Still waiting for the new David Mitchell, and started The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison – classic fantasy, often compared to Lord of the Rings. I’ve started this book several times, always when waiting for something else, and I always drop it when the something else arrives. I’ll finish it eventually – I do like what I’ve read so far. It’s about an ongoing conflict between Witchland and Demonland.
I’ve spent the past several months working through Georgette Heyer novels. Just finished Cousin Kate. Don’t have a new one in my hands at the moment.
I never finished it. I have heard it is good, but it seemed like a lot of work and I wasn’t enjoying it. I’m not even sure I have a copy on my shelf anymore.
I love Georgette Heyer! My mom loaned me a box of her books (ancient, crumbling hardbacks, some of them) and I’ve read a couple dozen of them over the last two years.
I gave up on Sawyer’s Flashforward. I just can’t read that guy’s prose.
Yeah, I enjoyed both of those
I have here The Secrets of Newberry by Victor McGlothin, “Essence Bestselling Author,” about a pair of friends in 1950s New Orleans. Haven’t cracked it yet. Somewhat concerned because the press release says the author also has a blog that is “a real Brotha-to-Sistah look at relationships.”
The British edition has four (Frasier, one of the Labour guys, eventually joins the LibDems); the American edition has three - two Tory and one Labour. Kerslake, the better of the two Tories, gets several of Frasier’s life experiences in the American edition.
Finished Blue Denim, a play about abortion written in the fifties, told from the potential father’s POV. Entertaining histrionics by the characters, but not as much propaganda as might be expected. The thing that disturbed me the most: Why on earth is it called Blue Denim? I don’t recall denim even being mentioned.
I gave up on The Red Pyramid. It wasn’t holding my attention at all.
Actually, it was Flexner who wrote the giant, multi-volume bio (which I haven’t read, as his George Washington: The Indispensable Man was sufficient for me). I hope you’ll also take a look (if you haven’t already) at David McCullough’s 1776, Joseph Ellis’s Founding Brothers, Garry Wills’s Cincinnatus, and especially Richard Brookhiser’s Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, all of which are excellent. Richard Norton Smith’s Patriarch and Ellis’s His Excellency are also worth a look, although not in the same league as the others.
McCullough focuses on the key year of the Revolution; doesn’t break any new ground but tells the story well. Ellis really earned his Pulitzer; his book has several concise but fascinating portraits of the Framers, including Washington, and delves into their relationships and rivalries. Wills discusses Washington as a symbol of early republican virtue and notes that both George III and Napoleon were admirers. Brookhiser gives a great, short, breezy overview of Washington and his role in American political and pop culture today. Smith focuses on Washington as President - a detailed book but a bit dry, I thought. Ellis’s His Excellency was a disappointment after Founding Brothers, not nearly as lively or readable, but is a decent one-volume bio.
Ah - we got the British edition in Canada.
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader by Bradely K Martin
I have waited for this book for years. It seems to be a full and fair look at regime in North Korea. Honestly, I am still in the first 10% of the book, but I am very impressed. The guy has done his homework and given us as much of a full picture as may be possible.
Five stars, really super.
Just finished “The True Story of Hansel and Gretel”. While I have a hard time watching movies involving warfare, especially regarding WW1 or 2, for some reason I have a much easier time reading about it. And this is a really good book; I haven’t read to find out ‘what happens next’ as avidly in a long time, and the descriptions of Poland, wedged between the Germans and the Russians, well…I suck at history, but it was very descriptive and revealing. My favourite kind of historical fiction; I will remember more from this ‘fairy tale’ than I ever got out of history classes.
I’m reading The Three pound Universe a pop science book about the brain. It’s breezy but entertaining, though I’m sure it’s very dated.
Also Columbine by Dave Cullen. It’s very good, and exhaustively reasearched. It explodes a lot of myths about the incident and gets into the head of everyone involved, both killers and victims.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. Historical fiction with minimal exposition – the best kind. Dutch traders in Japan in the late 1700’s.
If I recall my history correctly, the Dutch were allowed to keep on trading there at one point because they were the only ones willing to jump up and down and trample on the cross. Traders of other nationalities refused and were expelled.
Finished The Big Money, by John Dos Passos, one of the Lost Generation of post-WWI writers, thus ending his USA trilogy. Truly excellent apart from some minor quibbles. Such as the disappearance of a major character in the first novel of the trilogy, and the death of another major character simply mentioned in passing by another with no explanation. But again, these are minor, and the trilogy gives a good overview of how tensions between labor and capital shaped the first three decades of 20th-century America. Very absorbing.
As I’ve become much busier of late, I need something a little lighter, so I shall now embark upon Lucky You, by Carl Hiaasen. My library had the paperback version, which is good, because I will have some business to attend to in Laos very soon and don’t want to be lugging around a large book like the Dos Passos trilogy with me.
Thank you for all of this! My library shall be welcoming me shortly. 
Have you heard anything about The Unexpected Washington by Harlow Giles Unger? I saw it on Amazon but couldn’t get a sense of its reputation among scholars.
You’re probably recalling correctly. In the book, the Dutch are the only traders allowed, and they’re mostly restricted to a manmade island. No one has jumped on a cross yet, but the main character had to hide his Psalter. I’m getting a picture of the Japanese as extremely protective of their culture.
Nope. Never heard of it before now (the Booklist and Publisher’s Weekly reviews on Amazon are favorable, though). There are about a million books on Lincoln, and half a million on Washington, and I don’t pretend to have read even half of those. 
Completed:
Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology by Kenneth Feder
Our Lady of the Forest by David Guterson ~ BOR-RING
Dragon Champion (Age of Fire, Book 1) by E. E. Knight
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre
**Quincunx ** by Charles Palliser ~ Loved this! Imagine Dickens with a mean streak. While I couldn’t wrap my head around the whole issue with the will, it was still a thrilling read.
Fail:
The Raven by Peter Landesman ~ just couldn’t get into it. Most likely will try again in the future.
Reading:
**Morte D’Arthur **~ Plod plod plod…
The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia ~ ended up putting this aside for now. It’s a bit dry.
A book on Alcatraz
**Buffalo Bill **biography which is rocking my world right now.