In May 1998, I was handed a copy of Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 by my new boyfriend. 22 years later, my love affair with both is still gIn May 1998, I was handed a copy of Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 by my new boyfriend. 22 years later, my love affair with both is still going strong.
Thompson’s writing lit my brain up in a way I’d never really experienced before. Savagely funny and incredibly astute, especially when taking aim at the assassins of the American Dream, he even managed to make me understand American politics for a while (although this only ever lasts for as long as I’m reading the book).
Since then I’ve devoured everything the man ever wrote (Campaign Trail still holds a special place in my heart) and spent a LOT of time wondering what on earth he’d make of the situation we now find ourselves in. I don’t always agree with him (I detest guns for a start and am far too anxious a person to really live life on the edge), but I’m never, ever not entertained.
Gonzo was gifted to me this Christmas by that same boyfriend and is definitely one for the fans – a gorgeously laid out ‘visual biography’ comprising photographs and memorabilia from the archives of the man himself – that won’t mean much to anyone without a firm foundation of knowledge of his work and life, but that’s a must for those in the know.
I’m far more word-driven than visual, so my favourite bits were the reproductions of snippets of notes and letters, but I also loved the candid photographs and pamphlets picked up on his travels.
As an added bonus, Gonzo has stoked my appetite to go back and re-read all of my favourites. Double gift!
Strange Victoriana, the first from my massive pile of Christmas swag, is an entertaining collection of the weird, wonderful, spooky, salacious, and soStrange Victoriana, the first from my massive pile of Christmas swag, is an entertaining collection of the weird, wonderful, spooky, salacious, and sometimes downright macabre stories taken from the Illustrated Police News (IPN) – an immensely popular tabloid of the time (you’ll have seen some of its illustrations before, particularly if you’ve ever had any kind of interest in the Jack the Ripper case which the IPN went to town on).
Victorians are often thought of as incredibly repressed and prudish, while a quick peruse through these pages reflects a society that’s actually anything but – revelling in the stories of brutal crimes, society scandals, and downright gawking at anything out of the norm.
Inside you’ll find female sleepwalkers and daredevils, competitive shavers and fasters (I can’t imagine how bored you’d have to be to find someone fasting entertaining), a long parade of plonkers undertaking wagers inside lion’s cages, fighting ghosts, medical curiosities, animal hoarders, and many, many murders.
While noting that the IPN wasn’t above printing fabrications from across the world while also happily making up its own, the quality of its illustrations still stand out and bring some of Victorian society’s fascinations into sharper relief (they really liked an unconscious woman who they could draw in disarray).
There were some times at the beginning of the book when the author’s constant ‘in my books ‘Blah Blah’ and ‘Whatever’ I talked about…’ but thankfully they fell by the wayside quickly so we could concentrate on the stories instead, resulting in a book that is entertaining and easy to drop in and out of – would make for particularly great toilet reading!
Charles II is an interesting figure to me, partly because he seems so much more human than the joyless Oliver Cromwell who’d preceded him having loppeCharles II is an interesting figure to me, partly because he seems so much more human than the joyless Oliver Cromwell who’d preceded him having lopped Charles’ dad’s head off (also interesting to me, as despite my reading habits I’m actually anti-monarchy) but mostly influenced by the fact that before reading this, pretty much everything I knew about him was gleaned from Horrible Histories (and this song in particular - to be fair, they do a pretty decent job of covering the highlights). Thanks to Jenny Uglow, my education is now much more comprehensive.
Uglow looks at pretty every aspect of Charles’ reign that I could imagine, plus a few more - it’s certainly an action packed decade with lots of cultural changes to cover as well as the usual political machinations, including wars with the Dutch and constant wrangling with the French alongside the by now customary strife between Catholics and Protestants, the mania for theatre (plus the public skewering of one’s enemies onstage) and the advances in scientific thinking, and not forgetting the licentiousness of the court and Charles’ many, many, many mistresses.
Thanks to the inclusion of diarists and commentators of the time like Samuel Pepys, it’s easier to build a fuller picture of what life was actually like during Charles’ reign, as well as ensuring that gossipy bits were ever present to take the edge off what could be (for me, at times) the duller bits on treaties and whatnot.
There were times when the chronology got a little confusing for me - Uglow tended to jump around on occasion depending on what the chapter was discussing, but that’s a minor quibble for what turned out to be a major education for me.
Everything I Never Told You isn’t the type of book I normally read, and nor was it what I expected at all - thinking I was getting some kind of murderEverything I Never Told You isn’t the type of book I normally read, and nor was it what I expected at all - thinking I was getting some kind of murder mystery, what I got was a quietly devastating portrayal of a family hurting from all of its repressed hopes, dreams, desires and resentments.
Lydia, the beloved eldest child of Marilyn and James Lee, is found dead in the lake near their home. Blond haired blue eyed Marilyn had always wanted to become a doctor, but gave up her dream when she married first generation Chinese-American James, who’s struggled to feel like he fits in for his entire life.
Marilyn and James have poured all of their hopes and ambitions onto Lydia - Marilyn is convinced that Lydia wants to become the doctor Marilyn aways wanted to be, while James wants nothing more than for his daughter to avoid the otherness of his own youth and to have lots of friends. And despite Lydia’s outward show of perfect compliance, her death forces the family to confront the fact that Lydia was actually none of the things they were moulding her to be.
All the while Lydia’s mostly ignored siblings, Nath and Hannah, are also dealing with the aftermath of her death and finding their new places in the world without her, while learning that there are things that they too have repressed or reshaped to better fit in a home where most of their parents emotional space was taken up by their big sister.
I spent half the book wondering if I was really that into it, and so I was surprised to find myself spending the latter half wiping away tears while wanting to hug Nath and Hannah. And while I haven’t ever usually tended to seek out family dramas, I certainly won’t avoid them in the future.
Mythos was always going to be a tough act to follow. Not just because it was great, but because I also had the pleasure of reading it from a sunloungeMythos was always going to be a tough act to follow. Not just because it was great, but because I also had the pleasure of reading it from a sunlounger on a Greek island as opposed to from a sofa in dark and rainy Devon. But Stephen Fry is fabulous and naturally pulled it off while making it look easy.
While Mythos looked at the creation and then shenanigans of the gods, Heroes is more down to earth – while the gods are still meddling, it’s humans who are front and centre here.
Taking us through the stories of Jason, Heracles, Perseus, Theseus, Orpheus, Atalanta and more, Fry once again brings a brilliantly wry conversational tone to the proceedings, telling their tales while helping us remember who’s who, reassuring us when we find the family trees and timelines impossible, and sometimes delivering incredibly Python-esque conversations through the lips of our cast of characters. He also gives us lots of footnotes, and I bloody love a good footnote.
Having dealt with the Heavens, and now the human heroes busy ridding the world of monsters to make way for man, I’m delighted to see that book 3 in this series is now also available and on one of my favourite subjects of all time – the Trojans. Even more excitingly, I note that The Odyssey will be the next to come from Fry’s pen, and I’m infinitely grateful that Stephen Fry and 2020 have finally given me something to really look forward to.
I’d previously read and loved The White Album, so when I saw Slouching Toward Bethlehem come up in a kindle sale I was very quick to click.
A collectioI’d previously read and loved The White Album, so when I saw Slouching Toward Bethlehem come up in a kindle sale I was very quick to click.
A collection of essays from the the 1960’s, as with any book of essays this was something of a mixed bag for me, and having been born 10 years after its publication (as well as being English) I must admit that unfamiliarity with some of the people, places and things being written about meant I didn’t quite get from them what I expect others would.
My favourite piece in the book was its titular piece, with Didion spending time in Haight-Ashbury at the height of the hippy movement. Without feeling too judgmental, Didion does a good job of letting you meet some of the characters and ideas that were in play at the time, while also letting you see and feel some of the ugly undercurrents that were already starting to make themselves felt. When I was a teenager, that scene seemed like heaven to me, but my 40 year old self who’s done more than my fair share of living looks at it entirely differently now and Didion captured well why that might be.
The pieces I liked least were those that were most introspective, probably helped because I’ve spent too much time in my own head recently. I also come from a world that is as different as can be from Didion’s - I grew up in a council house in a country that always rains, to young parents who were barely scraping by, so I struggled to relate to the very different kind of lifestyle she’s led and the types of problems it threw up.
I must also admit that on writing this review two weeks after reading the book, aside from the title piece and a few brief flashes from elsewhere, the rest of the contents have turned out not to be very memorable as they’ve slipped from my mind entirely.
If I’m not in a reading slump this year, I seem to be in a reviewing slump. This one hasn’t been helped by not really having much of substance to say If I’m not in a reading slump this year, I seem to be in a reviewing slump. This one hasn’t been helped by not really having much of substance to say about it almost a month after reading it, a surprise to me given how much I enjoyed what Summerscale I’d previously read (The Suspicions of Mr Whicher).
The Wicked Boy takes a look at another Victorian murder case which the newspapers were fond of writing about, in which 13 year old Robert Coombes and his younger brother Nattie set off on a little adventure, taking in the cricket at Lords, visiting the seaside and treating themselves to whatever their pawned possessions could buy, all while their mother’s body decomposed in her bedroom at the family home.
The Wicked Boy takes us through the brother’s jaunts, Robert’s confession once concerned relatives managed to force their way into the home, the ensuing court case, and the depiction of Robert in the press as a cold hearted psychopath. This takes up surprisingly little of the book, and so the rest is then spent sharing a picture of what Broadmoor was like at the time – I must admit I was pleasantly surprised to hear of its treatment regime at the time, but then must remember that this was only dealing with the gentleman’s ward where people were obviously treated far better than the common people in the wards Robert would have ended up in had he not been a child – and then going on to detail what life would have been like for a stretcher bearer at Gallipolli, a position Robert held after emigrating to Australia on being discharged from Broadmoor.
There’s surprisingly little on record about Robert himself, so lots of these sections (and particularly in the Broadmoor bit) spend quite a lot of time recounting anecdotes about other inmates and soldiers. Which was interesting, but did absolutely nothing to illuminate the little known about Robert.
If there had been even a little more meat on the bones of this book I’d have enjoyed it a lot more, but given the dearth of information really available on Robert it felt like it would have been far better served as a magazine article rather than being padded out to fill a book.
I came to this both this book and to Hallie Rubenhold after inhaling Harlots on Starzplay (where the incomparable Samantha Morton’s décolletage shouldI came to this both this book and to Hallie Rubenhold after inhaling Harlots on Starzplay (where the incomparable Samantha Morton’s décolletage should get a starring credit all of its own) which was inspired by this book, which was itself inspired by the notorious Harris’s List –a who’s who of the ladies whose time and bodies who could be bought in 18th century England.
The Covent Garden Ladies charts the careers of three figures who were linked to the list – the pimp John Harrison (aka Harris) who inspired the list, the writer who wrote and published the list (Samuel Derrick), and one of its stars (Charlotte Hayes). Rubenhold has done a great job of taking what was essentially just a list of ladies alongside their attributes and their prices, and turning into a very human story.
As with her other books, what really comes across is just how precarious life was for anybody who wasn’t extremely wealthy – each of our ‘stars’ spent some time being considerably rich before landing in prison (and interestingly, none of them went to prison for anything more criminal than being in debt) – although of course it was far more precarious for women. Even Charlotte’s status as one of the more celebrated and sought after sex workers of her day didn’t stop her from having to fight tooth and claw to survive, which makes you wonder just how bleak were the lives of some the less beautiful, and less fortunate.
Once again Rubenhold has written a fascinating book centred around the lives of women, and one that has made me more grateful than ever to have been born in the 20th century.
I’ve become rather addicted to the Toby Daye series, so it’s been super frustrating to me that the UK Kindle release dates seem to be so behind which I’ve become rather addicted to the Toby Daye series, so it’s been super frustrating to me that the UK Kindle release dates seem to be so behind which inevitably leads to me giving in before the time is up and breaking the promise I may not to bring more physical books into the house. But it’s been worth it – Toby always helps to bring back my reading mojo when I need it most.
Night & Silence is the twelfth outing for Toby, and we meet back up with her when she’s struggling. Tybalt has withdrawn from her as he deals with the aftermath of his treatment at the hands of Toby’s mum and everything feels on shaky ground. The last thing that Toby needs is for her now-entirely-human daughter Gillian to have gone missing (again), especially when it brings her into frequent contact with Gillian’s stepmother who’s at great pains to show Toby how little she matters in Gillian’s life. Worse still, Gillian’s disappearance seems to have faerie written all over it.
I think it’s fair to say at this point in the series that I really enjoy Toby’s world and I love how McGuire weaves the various figures of folklore into the stories – the Luidaeg has since overcome Tybalt as my favourite character and it’s always great (as the reader) to have her appear, and I hope the ending to this outing sees us get to enjoy even more of her.
Now, how long can I last until breaking my promise again for the next book?
I’ve been struggling to read much this year, particularly as I’d been picking quite weighty books to plough through, so I decided it was time for someI’ve been struggling to read much this year, particularly as I’d been picking quite weighty books to plough through, so I decided it was time for some brain candy. I’ve been loving Seanan McGuire for a while now, so while waiting to get my hands on more of the October Daye series (the UK kindle release dates would appear to be years behind everywhere else) I decided to visit her Indexing world again.
For those who are new to Indexing, we follow a team from the ATI Management Bureau on their cases. The Bureau deals with very special cases, when fairytales and start affecting our world and each agent on the team is an archetype bringing their own special talents to the mix. Team leader Henry is a Snow White, their archivist is a Shoemaker’s Elf, and they’re backed up by an Evil Stepsister (my favourite character) and a Pied Piper.
With Henry having had to fully embrace her story to get out of the trouble she found herself in in the first book, the team are under scrutiny from management. And when a rogue Cinderella manages to break herself out of prison and teams up with a familiar villain, the shit really hits the fan.
I really love the imagination on display in these stories as McGuire weaves the familiar into new shapes and thinks about how aspects of different fairytales would affect people in the real world. And while there isn’t as much to sink my teeth into as in the Toby Daye series, it’s a pleasantly entertaining holiday from the real world.
People have been fascinated by Jack the Ripper for over a century now, and we’ve long come to accept as fact certain things about the case – more specPeople have been fascinated by Jack the Ripper for over a century now, and we’ve long come to accept as fact certain things about the case – more specifically, we all think of his victim type as sex workers. Historian Hallie Rubenhold is here to change that with this incredible book that delves into the lives of Polly Walker, Annie Chapman, Lizzie Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly, letting us know who they really were while also giving us a window into what Victorian life was like for any woman who wasn’t insulated by layers of wealth and status.
Rubenhold writes with empathy and understanding of the lives of each of these women – only two of whom actually ever sold sex, not that this should make any difference to how their deaths were viewed – illustrating just how hard Victorian society was for the working and lower middle classes. In a world in which a family that were comfortably off could be made destitute overnight through the loss of a male breadwinner (women’s work paid nowhere near enough to keep a person, let alone a family), and in which society’s view of you as a woman was either as madonna or whore (a broken woman was the same as a fallen one in their eyes), there really weren’t many options for a woman who had fallen on tough times.
The workhouses that flourished at the time – designed to humiliate and frighten poor people into not being poor anymore (which I really think the Tories would love to bring back) – touched the lives of every single one of these women, as did the cheap gin that was ubiquitous no matter what class you were (Rubenhold also writes of the sanitariums that were set up to treat the supposedly higher class women who were more than nipping at the gin through boredom). The circumstances which forced each of these women on to the streets (not as sex workers, but as rough sleepers) really were not unusual for the time – the numbers of homeless people that were sleeping in Trafalgar Square alone were jaw dropping – and the realisation that the Ripper wasn’t targeting sex workers but rough sleepers really changed the case for me.
I find it disheartening how little our attitudes have changed – a peek at any comment section, newspaper headline or Tory MP’s speeches are frighteningly similar to those included in the book, with one bastard MP of the time claiming the Ripper was doing society a favour by cleaning up the filth (the amount of newspaper stories I’ve read that focus on the victim not being a virginal saint and bringing her killing upon herself while playing up the good qualities of her killer are countless, and sickening) but this is an angry, informed, and deeply empathetic book that I’ll be talking to people about for a long time.
Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They
Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice.
I was three quarters of the way through a 900 page beast when I put the book down and wasn’t able to pick it up again for over a month…I know I’m not the only one, but pandemic brain has seriously been playing havoc on how long I can concentrate for which has had a huge impact on my reading habit.
I needed a light, fun distraction to get me going again and a chance encounter with a Terry Pratchett quote on social media reminded me that there are quite a few Discworld books still out there for me to get through. This, along with a bit of a thing for all things fae, made me pick up Lords and Ladies.
Aside from DEATH, the witches are some of my favourite characters that I’ve encountered so far in the Discworld so I was very glad to find it was them featuring in this (the wizards drive me up the wall, so I was also glad to see them used sparingly) as a Midsummer Night comes to Lancre.
If you’re not up on your Shakespeare you might miss a few of the allusions within, but the jokes are good enough for that not to really matter to the casual reader. I love the practicality of the witches (Nanny Ogg being my particular favourite) which I thought worked especially well against the elves which are more old school than from the Lord of the Rings school of elfing.
And just because the book is funny doesn’t mean that Pratchett can’t work a bit of emotional heft in too – without spoiling anything for anyone, there was a moment towards the climax where I genuinely had to swallow past a rather large lump in my throat before being made to laugh again moments later.
If you’re also struggling to read anything meaty and need something to jump-start your reading mojo again, I highly recommend a visit with Sir Terry.
Everything I know about The Rolling Stones at Altamont and what went down I think I’ve pretty much gleaned through cultural osmosis, scattered throughEverything I know about The Rolling Stones at Altamont and what went down I think I’ve pretty much gleaned through cultural osmosis, scattered throughout the various rock biographies, articles, interviews and documentaries I’ve consumed over the years (that decade loomed particularly large in my imagination as a teenager, so I consumed a lot)
This is an excellently written look at everything that led up to the concert, what happened during it and the fallout from it that reads like a blend of some of the best rock journalism and true crime that I’ve read.
Selvin conveys well the mix of idealism, hubris, greed, naivety and opportunism that saw the Stones and their team decide to put on a free festival following the success of Woodstock while failing to learn from any of the mistakes and making humungous new ones of their own. The atmosphere of utter chaos is made clear by Selvin from the start, building the tension as the hype is built a little too far and wide for the concert all while they’re still flinging a stage together on the morning of.
By the time the gig opens Selvin does a great job of making you feel how different the atmosphere was to that at Woodstock, with this particular mixture of booze, bad trips and the amped up Hells Angels who’d been employed as security leading to a hostile and twitchy atmosphere that always seemed to be speeding towards violence.
It’s hard to read about the death of Meredith Hunter, but Selvin writes compassionately about him while getting the facts across. And he also sets out afterwards, when looking at the shock, lawsuits, and murder trial that followed, to call out people responsible for the decisions that led to one of rock’s most notorious events.
If you enjoy reading something that makes you feel like you’ve been dropped in the middle of the action, and if you’re at all a fan of that era of music (the Stones were just one of the names actually playing on the day) then you need to read this book.
The Worst Street in London promises to delve into the history of Dorset Street, once a street full of fairly well-to-do weavers making the most of theThe Worst Street in London promises to delve into the history of Dorset Street, once a street full of fairly well-to-do weavers making the most of their flourishing trade, that sank into disrepute as the work dried up and the weavers moved away. Apparently becoming the most notorious street in the whole of the city and one haunted by thieves, pimps, prostitutes and murderers, on reading this it turned out it was mostly populated by the desperately poor who were busy being fleeced by unscrupulous landlords who were bigger thieves and far more exploitative than any amount of the supposed criminals the street could offer up.
Rule does manage to include a bit on Jack the Ripper to lure in readers by widening her area past Dorset Street, but the most interesting part here is yet again on how the landlords of the rooms where his victims were found murdered didn’t even bother to clean any of the women’s blood up before moving more tenants in.
In all, I thought there was potentially a more interesting in-depth book here that focussed on how the greed and complete lack of scruples on the part of the landlords essentially created a cesspit of human misery that led to the crime decried on the book’s cover (being as they were mostly crimes driven by poverty) but overall I found this book completely underwhelming. I bought it for pennies after a kindle store recommendation, and must admit that if I’d paid any more than that for it, I’d have been severely disappointed.
Part of the Penguin English History series, England in the Seventeenth Century takes us from the reign of James I starting in 1603 up until the end ofPart of the Penguin English History series, England in the Seventeenth Century takes us from the reign of James I starting in 1603 up until the end of Anne’s in 1714 and takes a look at each of the monarchs in their turn as well as some broader looks at different aspects of society during their reigns.
Rattling through each monarch gives us the greatest hits of the events of each of their reigns, as well as all of the political manoeuvring undertaken as each struggled with parliament to win control of the reigns of power. As a result these bits could be a little bit dry as you read about one proroguing of parliament after another, but it did also give me some ideas as to which monarchs I wanted to read more about.
England underwent huge political, religious and social changes throughout the 17th century and so as well as looking at the antics of our royalty we also take a look at changes in the class system and the growing prosperity of the middle classes, advances in scientific thought, arts and literature, the change from the absolute power of the monarchy into a two party parliamentary political system and the states turn from a policy of persecution into one that very, very slowly started to become more religiously tolerant.
This little book was quite an old fashioned history book, so unless you’re really invested in reading about this stuff I’m sure you could find something with a little more vitality to it, but as a primer for me to find further reading it certainly did the job.
If you’ve never heard the story of the Glasgow Ice Cream Van Wars, then you certainly won’t get the full story here. What you will get though is TeddyIf you’ve never heard the story of the Glasgow Ice Cream Van Wars, then you certainly won’t get the full story here. What you will get though is Teddy Rennoc’s version of what happened when he drove one of the vans going up against the competing Marchetti Brothers, and in Teddy’s version the war really was over the rights to sell ice cream, household basics and the odd bit of stolen goods rather than heroin – I suspect the true full story lies somewhere between his and the official version. But even if you do believe that there was never any heroin involved in Teddy’s van, ice cream was apparently a hot enough property for the amounts of money being talked about traded each day to attract the ne’erdowells.
While not particularly well-written – Teddy has a very random approach to capitalisation and punctuation (as he explains at the end he writes how he speaks and couldn’t afford a proper editor) – it’s still a very entertaining story, entertainingly told. I could read an entire book that just told the story of Soapy, the tiny twelve-year old terror who saw off more ice cream vans than any amount of crowbar wielding hard men ever could (although crowbar wielding hard men do smash up more than a few vans and people themselves within).
While careful to make sure he doesn’t cop to anything that would get him in real trouble, he lays out quite a few of the schemes laid to get around the coppers as well as the dawning realisation that he’s in over his head as things start to get more and more violent and he gets to see what it might be like to be on the scarier side of some of his bosses.
So, if you want the full story of the ice cream van wars you’re probably better off looking elsewhere, but if you’re looking for an entertaining story from one of the lower level players, knock yourself out.
Kind of like a nineteenth century version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Binding is an atmospheric and bittersweet fantasy in which we Kind of like a nineteenth century version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Binding is an atmospheric and bittersweet fantasy in which we meet Emmett Farmer. Living in a small village with his family, Emmett’s world is one on which books are taboo. For in this world, books don’t contain mere stories but memories – binders can take your most painful memories and bind them into books, wiping your mind clean of them. When we meet Emmett he’s in recuperation after a mystery illness and, no longer much use to his family, is soon apprenticed to a binder.
As Emmett begins to learn his trade, he also learns that for those with money binding can be abused with the more unscrupulous in the trade taking money in order to wipe the minds of the victims of the wealthy, leaving them to continue their vicious pleasures free from any thoughts of censure or retribution. And Emmett learns something else too – there’s a book with his name on it.
The Binding delivered on the promise of its beautiful cover with a well realised world and characters and with the love story at its centre delivering quite a few unexpected lumps to the throat along the way. The small minded attitudes of society and the abuses by the wealthy were all extremely plausible drivers for the trade of binding and why it’s looked at askance by supposedly decent folk, while Collins really captured the delicious mix of pleasure and pain of falling in love.
If you’re in the mood for a sort of Victorian feeling fantasy, you could do a lot worse than trying this.
I don’t know about you, but since lockdown started I’ve really struggled to read anything. My scattered brain keeps wandering off to poke and worry atI don’t know about you, but since lockdown started I’ve really struggled to read anything. My scattered brain keeps wandering off to poke and worry at other things, and suddenly books I’d normally tear through are being read over months instead. I’m really missing my escapes into books and so, in an attempt to get my reading mojo back, I turned to the poetry of one of my favourites.
I’ve been a fan of Leonard Cohen for a very long time so it was no surprise that the Book of Longing, containing poetry, lyrics, and illustrations ruminating on love, sex, aging, spirituality and more that all display his customary wryness, really floated my boat. I’m not normally a particular fan of poetry – I’d much rather listen to a song – but the fact that it was Leonard’s words I was reading helped me to give it more of a chance, while the fact that each piece lasted no longer than my shattered attention span could manage certainly helped to make my lunch breaks much, much better.
You can almost hear that wonderfully gravelly voice murmuring these words to you as you turn the pages, and even amidst the sadness and disappointment I’ve been feeling as some of the people in my life reveal themselves not to be who I thought they were, he still managed to make me smile. Life’s not always easy, but Leonard Cohen always manages to make me feel that even when things are at their darkest there is always, to paraphrase one of his songs, a crack that lets the light in.
Supposedly some other story is The Greatest Ever Told, but as far as I’m concerned it’s the story of the siege and fall of Troy that deserves that titSupposedly some other story is The Greatest Ever Told, but as far as I’m concerned it’s the story of the siege and fall of Troy that deserves that title. I’ll take my Troy tales in whatever form I can find them – The Firebrand gave it to me from the perspective of the women, Kassandra in particular, that made a refreshing change with Bradley weaving classic elements of the myth with her own inventions into a take that was mostly successful.
Our titular Firebrand is Paris, after his mother’s dream before his birth of Troy burning leading she and Priam to send him from the city to be raised. In this Bradley makes Paris Kassandra’s twin, with Kassandra’s visions enabling her to ‘see’ through his eyes so that we can experience his back story before coming to Troy and bringing their doom upon them.
Kassandra (although it feels weird to me spelling it with a K!) has always been one of the more interesting figures for me – cursed to speak true prophecy that will never be believed – and Bradley made her journey to priestess and beyond an interesting one, first spending time with the Amazons and visiting other kingdoms to give us a view of what they might have been like at the time. Bradley has turned these societies into ones having long been matriarchal, although that’s changing with the arrival of the Akhaians (Achaeans), which I was on board for but it seemed to me that for a change that had apparently happened within that lifetime it seemed to be the best kept secret ever with no-one seeming to remember this at all but for a few women.
Aside from Kassandra and a few others, the characterisation was rather simplistic at times, with some apparently only seeming to have one trait, although I thought this worked for the gods and I don’t agree with some of the other reviews I’ve read that were appalled by Bradley’s take on Achilles – probably because I’ve long detested him and think him exactly the type that Bradley portrayed him as.
So, while not quite ever hitting the heights of the truly fantastic Mists of Avalon, I still enjoyed The Firebrand a lot and would definitely recommend for people who want to look at the story of Troy through different eyes....more
When life gets a little tough for me, I tend to turn to non-fiction books about situations much worse than mine that people have survived – this usualWhen life gets a little tough for me, I tend to turn to non-fiction books about situations much worse than mine that people have survived – this usually helps to change my perspective a little and make me appreciate what I have, rather than what I don’t. Normally a dedicated introvert, even I have started to struggle a little with lockdown (helped by working from home) and so a little perspective adjusting was in order – this book fulfilled that perfectly.
Skeletons on the Zahara tells the terrible story of the crew of the US brig Commerce that in 1815 found itself shipwrecked on the western coast of the Sahara. While the ship was lost, the crew survived…only to find themselves robbed, enslaved, and marched near death across the desert. Even if they hadn’t been enslaved, life in the desert was brutal, relying on camels to provide pretty much all of their nutrients – when the camel’s ran out of milk, their urine was next on the menu – and with everyone you came across a potentially dangerous enemy. If you’ve ever wondered what happens to a dangerously sunburnt person being rubbed in animal fat and then marched under the desert sun, this book has the answer (hint – it’s really not pretty)
Ship’s captain James Riley would do what he could to keep his men together and find their way to freedom through the striking of a friendship with one of their captors – a man who unfortunately also had enemies of his own – leading to the most tense moments of the book as they edged towards liberation at the same time as a new potential owner made his move.
A gripping page-turner that more than did the job of making me feel grateful to be in lockdown after all, this tale of survival against all odds is worth a read.
Loading...
