January reading
Jan. 31st, 2016 05:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heliopausaI'm a bit stunned, right this minute. I was going to post today about the books I've read this month:
Peter Dickinson: King and Joker
Very good, of course (I admire PD enormously) - mystery in alternate history Britain, under King Victor II, juggling the 'fairytale' of royalty with the underlying mechanics, and their consequences, with brutally grim not-fairytale ending. Brilliant in depiction of family interactions, I think - the subtle mutual supports and manipulations, and layer upon layer of family culture.
Celia Blay: Margaret Bisset: Maiden of Bradley 1158-1242
This is more a slender pamphlet (28 pages) than a book, but beautifully researched (and illustrated!) showing how the life of this unmarried daughter of nobility interwove with the world around her. It's crammed with incident and connections - Simon de Montfort, Eleanor of Brittany - and moves from North africa, across Europe into England and out again, and then again out the other way, to Ireland, giving a terrific sense of all the vibrancy and relatedness of things - of kings and of medical science, of women's religious experience, and careers. Margaret herself planned a lay cloistered retirement at the age of 58, but was then recalled to active life to become governess-companion to Princess Isabella, who became Empress in Cologne (Margaret Biset went with her).
Nevil Shute: Pied Piper
standard Nevil Shute, very deftly written, good solid story, humanitarian, mildly of-the-time bigotries. Historically interesting, in that it was being written about the German advance across France in 1942 while that advance was still in progress, and while the future of Britain was still unsure - i.e. written I think as something of an exemplum for the British, indicating what might be in store, and what might constitute right behaviour, if Britain fell.
and the one I've just this past hour finished reading
Christopher Duggan: The Force of Destiny: a history of Italy since 1796
which was a totally gripping, I think possibly brilliant, history - just knock-out, and very, very thought-provoking (though hideously depressing in terms of cruelty, corruption etc) especially in the whole business of nation-making and also tracing the factors which contributed to the rise of fascism,and neo-fascism.
Honestly, the last was so good that I was on the verge of writing to the author, and to that end just this hour or so back searched for him on the internet, and found that he was dead, just last November, found hanged like so many of the other outspoken critics of corruption I'd been reading about. There will be an inquest beginning next month. I'm still somewhat in shock.
Peter Dickinson: King and Joker
Very good, of course (I admire PD enormously) - mystery in alternate history Britain, under King Victor II, juggling the 'fairytale' of royalty with the underlying mechanics, and their consequences, with brutally grim not-fairytale ending. Brilliant in depiction of family interactions, I think - the subtle mutual supports and manipulations, and layer upon layer of family culture.
Celia Blay: Margaret Bisset: Maiden of Bradley 1158-1242
This is more a slender pamphlet (28 pages) than a book, but beautifully researched (and illustrated!) showing how the life of this unmarried daughter of nobility interwove with the world around her. It's crammed with incident and connections - Simon de Montfort, Eleanor of Brittany - and moves from North africa, across Europe into England and out again, and then again out the other way, to Ireland, giving a terrific sense of all the vibrancy and relatedness of things - of kings and of medical science, of women's religious experience, and careers. Margaret herself planned a lay cloistered retirement at the age of 58, but was then recalled to active life to become governess-companion to Princess Isabella, who became Empress in Cologne (Margaret Biset went with her).
Nevil Shute: Pied Piper
standard Nevil Shute, very deftly written, good solid story, humanitarian, mildly of-the-time bigotries. Historically interesting, in that it was being written about the German advance across France in 1942 while that advance was still in progress, and while the future of Britain was still unsure - i.e. written I think as something of an exemplum for the British, indicating what might be in store, and what might constitute right behaviour, if Britain fell.
and the one I've just this past hour finished reading
Christopher Duggan: The Force of Destiny: a history of Italy since 1796
which was a totally gripping, I think possibly brilliant, history - just knock-out, and very, very thought-provoking (though hideously depressing in terms of cruelty, corruption etc) especially in the whole business of nation-making and also tracing the factors which contributed to the rise of fascism,and neo-fascism.
Honestly, the last was so good that I was on the verge of writing to the author, and to that end just this hour or so back searched for him on the internet, and found that he was dead, just last November, found hanged like so many of the other outspoken critics of corruption I'd been reading about. There will be an inquest beginning next month. I'm still somewhat in shock.
