ypsi~dixit

One of the reviews for this outstanding and spellbinding book says it is "best enjoyed in front of a toe-warming fire or in the middle of a heat wave." Indeed (shivers).

As usual, I have a couple of books going:
The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff, a history of the American Revolution, and
An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, which I am really enjoying. It is set in 17th century Cambridge, England. Though a work of fiction, historical characters such as Robert Boyle pop up. Pears also wrote The Portrait, which I also very much enjoyed.

I just finished Neuromancer by William Gibson, the prototype cyberpunk novel. Bouncing back and forth between Fingerpost and Neuromancer was a rather vertiginous experience.

Wow, fascinating; I'd never heard of either of those. Both have a historical element--after nonfiction history, mostly polar history, I love reading historical novels such as Phillipa Gregory'sThe Other Boleyn Girl.

I can only imagine how vertiginous it was to pingpong between Fingerpost and Neuromancer--the latter is already quite vertiginous in and of itself.

Cool. Thanks, Tom.

Incidentally, the dude pictured on the cover of "Arctic Grail" is the bold, smart, canny, tough Roald Amundsen, the man who singlehandedly put tiny Norway on the international map.

He was, unlike most Polar explorers, a man of good and true character. Along with Nikola Tesla, he is one of Y.'s heroes, and worth studying and emulating.

Laura,

I had never heard of The Other Boleyn Girl. Sounds fascinating and I'll have to pick it up.

Have you ever read Sharon Kay Penman? Her The Sunne in Splendor rehabilitates Richard III, the last Plantangenet king, whose death at the hands of the Yorkists led to the rule of the Tudor kings and, of course, Henry VIII.

Philippa Gregory is outstanding. I've read The Other Boleyn Girl at least six times--it's that absorbing and good. She also wrote, among others, The Queen's Fool, which I was lucky to get as a gift and which is also outstanding and centered on Queen Elizabeth, of whom I never tire reading.

Oops, posted before answering your question. The Sunne in Splendor sounds fascinating too. Thus far I've concentrated my reading from that approximate period on Henry VIII and Elizabeth, but this sounds really worthwhile. Thank you, Tom.

So many books, so little time.

I just finished reading Empire Falls by Richard Russo. It was quite good. Russo is a better writer than I was expecting.

I just picked up a book for this weekend called Whiteman. I have had an interest in Africa for the past few years for some reason and have been thinking about going there as a volunteer at some point. But since I cant actually do that right at the moment, I figured a book about a volunteer in Africa would be the next best thing.

Tom: Yes, sir. My favorite thing to do, absolutely.

Lynne: I gave away Empire Falls as a gift but (kicking myself) never read it. But I know the story--lives burning out like crushed cigarette butts in a dying small town in....Maine? A guy facing the fact that he's never going to achieve anything & that his dreams are dead?

Hadn't heard of Whiteman. Sounds intriguing.

Yeah. Empire Falls is about a small town in Maine. There are lots of interesting characters in the novel including the main character who dropped out of college and then went to work flipping burgers at the local greasy spoon type restaurant until his 40's when the story takes place. I liked it because on the one hand most of the chracters where quite charming for all their faults and quirks and on the other hand, some of them were out and out disturbing. Sometimes the same character was both charming and disturbing.

Lynne: you have re-whetted my interest. I'm gonna see my folks tomorrow and will see if I can wheedle this off their shelves and into my hot little hands. Thank you for the reminder.

I'm not technically reading it right now, but am always quick to recommend this.

To answer your specific question, though, at this point I'm within bayonet range of the end of Bruce Catton's Army of the Potomac Trilogy.

I liked both Empire Falls and his book, Straight Man (a lot less dark than Empire Falls, I laughed out loud a number of times). Right now I'm reading, Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer.

Ah, the excellent Bruce Catton: I have his Civil War trilogy, in a beautiful blue binding--a gem.

I find him a bit hard to read, though, among Civil War writers; what is you r view, Brett?

Oh, and Diet for a Small Planet is said to be very good.

"The Crimson Petal and the White" by Michel Faber. A sprawling, 800-plus-page novel about the life of a prostitute in Victorian London and the characters she encounters: "preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthy servants, vile guttersnipes, and whores of all stripes and persuasions." What's not to like?

I'm just finishing up "Perfect Motherhood: Science and Childrearing in America", by Rima D. Apple (for an article I need to write by next Wed.), and I'm halfway through Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" (because I love everything Pollan's ever written). And (hiding my head in shame) I will probably devour Janet Evanovich's "Twelve Sharp" in a few hours on some hot afternoon while watching the kids in the sprinkler, as soon as that deadline is past.

I find Catton very readable, and also very underrated, as (thanks to Ken Burns), he's now been eclipsed by the shadow of "The Foote".

Catton was from michigan, and his books don't glamorize the confederate cause, nor do they romanticize the war at all, and the Potomac trilogy especially spends a lot of time dealing with the average soldier's perspective of things.

Anna: I can't say I like Jon Krakauer. Rich guy takes vanity trip on mountain, fails. Bleah. Then hypes himself from here to breakfast for his book Into Thin Air. Just my opinion.

Kim: That sounds delightful, and meaty. Summer is a good time for big, sprawling books. Sounds fun.

Sandy: Wow. That sounds fascinating. What are you finding out from reading it?

From a review:

"Pollan has divided The Omnivore's Dilemma into three parts, one for each of the food chains that sustain us: industrialized food, alternative or "organic" food, and food people obtain by dint of their own hunting, gathering, or gardening. Pollan follows each food chain literally from the ground up to the table, emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the species we depend on. He concludes each section by sitting down to a meal — at McDonald's, at home with his family sharing a dinner from Whole Foods, and in a revolutionary "beyond organic" farm in Virginia. For each meal he traces the provenance of everything consumed, revealing the hidden components we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods reflects our environmental and biological inheritance."

btw, it's cool that you have the covers of all these books on this post (although the cover of The Glorious Cause you show is of a different book, not the one I am reading).

oopsie, sorry about that--fixed it.

Brett: I've read that Shalby Foote has a welcome mat that says "GO AWAY." He has a reputation of being a, um, less than sunny-natured fellow.

Lot of history-related works here: two historical novels, two military history books, and one polar exploration history.

Brett: (does a doubletake) wait, do you mean you read the ENTIRE gigantic trilogy? Isn't that about....at least a thousand pages? No, it much be much more.

I recently read Confederates in the Attic, which has an interview with Foote, and while curmudgeonly, he never had a secretary and answered every phone call and visitor personally; He'd angrily and thoroughly answer any question you had, then very politely tell you to go to hell. I'm not sure about the doormat, but of course, now all he has is a tombstone.

The author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" was on the Colbert Report recently, and based on that, I'd say his message is pretty much in line with "Diet for a Small Planet," and also might be similar to certain nonsensical socialistic comments I made in the circus thread.

Actually, it was both trilogies, Catton's general civil war books followed by the three focusing on the army of the potomac. I don't count pages, the six books probably ran around 2,000 or so. As you might recall, I feel the civil war is a tad overrated, and was curious as to what the big whoop was, hence my reading choice.

I've learned that corn is in virtually every processed food we eat - either as high fructose corn syrup, or as some other processed sugar or oil or starch. And it's what most beef cattle in the US mostly eat in their last few months of life, too, and so we get a lot of corn that way, too.

Interesting bit about hybrid corn production right after WWII (when it really took off) - the military had lots of ammonia & nitrogen left over from weapons manufacture - so voila! they found an agricultural use for it. Thus the start of our modern agromilitaryindustrial complex.

I haven't gotten to the parts on organic & "beyond organic" yet. I'm mired in the slaughteryards right now until I finish writing about this poster on scientific parenting in 1938: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3f05327

Brett: Wasn't Confederates in the Attic a hoot? How I loved that book! "The Wargasm" (snort!) Parts of it made me helpless with laughter--what a writer! I loved his dry humor and observant eye. Highly recommended.

He also wrote "Blue Latitudes," retracing the voyages of Captain Cook, which was less successful (but I love reading about the War).

Actually, that's where I learned about the welcome mat--from CITA. And you are right about the manner in which he answers phone calls; I remember that from the book.

Sandy: there was an NPR story about the ubiquity of corn in processed food. It made me shudder. One reason I never ever eat any processed food. The book sounds fascinating.

"Confederates" had plenty of great parts, but I thought the book sort of petered out at the end. The "Wargasm" section was good, but seemed like it was its own separate work somewhat removed from the feel of the rest of the book- when i looked at the copyright info, i realized that it was originally a stand-alone article (I think in the new yorker), which confirmed my suspicion. I'd certainly suggest people interested in the subject read it, but I was a little disappointed personally.

Brett: I think that was a shrewd conclusion; that the "Wargasm" part was originally a stand-alone article.

I think because I enjoyed the humor so thoroughly I overlooked the weaker parts (though there weren't many).

That's the book that taught me the term "farb."

Another history being read by one of your readers: West Virginia: a history. It's pretty dry, but getting better, as the section I'm in now discusses the mine wars of the early 20th century. Next on my list is Fugitive Days: a memoir, by Bill Ayers (was in the Weather Underground). I loooove biographies/memoirs. That's my bus reading, at home I've been paging through Dwell magazine.

Pollan's "Dilemma" - amazing. The middle third ("Pastoral") was the msot interesting to me.

I'm reading a nice little book called "Bad Land" that someone recommended me, on the settlement of eastern Montana, and David Owen's "The Walls Around Us", on owning an old home.

Katy: That sounds fascinating, and I see from the reviews that it's regarded as perhaps the best work on the subject. I'd really like to read this. One review says,

"Unlike any other text, WEST VIRGINIA: A HISTORY FOR BEGINNERS approaches West Virginia history by encouraging the best interdisciplinary methods in practice today. It incorporates studies in the social sciences (anthropology, archeology, sociology, economics and "civics") within its examination of state history and, in turn, uses state history to teach the social sciences.

"For his part, Dr. Williams is a brilliant writer whose award-winning work has won him national recognition. He co-authored the script for West Virginia: A Film History, a fascinating documentary, narrated by actor Richard Thomas ("The Waltons.")"

Maybe I should pick up that one next :)

The one I have is: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0937058564/sr=1-2/qid=1151002449/ref=sr_1_2/103-9233168-3983836?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books

Murph: O my. Might that mystery person have been moi? Yikes--I hope it's living up to my perhaps too-glowing recommendation! How do you like it? What parts are sticking out for you?

And can I recommend a good follow-up, please? Try David Laskin's The Children's Blizzard. It's a bone-chilling description of an 1880s blizzard on the prairie, in a similar setting as Bad Land. It killed hundreds, mostly kids. It is gripping reading.

It'll stay with you, all right. It contains the single best pages-long description of what it is like to freeze to death that I've ever read. It describes three brothers staggering through the blizzard and goes through each physical stage of freezing they experience--that stuck in my brain and I'll never forget it.

Publisher's Weekly review:

"In 1888, a sudden, violent blizzard swept across the American plains, killing hundreds of people, many of them children on their way home from school. As Laskin (Partisans) writes in this gripping chronicle of meteorological chance and human folly and error, the School Children's Blizzard, as it came to be known, was "a clean, fine blade through the history of the prairie," a turning point in the minds of the most steadfast settlers: by the turn of the 20th century, 60% of pioneer families had left the plains. Laskin shows how portions of Minnesota, Nebraska and the Dakotas, heavily promoted by railroads and speculators, represented "land, freedom, hope" for thousands of impoverished European immigrants—particularly Germans and Scandinavians—who instead found an unpredictable, sometimes brutal environment, a "land they loved but didn't really understand." Their stories of bitter struggle in the blizzard, which Laskin relates via survivors' accounts and a novelistic imagination, are consistently affecting. And Laskin's careful consideration of the inefficiencies of the army's inexpert weather service and his chronicle of the storm's aftermath in the papers (differences in death counts provoked a national "unseemly brawl") add to this rewarding read."

Katy: Oh, it's the same one; just a different cover. Apparently it's so good it's been reprinted a zillion times. You really got me interested in this one.

Murph: The Walls Around Us sounds delightful!

Reviews:

"With wry wit, Owen tells about his Connecticut house and how it works, or doesn't work, lacing his humor with informative vignettes."

and

"This is the literary version of Introductory House Maintenance/Remodeling 101. Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker , describes in a popular style the general fundamentals of house construction and the materials involved. He also provides an overview of repairing, remodeling, and maintaining older houses with particular attention to walls, the roof, electricity, kitchens, bathrooms, and plumbing. Despite the basic coverage and limited use of illustrations, Owen's unique approach is extremely valuable to the first-time house owner or planner without a working knowledge of construction and maintenance."

Hmm...two recommendations for "The Omnivore's Dilemna" from Murph and Sandy. Looks like I'd better get my hands on this one.

I seem to recall Laura Ingalls Wilder writing a bit about that blizzard in 1888. It was one part of her books that really stuck with me. I'll have to check out that Children's Blizzard book for sure! I think it might make for good SUMMER time reading

Kim: May I make a recommendation? If you enjoy The Crimson Petal and the White, then I urge you to try Sheri Holman's acclaimed historical novel The Dress Lodger.

This beautifully-written work details the everyday life, in an unblinking fashion, of a tough-as-nails 15-year-old prostitute in 1830s England. It vividly paints her whole milieu. Very memorable.

Reviews:

"The Dress Lodger is engrossing historical fiction. As in the best of its genre, Sheri Holman's atmospheric, miasmic tale set in cholera-stricken Sunderland, England, circa 1831 is based on fact. Its epigraph from Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary--"Grave: A place where the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student"--casts the novel's thematic lodestone, steering the reader into a deathly plot pursued through streets emanating the sounds, insufferable smells, humor, adversities, and disease of an early-19th-century industrial city.

"Fifteen-year-old Gustine--the dress lodger--is a potter's assistant by day, prostitute by night. Her overbearing pimp and landlord has her permanently shadowed by an indefatigable, mysterious old woman "called Eyeball or Evil Eye or Gray Sister by boys who have read their Homer, but mostly called just plain Eye." Otherwise how could he guard his investment in the startling blue dress in which Gustine rents herself? Her trade, he explains, "works on this basic principle: a cheap whore is given a fancy dress as a higher class of prostitute, the higher the station of the clientèlle; the higher the station, the higher the price." Gustine's garment beckons Henry Chiver, an ambitious young surgeon who has fled Edinburgh, having been implicated in the convictions of infamous pioneer anatomists Burke and Hare for murder and grave robbing. For this doctor, desperate to reestablish his tarnished reputation through medical discovery, the heart is the favorite organ, "the singular fascination of his life." But to further his researches, and quell the increasing demands of his paying students--who are restless for induction into the arts of the scalpel--Henry requires dead bodies for dissection, to the horror of his naïve, philanthropic fiancée. But the Anatomy Act, which allows doctors to obtain corpses legally, has yet to pass through Parliament, and a suspicious public is terrifying itself with stories of murderous "burkers."

"Street-smart Gustine, a pragmatist trapped in unrelenting poverty, is all heart for her nameless little son who wears--literally--his heart on the outside. His rare case of ectopia cordis is just the sort of anatomical anomaly whose study would make a name for the doctor. Amid the gathering momentum of the cholera epidemic, Henry and Gustine strike up a fatal pact: life for her son in exchange for a fresh supply of dead bodies for Henry's dissection. With mordant Dickensian wit and Elizabeth Gaskell's deft touch for gutsy outcast women seizing control of their destiny, Sheri Holman carves out a rich, imaginative adventure as incisive and as gruesomely fascinating as a 19th-century operating theater."

From Publishers Weekly:
"Scrawny and tough, only 15, Gustine is the heartrending protagonist of Holman's brilliantly stark portrayal of 19th-century urban life, class warfare, cruel medicine and encroaching pestilence in the English city of Sunderland. With remarkable breadth and depth, the narrative vividly portrays the human suffering spawned by the early Industrial Revolution. Inhabitants of city slums endure oozing sores, infections, liceAnot to mention the devastating cholera morbus making its lethal way through Sunderland's population. Gustine works two jobs to support her beloved illegitimate infant, who was born with his heart outside his chest cavity. By day she's a potter's assistant, but to earn enough to live, by night she walks the streets wearing an expensive, elegant blue gown supplied by her pimp/landlord as a ploy to attract higher-class tricks. Pimp Whilky Robinson employs a deaf-mute, one-eyed old woman to follow Gustine constantly, to protect the dress, his treasured investment. Gustine hates the old woman, called "The Eye," but cannot shake this all-seeing symbol of mortality and fate ("Does not old age always dog youth? Does not monstrosity forever shadow beauty?"). Seeking medical help for her ailing child, Gustine strikes up an alliance with surgeon and anatomist Dr. Henry Chivers. The doctor needs corpses for dissection and since Gustine stumbles upon plenty of dead bodies in her night work, she becomes a resource for the ambitious, depraved doctor. The cholera epidemic, graphically and tirelessly described, entwines the lives of the doctor and Gustine, even as Dr. Chivers grows reckless in the resurrection business, eventually inviting violent retribution by impoverished citizens who discover their loved ones' pauper-graves exhumed. Holman (A Stolen Tongue) delivers a wealth of morbid, authentic detail, as well as an emotional pivot in her captivating Moll Flanders-like heroine. The major characters are buttressed by a vivacious cast of minors: Whilky's cowed daughter, Pink; a troupe of traveling thespians; pawnbrokers; rat catchers; and sailors. Holman's style is risky and direct, treating scenes of Gustine's quick, humiliating back-alley couplings as well as the doctor's hypocritical sleaze, with unflinching emotional precision. This dazzlingly researched epic is an uncommon read."

Lynne: please do; parts of the book have really stayed with me. The starkness of life on the plains, and the precarious grip settlers had on life is vividly painted.

It's also fascinating to see the 1880s weather service setup: a frail net of telegraph wires and a hodgepodge of forecasters without much knowledge of what they were forecasting.

For anyone interested in American history, I highly recommend the Covered Wagon Women series edited by Kenneth Holmes, published by the University of Nebraska Press. These are fascinating first-person accounts from women on the Oregon and California Trails from 1840 to 1903. There are eleven volumes total (I have read the first seven or so). They are a little hard to find around here but easily ordered online. The volumes are organized by years so you get multiple versions of the events happening at the time and you can see the changes that happen along the trail from year to year. They are absolutely riveting.

Laura,

You were indeed the recommendation for "Bad Land". (And, since I know how you feel about getting your books from libraries, I knew their copy would be available. :) )

I'm only 2 chapters in, but, so far so good. Really, if it's about Montana _or_ railroads, I'm likely to enjoy it. _And_ is bonus.

"The Walls Around Us" was gifted me by Juliew, upon Cara & my moving into a historic home. It's highly entertaining, and quite informative; I've been reading it a section at a time next to the big yellow Readers Digest Complete Do-it-yourself Manual.

Juliew, that sounds totally fascinating. What a great recommendation, not to mention invaluable firsthand source material for anyone essaying to write about that time.

Murph: well, I sure hope you enjoy it, and would love to hear your thoughts afterwards.

I'm flattered you took my recommendation. Very enjoyable book.

I am currently re-reading "The Michigan Murders" by Edward Keyes for lack of anything new to read and because it's one of my favorite true-crime books. Also, I recently read a fiction book called "Back Roads" by Tawni O'dell which was very good (if you like twisted and dark stories like I do).

I tend to agree about krakauer, Ypsidixit... but this book is about fundementalist mormonism and is very interesting. It's a little bit of work to read, but it is very hair-raising.

For the sake of clarification, I wanted to let you know that I just finished Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy, so it technically isn't being 'currently read' anymore.

I won't tell you how it ended, as I don't want to ruin the surprise.

And since mormonism was brought up, No man knows my history is probably one of my favorite books of all time.

Next to the pearl of great price, doctrines and covenants, and the book of mormon, of course.

I'm getting into this late, but...

Yesterday I started reading _Bonelight_ , a collection of essays by essays about life in the Southwest by Mary Sojourner, a desert-rat naturalist and slot machine junky.

I'm also working sporadically through _The Dead Fish Museum_, a collection of stories by Charles Ambrosio. It came praised to the skies from several writers I really like, but it leaves me cold, usually.

On my fishing trip last week, and just after I got home, I read T.C. Boyle's novel _Drop City_. Fabulous. I like just about everything Boyle does, though I liked this more than most. The story traces members of a hippie commune in California (c. 1970) who pull up stakes to homestead in Alaska. Peace, pot, and free love run up against the harsh realities of isolation, predators and -40 winters. The outcome wasn't at all what I expected.

I'm reading "Our Town: a heartland lynching, a haunted town, and the hidden history of white America" by Cindy Carr. It's an especially riveting and difficult read because I have so much in common with the author -- both our grandfathers were in the Klan and both of us have searched for the meaning of that fact in our own lives. The library is going to take away my card if I don't return it soon, but it's so intense, I keep having to set it down and ponder... but I'm nearly done now. The setting is Marion, Indiana, the site of a lynching in the 1930s made famous by a photo of the gleeful white participants faces.

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