Reading lists
May. 25th, 2011 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_songsmithAll right, I've successfully finished the preliminary round of sorting out my very, very long list of books... which cannot even really be said to be a 'to-read' list so much as a 'hey, that looks neat!' list. (and also a way to jigger the automatic recommendations on Amazon and now LibraryThing so as to get more suggestions for neat-looking titles.) This is my list at LibraryThing: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/ladysongsmith - you'll want to make sure the folder drop down in the upper left is set to 'all collections' or it'll look pretty bare.
A word or ten here on the setup - if you use my recommended view, you'll see the book cover, author, title, publication date, my tags, and my comments. The tags at present are solely reflecting where to get the books: circulating/use in library/not at city for NYC public library, local/available for my local county's system. I take suggestions for what to put on my request list next - circulating & local have the best chance of being easily obtainable, followed by available. Books tagged use in library may become more attractive if I decide to go ahead with the dance classes I'm considering, in which case I'd have a couple hours to kill once a week.
So, I think what I'm going to do in these posts is touch on a couple of recent reads, and you can look back on my lists at LibraryThing if anything seems interesting.
Non-fiction: Fish on Friday, Sisterhood of Spies, We Are At War, London 1945
Fish on Friday
Brian Fagan
Great information in it, and some fascinating stories. The author unfortunately seems to assume his audience has the approximate memory of a goldfish, however, so be prepared to have the preservation process for various fish explained at varying length several times over. Despite that, it's a good read, and moves along quickly. The obvious comparison here is to Kurlansky's Cod (which I have not read) or Salt (which I have), and Fagan does draw from those sources, though he seems faintly contemptuous of Kurlansky's academic rigor (or lack thereof). I'm not going to get into that, but from the casual reader's perspective, Fagan lacks the depth of Kurlansky's book. Where in Salt you got detailed portraits of processing operations and their effects on local populations, Fish on Friday takes a much broader view. There *are* some portraits, but on the whole you get the bird's eye view of the situation.
Sisterhood of Spies: Women of the OSS
Elizabeth R McIntosh
Interesting stories, but the book lacks structure. There isn't any ordering of the chapters - one per woman, generally - and only the vaguest nod toward situating the stories in the broader course of the war is given. Dates *are*, sometimes, but unless you carry a timeline of WWII in your head they don't help much. The chapters are also not as detailed as they might be; you get an overview of how each woman came to the OSS, and what operations she was involved with, any particularly outstanding successes she had, and a few quotes from her, her journals, or people who knew her for color.
We Are at War
Simon Garfield (ed)
Now *this* was a brilliant book. Taken from Mass Observations journals, this tracks 5 people over about a year, from early '39 through the Battle of Britain. It's personal, detailed, and fascinating. I want to go back through it with a pencil to make notes, and I also want to get some of the other books that collect Mass Observation materials. Highly, highly recommended.
London 1945: Life in the Debris of War
Maureen Waller
This one depends on what you want out of it. I had been hoping for the everyman view, so I feel a bit mixed. It has that, but it also has long discussions about the developing political complexities. Those are interesting in their own right, of course, and certainly feed into the experience of the average citizen, but I think we could have done with less analysis of the personalities involved with Labor's sudden election wins and more time spent of the effects of same. On the positive side, there were very good chapters on recreation and the return of demobbed soldiers.
Fiction: God of the Hive
God of the Hive
Laurie R King
The addition of the meta-villain to the story begun in the first part is excellent, and anyone who could offer a challenge to Mycroft is certain a worthy opponent. On the other hand, we've had this one dropped in on us out of nowhere (although it does neatly tie to Russell's frequent reflections that 'Brother Mycroft' might be just a tad *too* powerful, were he a less ethical man), and it's somewhat uncomfortable to be presented with a mastermind of that caliber as a fait accompli. I suppose it's a bit like Moriarty, who really only made a couple of appearances in the Doyle canon, but -- assuming King isn't fed up with Russell as Doyle was with Holmes -- one does expect better of writers these days. The story is engaging as always, and gripping right up until the end, which feels a bit rushed and somewhat patchwork. Honestly, it's not one of King's best, but it's still an enjoyable read.
A word or ten here on the setup - if you use my recommended view, you'll see the book cover, author, title, publication date, my tags, and my comments. The tags at present are solely reflecting where to get the books: circulating/use in library/not at city for NYC public library, local/available for my local county's system. I take suggestions for what to put on my request list next - circulating & local have the best chance of being easily obtainable, followed by available. Books tagged use in library may become more attractive if I decide to go ahead with the dance classes I'm considering, in which case I'd have a couple hours to kill once a week.
So, I think what I'm going to do in these posts is touch on a couple of recent reads, and you can look back on my lists at LibraryThing if anything seems interesting.
Non-fiction: Fish on Friday, Sisterhood of Spies, We Are At War, London 1945
Fish on Friday
Brian Fagan
Great information in it, and some fascinating stories. The author unfortunately seems to assume his audience has the approximate memory of a goldfish, however, so be prepared to have the preservation process for various fish explained at varying length several times over. Despite that, it's a good read, and moves along quickly. The obvious comparison here is to Kurlansky's Cod (which I have not read) or Salt (which I have), and Fagan does draw from those sources, though he seems faintly contemptuous of Kurlansky's academic rigor (or lack thereof). I'm not going to get into that, but from the casual reader's perspective, Fagan lacks the depth of Kurlansky's book. Where in Salt you got detailed portraits of processing operations and their effects on local populations, Fish on Friday takes a much broader view. There *are* some portraits, but on the whole you get the bird's eye view of the situation.
Sisterhood of Spies: Women of the OSS
Elizabeth R McIntosh
Interesting stories, but the book lacks structure. There isn't any ordering of the chapters - one per woman, generally - and only the vaguest nod toward situating the stories in the broader course of the war is given. Dates *are*, sometimes, but unless you carry a timeline of WWII in your head they don't help much. The chapters are also not as detailed as they might be; you get an overview of how each woman came to the OSS, and what operations she was involved with, any particularly outstanding successes she had, and a few quotes from her, her journals, or people who knew her for color.
We Are at War
Simon Garfield (ed)
Now *this* was a brilliant book. Taken from Mass Observations journals, this tracks 5 people over about a year, from early '39 through the Battle of Britain. It's personal, detailed, and fascinating. I want to go back through it with a pencil to make notes, and I also want to get some of the other books that collect Mass Observation materials. Highly, highly recommended.
London 1945: Life in the Debris of War
Maureen Waller
This one depends on what you want out of it. I had been hoping for the everyman view, so I feel a bit mixed. It has that, but it also has long discussions about the developing political complexities. Those are interesting in their own right, of course, and certainly feed into the experience of the average citizen, but I think we could have done with less analysis of the personalities involved with Labor's sudden election wins and more time spent of the effects of same. On the positive side, there were very good chapters on recreation and the return of demobbed soldiers.
Fiction: God of the Hive
God of the Hive
Laurie R King
The addition of the meta-villain to the story begun in the first part is excellent, and anyone who could offer a challenge to Mycroft is certain a worthy opponent. On the other hand, we've had this one dropped in on us out of nowhere (although it does neatly tie to Russell's frequent reflections that 'Brother Mycroft' might be just a tad *too* powerful, were he a less ethical man), and it's somewhat uncomfortable to be presented with a mastermind of that caliber as a fait accompli. I suppose it's a bit like Moriarty, who really only made a couple of appearances in the Doyle canon, but -- assuming King isn't fed up with Russell as Doyle was with Holmes -- one does expect better of writers these days. The story is engaging as always, and gripping right up until the end, which feels a bit rushed and somewhat patchwork. Honestly, it's not one of King's best, but it's still an enjoyable read.