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Post by Fairweather on May 24, 2009 9:34:50 GMT -5
Okay, what this thread is about is book reviews: i.e. collected from online newpaper book sections & etc., that sound as if they would be interesting. I've got a whole list of books of that sort written in my personal journal. Maybe one day I'll even get around to reading them.  In today's WaPo, I come across this short review of Peter Laufer's THE DANGEROUS LIFE OF BUTTERFLIES: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052201128.htmlLaufer has written about the rise of neo-Naziism, war, PTSD and the failure of government to deal with it adequately in our returning soldiers, but in this book he's writing about--yes. Butterflies. Sounds interesting. I love butterflies. We occasionally have monarches, and these huge ones with blue and black iridescent wings, but most usually we have tiny ones, blue, violet and yellow, wafting around the yard. Gonna put this one on my someday reading list. |
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Post by Fairweather on Jun 12, 2009 8:49:59 GMT -5
Full disclosure: I have long been fascinated with that curious episode of New England history known as the Salem Witch Trials. In fact, I wrote a paper for my senior history seminar in American history about the trial, conviction and execution of Bridget Bishop, the first "witch" hanged in 1692--but alas not the last. So I was riveted when I found this review of Katherine Howe's new book, THE PHYSIC BOOK OF DELIVERANCE DANE. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061103944.htmlHowe, the reviewer mentions in passing, is descended from two people persecuted at Salem; one survived the ordeal, one didn't. (I could, based on her surname, make an educated guess about which ones, but I won't bore you with the details.) Another for my someday reading list. |
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Post by Fairweather on Jun 12, 2009 14:31:00 GMT -5
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Post by Fairweather on Jun 12, 2009 14:38:45 GMT -5
A book about how economic, military and constitutional history are dying out, replaced by gender, ethnic, etc.: www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/books/11hist.html?8bu&emc=bub2As a one-time serious student, and now a dilettante of the odd, in history, I add this to the debate: unless you are blessed with an inspiring professor in those older disciplines, as I was with my beloved Doc, they're JUST PLAIN BLOODY DULL. That's part of the problem, right there. |
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Post by Fairweather on Jun 15, 2009 10:47:55 GMT -5
A treat for us Shakespeareans: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401953.htmlMARTYRS, a first novel by journalist Rory Clements. Set in the dangerous year 1587, in the reign of Elizabeth I, it features a queen's agent named John Shakespeare who has a younger brother named Will--Suggestive, no? Also sounds as if the author has done the homework--just because E I's reign is remembered as a Golden Age in English history and literature doesn't mean it wasn't a violent and treacherous one. (And I've had a crush on Sir Francis Drake ever since I saw Adrian Paul play him on TV awhile back-- ) |
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Post by Fairweather on Jun 19, 2009 13:45:58 GMT -5
I wouldn't say this necessarily sounds GOOD--but certainly ti*tillating-- www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/books/18gloria.html?8bu&emc=bub2NY TIMES review of Gloria Vanderbilt's new book OBSESSION, which is--dare we say it--erotica in the tradition of THE STORY OF O and etc. Gotta say, I love the quote from Anderson Cooper. I don't think I could be quite so calm if my mom told me she was writing erotica. |
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Post by Fairweather on Jun 29, 2009 16:05:21 GMT -5
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Post by Fairweather on Jul 5, 2009 8:53:24 GMT -5
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Post by Fairweather on Oct 7, 2009 19:56:40 GMT -5
As mentioned, am in the early pages of Robert Hicks's 2005 novel THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH. Hicks also has a new novel out called A SEPARATE COUNTRY, reviewed in today's WaPo: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/06/AR2009100603283.htmlThis one, it appears, is based on the later life of John Bell Hood, the impetuous, reckless, arrogant Confederate general whose orders at the Battles of Franklin and Nashville annihilated what had been the mighty Confederate Army of Tennessee--an army which might have been as legendary as Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had it not been commanded, in rapid succession, by a promising general who was killed at Shiloh, a temperamental and sickly Creole, a nitpicking ninny who spent his time quarreling with subordinates until so many of them refused to fight under his command that he was replaced, a brave and brilliant fighter who retreated from every inch of ground he won--and Hood, who is commemorated in these lines, sung to the tune "The Yellow Rose of Texas": Now I'm going homeward, for my heart is full of woe I'm going back to Georgia, to find my Uncle Joe You may talk about your Beauregard, and sing of Gen'ral Lee But the gallant Hood of Texas played hell in Tennessee. . . Uh--I'm not a Hood fan--but I want to read this book. Eventually. |
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