Books read, late April

[mrissa]

Jonathan Barnes, The Domino Men. This read like Barnes had been reading Jonathan Carroll, China Mieville, and G. K. Chesterton. Sadly not nearly enough Chesterton.

Freeman Dyson, The Scientist As Rebel. Disclosure: I had Freeman as a professor for a "Science and Society" seminar for a semester of my time at Gustavus. I was completely unable to disentangle that experience from this book. It read, to me, like Freeman himself: sometimes right, sometimes wrong, always interesting, always dear, always engaging. I probably wouldn't start with this, of all his books, but I liked it anyway.

Simon Garfield, The Error World: An Affair With Stamps. This is one of the odd ones of my grandpa's library: it was a birthday present I gave him this year, so he never had a chance to read it. Having read it now myself, I'm not sure he would have liked it much. I didn't. It was about stamps and philately, which he loved, but also about Simon Garfield. I can't say for sure about Grandpa, but the more of the memoiry bits I read about Mr. Garfield, the less inclined I was to like him. I think being an annoying ass is sort of a liability when you're writing a memoir.

Tony Hays, The Killing Way. Discussed elsewhere.

Georgette Heyer, Bath Tangle and False Colours. Bath Tangle is my least favorite Heyer so far. I really did not like it at all and do not recommend it. The hero crosses the line from "willful and unconventional" to "complete jerk" on several occasions, and doesn't get called on it for some of the largest of them. Bah. I was much, much fonder of False Colours, particularly because I like seeing characters who are sensible and have senses of humor.

Gerard Hill, G. G. Smorodinova, and B. L. Ulyanova, Faberge and the Russian Master Goldsmiths. This is mostly a coffee-table book of photos of bunches of nifty things made in pre-Revolution Russian jewelers' workshops. I am fascinated by these things without finding very many of them personally appealing. Lots of good information about the fine crafts culture of that time and place for those of us who obsess about these things.

Elizabeth Moon, Victory Conditions. A solid ending to the series, but very much a series-ending rather than a stand-alone or an open-ended. I'm not sure Moon is done in this universe, but if she returns to it, I expect it'll be a new series.

Michael Wallis, Route 66: The Mother Road. This is one of Grandpa's. We drove parts of old Route 66 together when I was just turned 13--I think before that, too, maybe, but that's the trip I remember. He was very fond of the song "Get Your Kicks on Route 66," which I sing around the house, too. But Wallis didn't have what my grandpa did: the ability to enjoy what was without romanticizing it. He was utterly oblivious to the fact that he was describing all the "unique" diners as having the same menus, for example, and did not seem to see that Route 66 itself would almost certainly have had detractors in the previous set of historians and residents just as the current interstate freeways do for people like him. I had fun with this reading it as something my grandpa was interested in. I think if you were writing something about/around Rte. 66 in its heyday, you'd want a different work if you could find it, though.

Comments

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Isn't _Bath Tangle_ the one where the gently-born lady calls the hero "Duke" in direct address? Kill it! Kill it dead!

I just realized I never said anything about _The Kestrel_. Sigh. I might add it to whatever I say about _The Beggar Queen_, which is horribly overdue. Ack.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And his surname isn't Ellington, either.

But yes, The Beggar Queen discussion is a week from today! Come, read, discuss!

[txanne.livejournal.com]

And the glue in my paperback is that awful waxy stuff, so it fell apart instantly. I think I may have thrown it in the trash rather than giving it to the library when I moved. *That* should tell you a *lot*.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yikes.

[shana.livejournal.com]

False Colours is one of my favorite Heyers. I have a weakness for stories about twins, and that one is so well done.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

And it has a notably good old grandmother. I think she's a grandmother anyway. I could read that again, it's been a while.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to trample your excuse for a reread, but she was indeed a grandmother.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

Can you elaborate a bit about The Domino Men? I was thinking of picking this up.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The central conspiracy feels sort of rehashed and sketchy to me, and also there are many bits where I said, "Ah, this is where Barnes intended me to be shocked and/or disgusted," which is rather worse than actually being shocked and/or disgusted.

On the other hand, I like early Jonathan Carroll, and what I don't like about late Jonathan Carroll is that he hits a lot of the same tropes over and over and overandoverandover, and these are somewhat different sets of imagery etc. at least.

[ellarien]

Bath Tangle is one of my least favorite Heyers as well -- I may even have abandoned it mid-reread once. I can't remember without checking which of the late-model obnoxious male leads that was, but the whole thing felt a bit flat and stale to me.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I think being an annoying ass is sort of a liability when you're writing a memoir.

I thought it was a requirement for publication of a mixed memoir, or perhaps for writing one in the first place.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Here are some interesting facts about brie, but wouldn't you rather hear about me?"

Well.

But you like Oliver Sacks.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Victory Conditions was a relief for me; I was braced for an unsatisfying ending. I don't often like Moon's ends-of-things. It's hard to stick the landing on a series like this, too (and that is the way my brain gave it to me, "she stuck the landing").

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah. I hadn't read much Moon in a long time. Going back for more, and this is not the most comforting comment ever.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

It's not that they're bad (okay, one of them really was) but that they are not what I want-- a little too realistic sometimes, not as much direct showing-them-all as I'd like. A great many people have more sophisticated tastes in endings than I do.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Simon Garfield, The Error World: An Affair With Stamps
Simon Winchester has ruined what could have been several interesting books by being just this fascinated with himself. I am thinking about dropping off A Crack in the World at Goodwill, but I'm struggling with adding an editorial comment in very small writing on the inside back cover--perhaps right along the spine-fold. Even if it is defacing a book, some people might like to be warned.

I <3 False Colours very much indeed. Even the annoying people are intersting, and you can see how they got to be the way they are, and the Not-a-Lady in Pink Satin was most entertaining. Plus, sensible people!

I grew up on a stretch of Route 66--it was still the main road when I was small, as I-44 was gradually being built to replace it in that part of Missouri, and my mother's father had a contract to build part of the original road near Sullivan, Missouri in the late 1920s. I was talking to my mother about the Old Road (official local designation) not too long ago--she remembered a stretch through St James, Missouri, where the road divided into two as it went through town, with a stretch of trees planted between them--she always looked forward to that stretch coming home from trips to St. Louis in late afternoon/early evening, as the trees blocked the setting sun so she could drive without it in her eyes. Then there was the stretch near Waynesville/Ft. Wood, which was one of the last to be replaced by the interstate--it had the built-up sides on the paving, so that it kept the rain from running off, with an increased likelihood of hydroplaning, plus you went from interstate to plain old US highway, without limited access, without any warning, so that people would be pulling out of gas stations and restaurants and tourist traps right onto the road without any warning, much to the shock of all the drivers who weren't locals.

So, yes, fond memories, and awareness of the history, but we aren't very romantic about it. It beat the hell out of what was there when they started building it, though. There are a lot of interesting things along the way, but I think that's true of most roads, if you only take the trouble to find out.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think it's a very useful fine line to walk, being aware of the history and even keen on the history but not romanticizing it. I love having family history for places around here, my great-grandmother's picnics at Minnehaha Falls when she was a teenager and like that.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Yes. Once you get to the romanticizing, you're moving into a fantasy that's more about the way you wish the world was, I think. It was a good road, and there were a lot of interesting things and places along it. I'm glad there are people willing to mark it and do preservation things along it. But it was still slippery when it rained, you know.