few. Ah, well.
Currently in progress:
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
With Machinegun to Cambrai by George Coppard
Raiding on the Western Front by Anthony Saunders
Foch: Supreme Allied Commander in the Great War by Michael S. Neiberg
The Western Front: Ordinary Soldiers and the Defining Battles of World War I by Richard Holmes
Boer Commando by Denneys Reitz
In limbo somewhere
In the Skies of Nomonhan: Japan versus Russia, May - September 1939 by Dimitar Nedialkov
The Fort by Bernard Cornwell
Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 by Thomas Desjardins
Knights of the Cross; or, Krzyzacy by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Tales of Terror and Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Laxdaela Saga
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
Shards of Empire by Susan Schwartz
The Lily Hand And Other Stories by Edith Pargeter
Understanding China by John Bryan Starr
The Williamite Wars in Ireland, 1688-1691 by John Childs
Theoretical Criminology by George B. Vold et al.
In the Name of the Father: Washington's Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation by Francois Furstenberg
Doom Castle by Neil Munro
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Niccolo, because of his ingenuity, his contacts, and his small but potent mercanry army, has been dragged (leterally) into this conflict. Heis, by turns, threatened, tortured, and bribed to support one of the Lusignan siblings against the other. During the course of the conflict, he encounters members of his sometime-family, including familiar figures (like Katelina van Borselen) and new characters (young Diniz Vasquez, nephew of Nicco's alleged father, the murderous Simon de St Pol). Many of his loyal allies are here as well, and those who lie somewhere in between. We also get an in-depth portrait of King James II de Lusignan (also known as Zacco), and slightly less fully developed portrayals of his mother (Marietta of Patras), his sister (Queen Carlotta) and of Tzani Bey, the leader of the Mamluk contingent on the island. Oh, and we meet a new and sinister enemy, a rival both to the House of Niccolo and to the House of Riberac and St Pol.
Dunnett's skill in painting evocative descriptions of place, of moment, her amazing ability to bring sight and sound, smell and feel alive from the written page is as present as ever. Her complex plotting and masterful understatement is present as well. Dunnett makes the reader work hard; so much is laid bare, but only in passing, through allusion, or indirectly that, as Sherlock Holmes would say, "You must not just see; you must observe." These are books to savour and enjoy over time, but they are not books to be raced through or to be read as brain candy--if one does so, one will lose half the value and pleasure to be found in Dunnett's craft.
Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 by John Ferling (7) I won't go into a great deal of detail discussing this book now, but I would highly recommend it. I've always been more interested in the military aspects of the American Revolution than the political ones, and in pre-Revolutionary America than in the new republic. But the more I read about these people--not only Adams and Jefferson, but Washington, Madison, Monroe, Franklin, Hamilton, and all the rest--the more interesting I find them. Despite the title, this book deals with much more than the disputed and contentious fouth presidential election. Ferling provides quite detailed personal and political biographies of the major players as well as a good deal of the political and constitutional history that laid the groundwork for the battle of 1800. He describes the rise of faction, the tension between the conservative, urban, centralist Federalist Party and the more liberal, more agrarian Republican Party, advocates of a smaller and less powerful national government. He describes how foreign affairs and domestic policy influenced the passions and discourse of the parties, and how Adams, swept along by the extremists in his own party, found himself trying to moderate the policies of his own administration in opposition to many of his own cabinent secretaries. It shows how Adams and Jefferson, once firm friends, fell into dislike and then hostility. And the author also details (after a painstaking description of the election and its aftermath) how retirement allowed the two, eventually, to reconstruct their friendship through correspondence, up to the touching and impossibly improbable moment of their deaths.
What's fascinating about reading the history of this election is how resonant the themes of the election seem today. Perhaps not the specific issues (though some of those, even, remain), but definitely the outlooks of the two parties, their biases, their visions of the country. In particular, Ferling's Jefferson seems prophetic in his fears of what the influence of the nascent financial industry, the great capital engine of growth now worshipped by so many, would be on the prospect for true American democracy. The more I read about Jefferson, the less I like him as a person, but I confess I sympathise a great deal with his feelings about the malign influence of those who simply manipulate the flow of money. And while I am in most things much more of a federalist than a believer that the best government is the most distributed, I cannot help but acknowledge his fears were well founded that with strogn implements of national power, the feeral government can invovle the United States in dangerous entanglements abroad and overreach in its reaction to criticism at home.
At this rate, I'll be lucky if I break 30 books this year. A lot of that is because I've gotten i the habit of watching a great deal more television than I used to, mostly because it's so easy to stream on Netflix and the like. From 2009, when I started keeping track, I've read, each year, 52, 33, 47, and 35 books. Is uppose fifty is a rather high bar, especially for new books, as it would almost be one a week. I have mixed feelings about this; I know that the TV watching is sort of a coping thing: it's easy and enjoyable and feeds my love of storytelling and acting without costing much or taking, really, any effort. But I was raised to have a vague feeling that reading was a "better" thing to do because it engaged your imagination more. And while sitting and reading doesn't make one stir any more than sitting and watching TV, I do somehow feel as if TV makes one more indolent and is in part why I've become such a slug and not spent more time walking and hiking and cycling, especially during the past months when such things would be more enjoyable than they will be in the next few. Ah, well.
Currently in progress:
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
With Machinegun to Cambrai by George Coppard
Raiding on the Western Front by Anthony Saunders
Foch: Supreme Allied Commander in the Great War by Michael S. Neiberg
The Western Front: Ordinary Soldiers and the Defining Battles of World War I by Richard Holmes
Boer Commando by Denneys Reitz
In limbo somewhere
In the Skies of Nomonhan: Japan versus Russia, May - September 1939 by Dimitar Nedialkov
The Fort by Bernard Cornwell
Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 by Thomas Desjardins
Knights of the Cross; or, Krzyzacy by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Tales of Terror and Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Laxdaela Saga
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
Shards of Empire by Susan Schwartz
The Lily Hand And Other Stories by Edith Pargeter
Understanding China by John Bryan Starr
The Williamite Wars in Ireland, 1688-1691 by John Childs
Theoretical Criminology by George B. Vold et al.
In the Name of the Father: Washington's Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation by Francois Furstenberg
Doom Castle by Neil Munro
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
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no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 01:29 pm (UTC)What you mention is one thing that still has me a little leery of pursuing the hoary PhD in its gloomy lair, but I did get a very nice encouraging note from a prof I wrote off to, explaining my long-term plan and mooting a thesis topic I'd been kicking around with a friend. Perhaps if I'm lucky I can learn to study history without eventually fearing and hating books. :-)
no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 02:47 pm (UTC)I think what I really need is to find some truly wonderful books to get me into it -- The Night Circus last year almost did it for me, but the next book I picked up was some awful piece of tripe (can't even remember now what it was called!), and I never started a new one once I cast that aside in disgust. Hmmmmm, I think tonight I'll start by re-reading The Burning of Bridget Cleary (which I highly recommend, btw, if you've never encountered it!).