Carrie Soto is Back...and Magpie Murders

I just finished listening to Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid and was blown away by how good it was. I cannot remember which of my book blogger friends raved about it, but thanks to whomever it was!

Carrie is a 37-year-old former tennis star--the best in the world when she retired--and she comes out of retirement in order to try to win one or more tennis slam tournaments (i.e., Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, or US Open) in order to keep her record of most wins intact

The first part of the book recounts her rise as a tennis star--coached by her dapper Argentian father--which is the usual story of a supremely gifted athlete who sacrifices a normal life in pursuit of a professional sports career. The second part details Carrie's training, both physical and mental, as she prepares for her comeback. I loved hearing about the intricacies of tennis strategy--being able to have the physical capabilities and muscle memory to literally think on your feet in the split second you have to return a shot was just fascinating. And the training involved to compete at this level was truly inspiring.

The story itself is great, with tennis and sport providing the vehicle for Reid to explore ego, self-doubt, family, ambition, resilience, and fear of failure, not to mention the inequalities between men's and women's sports, how they covered, sponsored, and reported on. But the writing is awesome--most of it is first-person narrative, with some sportscaster copy thrown, and Carrie's voice is so authentic, believable, and compelling. She is often not nice--she is nicknamed "The Battleaxe" by the press--but she is definitely a heroine. 

And the ending is superb. Immensely satisfying, both thematically and in terms of plot. I highly recommend the audio version. Five stars!

I also recently finished Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz and followed it up by watching season one of the TV series on PBS. Basically, it is a mystery story within a story, which is very clever. 

Susan Ryeland is an editor for a small UK publishing firm whose best-sellers are a detective-based 1950's-era mystery series by a very disagreeable author. The book starts with Susan sitting down to read the latest in the series, and so we get to read it along with her. I liked it--good setting (very Agatha Christie-esque), good characters, good whodunit...but we and Susan don't get to discover whodunit because the final chapter is missing. Cut to the frame story and Susan turns detective to track down not only the missing chapter, but also the nasty author commits suicide, and Susan suspects murder. Great plot--so much fun to read.

The 6-part TV series was okay--they ended up trying to tell the two stories simultaneously with the same cast playing characters in both worlds, and the worlds overlapped in that Atticus Pünd (the 1950's detective) visits Susan and they compare notes regarding the two mysteries. Very meta. And, very confusing. I'm not sure this treatment worked all that well, but I understand why it was done this way. Also, Horowitz wrote the screenplay for the mini-series. 

I think the book was clever, but the TV series was too clever, and that got in the way of it being as good as it could have been.

Susan Ryeland and Atticus Pünd join forces to solve both mysteries.

The sequel to Magpie Murders is Moonflower Murders, and I believe that is the focus of season two of the TV series. Has anybody read it? Should I?

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Brags or Confessions

I haven't done a Top Ten Tuesday in a while, but I loved the idea of this one, so here goes.

BTW, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Bookish Brags (or Confessions!) (what are you proud of or… not-so proud of in your bookish life?) 

I always say that reading is not a competitive sport, but there are a few things that are braggable...

1. I have read/watched all of Shakespeare's plays at least once.
2. I have read all of Dickens's novels at least once.
3. I read all of Austen by age 21, the novels multiple times.
4. I started my blog in 2008, and while I haven't been super consistent with my posts, I haven't gone on hiatus since then. I love the book blogging world.

And then there are those things that I must confess...

1. When I was a teenager--probably 14 or 15 and reading Pride and Prejudice yet again in late June in the skating rink locker room between sessions, a fellow figure skater asked what I was reading. I showed her and she asked why, since school was out of session. I lied and said it was required reading for the Fall semester. In fact, I was reading it because I loved Jane Austen and P&P.
2. I have sworn off ever trying to read Henry James and Virginia Woolf. I have tried on many occasions, and they are just so much work! And for me, the payoff just isn't there.
3. I love most of Philippa Gregory's books, even though she plays fast and loose with historical fact, and I always say that historical fiction should not alter facts to suit the story line. But, she just tells such good stories!
4. I don't like The Princess Bride by William Goldman--I love the movie, but the book left me cold.

So there you have it, true confessions and a couple of self-congratulations!

What are you proud of, and what do you have to confess?

Murder and Mayhem - Fall Reading, Watching, Learning, and Playing

I didn't do the R.I.P. challenge this year. Not from not wanting to, or not trying. I simply couldn't figure out the logistics based on Instagram posts. I tried searching for a hosting blog, but that seems to be old school. I guess I am feeling my age, but I couldn't figure out how to sign up. post, etc. So, I punted and just read a bunch of mysteries sans challenge.

The Last Devil to Die, by Richard Osman - 4th in the fantastic Thursday Murder Club series, I gave this 5 stars on GoodReads as there is some seriously beautiful, heartbreaking, breathtaking writing that isn't part of the overall whodunit but puts this book outside the realm of a simple mystery novel. And the mystery part of the book is really good--we dive into the world of antiques, antiquities, fraud, and heroin smuggling, and there are some wonderful characters in this world, some of whom end up dead and some don't. And the fab four are as wonderful as ever. I am so looking forward to the Netflix movie that just finished production.

The Zig-Zag Girl, by Elly Griffiths - I have been hearing good things about Griffiths's Ruth Galloway series but decided (mainly because my library had a copy) to start with book 1 of her Stephens and Mephisto series. Set in Brighton in the 1950s, not long after WWII has ended, the book features a police detective and a famous (on the UK vaudeville circuit) magician who have to figure out who is murdering people using magician's acts horribly gone wrong. Good writing, good setting, good characters--I will definitely be reading more by this author.

Vanishing Edge, by Claire Kells - I've gotten burnt out on the Nevada Barr series, so when Lark from Lark Writes blogged about a mystery series based in National Parks, I knew I had to check it out. This is the first book in the series--set in Sequoia NP in CA. The main character, Felicity Harland, is a former FBI agent now working as a detective with the NPS and her sidekick in this novel (and hopefully into the future) is the brawny, sweet park ranger known as Hux. They are a wonderful pair, with some chemistry, but lots of smarts and wilderness skills. I enjoyed the mystery, setting, and characters and already have the next book in the series on my nightstand.

The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware - I picked up this book on vacation in WA state and devoured it while traveling. I had heard lots of buzz about it earlier in the year, and it was a "can't put it down" thriller. Lo, the main character, works for a travel magazine in the UK and is lucky enough to get chosen for a major perk--a berth on a luxury cruise in the North Atlantic. She stumbles into a mystery and finds herself in grave danger in her attempt to figure out who she saw in the supposedly empty cabin next to hers, and what happened to her.

Murder in Chianti, by Camilla Trinchieri - book 1 of yet another mystery series, and this one was also recommended by Lark. Again, I have found a new series to love, as I really enjoy reading books set in Italy, and in this case, we have a former NYPD cop who has relocated to Tuscany and gets roped into helping solve a murder. Again, great setting, interesting set of villagers and side characters, and lots of discussion of great food and drink.

Fatal Pursuit, by Martin Walker - finally, not a new series! This is book 9 in the fabulous Bruno series set in the Dordogne valley in France. One of my absolute favorites in the entire series so far -- we have another WWII mystery, this time involving a gorgeous racing car (only 1 of 4 made) that went missing with a French resistance driver on his way from Alsace to the Dordogne. We also have a rally car event with Bruno as a reluctant participant, as well as the usual horses, dogs, friends, baguettes, fabulous food and drink, and cultural history.

I'm halfway through Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz, which I am loving and will wax poetic about in a later blog post.

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Still reading up on the Civil War--1/3 of the way through another Bruce Catton, this time The Coming Fury, which covers a lot of the same ground as The Demon of Unrest, but terrific nonetheless. I also watch Manhunt on Apple TV about the search for John Wilkes Booth and the other conspirators involved in the Lincoln assassination. Tobias Menzies was excellent as Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War, sometime political rival, and friend and champion. Definitely worth watching.

Also, just started watching The New Look on Apple TV about Christian Dior and Coco Chanel during WWII in Paris and afterwards. Absolutely riveting. Honestly, I am glad I no longer use Chanel No. 5. Coco should have been prosecuted as a Nazi spy.

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Still harvesting tomatoes--what a bumper crop. My freezer is full of tomato sauce and stewed tomatoes,  and we've been eating a lot of tomato soup, salsa, bruschetta, and tomato sandwiches. And I have given away so many bags to friends, neighbors, and the food share.

I just started piano lessons--I haven't played in >30 years and I was mostly self-taught, so this is great fun and challenging.

Gearing up for quilting season. I have a king-size quilt that I am almost done quilting, and then there is a Civil War era quilt that I would love to make this winter.

And that's a wrap. Hope everyone is doing well, staying healthy and reading lots!

Travelogue: Wooden Boats, Port Townsend, Olympic NP, Mt Rainier

 

100s of beautiful wooden boats on display in Port Townsend

Got back last Saturday from a wonderful trip to Washington state, where we lunched in Gig Harbor, spent two wonderful days at the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend, visited Cape Flattery (the most northwestern point in the lower US 48), hiked in Olympic National Park (Lake Quinault), enjoyed the waterfalls of Mt Rainier National Park, and revisited Tacoma.

This was our second time attending the Wooden Boat Festival, and I hope not our last. My husband has been gearing up to build a wooden sailboat for a few years and hopefully he'll be able to get underway this fall. We also spent a morning on the beautiful Adventuress, sailing around the harbor. The Adventuress is a 133-foot schooner, originally launched in 1913.

Sister ship of the Adventuress, which was sailing at the same time we were.

Port Townsend is a lovely town, filled with historic buildings--we stayed at the Palace Hotel, which is just blocks from the festival--on the third floor, no elevator, but full of Victorian charm.

Obligatory selfie at Cape Flattery.

The rugged coast of Cape Flattery, where the wind never ceases.

There are several temperate rainforests in Olympic National Park. We visited a couple near beautiful Lake Quinault, which were surreal. Seemed like we were walking through Middle Earth--mossy, misshapen, ghostly, wonderful. Made me want to reread The Overstory.

On to Mt Rainier NP, which we had not visited before. It was cool and misty and socked in for almost the whole visit, and we never actually saw the mountain in all its glory. We did enjoy hiking--very cool vegetation that is so different from what I'm used to in CO--and there were lots of waterfalls. We ate both nights at a Ukranian restaurant next to our hotel in Ashford, which is just outside the park, and I discovered the joy that is a chicken piroshki.

Tractor carved out of wood, near the Ukrainian restaurant.

Last night in Tacoma. Tacoma gets a bad rap as a poor cousin to Seattle, but one of our daughters went to University of Puget Sound and we really fell in love with the town visiting her over the four years she was there. We did get a view of Mt Rainier at dinner in Tacoma at a waterfront restaurant. Figures!

Tacoma waterfront along Ruston Way--what's not to love!!!

One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to go to the local bookshops and buy something. So here's what I got on this trip:

Gig Harbor - The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware (which I devoured during the trip)

Port Townsend - Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon, by Melissa L. Sevigny (hoping to start shortly)

Big Book Summer Challenge 2024 - Wrap Up

I love this challenge, hosted by Sue at Book by Book and have been doing it for years now. This was a particularly good summer for big books for me, and I am proud of having read seven of these chunksters between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Table for Two, by Amor Towles

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, Judi Dench

Mythos, by Stephen Fry

Chain of Thunder: Siege of Vicksburg, by Jeff Shaara

The Demon of Unrest, by Erik Larson

The Civil War, by Bruce Catton

Gods and Generals, by Jeff Shaara

I do like reading big books. I like spending a significant amount of time with a family, or in a place, or diving into a subject or theme. Sometimes starting a new book is lots of work--you have to figure out who's who, etc., but a big book provides a place to wallow for a while. Maybe this is why I like series so much--they are really like one ginormous book.

Hope everyone had a great summer (or winter if you are down under), with or without big books. I personally am ready for the seasonal change--crisp mornings, cool evenings, harvesting and preparing for the winter, and celebrating. My birthday as well as my husband's and all three kids' are between October 1 and November 26, and then we have the holidays. This year my birthday lands on Election Day in the US (and Guy Fawkes Day in the UK), so it will be an interesting birthday, to say the least.

Civil War - Chain of Thunder: Siege of Vicksburg, Battle for the Mississippi

 

Another chunkster from Jeff Shaara as part of the great American Civil War deep dive, A Chain of Thunder details the siege of Vicksburg and the overall U.S. Grant campaign to gain full access of the Mississippi River for the Union.

As with his other war novels, Shaara's narrative shifts among various players on both sides, generals and other officers (of course) Grant and Sherman for the North and Pemberton for the South, as well as a Union soldier from Wisconsin (Fritz aka Dutchie Bauer) whom I met in the previous novel, A Blaze of Glory, about Shiloh, and several civilians from Vicksburg who remained until the final surrender of the fort by the Confederates. 

The main civilian given voice in this novel is Lucy Spence, a young woman, only 18 years old, who is on her own after her mother dies (her father had already abandoned the family). She is taken in by neighbors when the town's residents move into caves to shelter from the constant shelling by the Union Army, but she volunteers as a nurse and so through her eyes we see first-hand the horror and pain of the battlefield survivors.

All of the military personnel featured in the novel as well as Dutchie and Lucy and her neighbors were real people, and at the end of the book, as always, the author provides a glimpse into their lives post-war.

These novels are really such an excellent way to learn about not only the details of the campaigns and the military strategy, which I do find fascinating, but also how the people actually lived through the experience, including the politics, the rumors, and the hopes and fears that are not tempered by hindsight. For example, I have read several non-fiction accounts of the Vicksburg campaign, and they all rather glibly mention how the town's residents lived in caves, but reading a fictional account of how the residents actually had to live (i.e., digging out the caves, putting up supporting timbers, figuring out how cook and what to cook as food stores ran out and starvation set in, how to clean themselves, etc.) brings home so much more powerfully what was endured and what was sacrificed.

I also really enjoyed reading about the role that the engineers played on both sides in devising ingenious solutions to tough military problems. In particular, the "Coonskins Tower," constructed by a lieutenant out of discarded railroad ties and that enabled Union sharpshooters to have a clear shot at the Confederate ramparts is a great example. Another is the second earthen wall constructed overnight by the Confederate soldiers under the direction of their chief engineer after the Union artillery blasted through one of the outer walls late one afternoon in preparation for a massive assault the next morning.

As you can tell, I'm not nearly through with my deep dive, and this book was another exceptional piece of balanced writing by a wonderful historical fiction author who respects his source material.

And yes, at 562 pages, this book most definitely is part of the #BigBookSummer of 2024.

Table for Two: Fictions - Amor Towles

Table for Two: Fictions, the latest book from the wonderful Amor Towles, is divided into two parts, New York and Los Angeles. The New York section consists of six short stories, five of which are definitely NYC stories. The sixth, which also happens to be the first in the book, is mostly set in Russia in 1917 as the country convulses into a communist state. The Los Angeles section is actually a novella, featuring Eve Ross from The Rules of Civility, which I haven't yet read. That fact didn't stand in the way of my enjoying the LA story immensely.

In fact, I enjoyed every single one of the fictions. Towles is just such a remarkable writer--not only is his prose elegant, but he writes such interesting stories. How he can know so much about the music world, the art world, the inner workings of Hollywood in 1939, and all the other arcane stuff that give such meat to his stories never fails to amaze me.

The first story, "The Line," is the one mostly set in Russia, and the premise actually made me laugh out loud. I loved how Towles was able to use the setting to tell a wonderful story about what motivates people, regardless of the political ideology under which they are living.

All of the short stories do a fine job of providing a wonderful ironic twist to complete the story, which is a hallmark of great short stories.

The weakest story was "The Bootlegger" because the main character was unbelievably clueless and the resolution was fairly predictable. Not bad, but not up to the standard of the rest of the stories.

After reading "The Didomenico Fragment," which is the last of the New York stories, I want to return to NYC and visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and see the Studiolo from the Ducal Palace in Gubbio. In the story, the protagonist, a former art dealer with Sotheby's, takes a young relative to the Met and I fell in love with his description of this studiolo.

The walls of the studiolo are inlaid wood, which creates an illusion of 3D objects.

The "Eve in Hollywood" novella that comprises the Los Angeles section of the book was so good, and I got completely caught up in the setting (1930s Hollywood), and the characters, from a fading matinee idol, to a retired cop, to a plucky bellboy who is an aspiring stunt man, to Eve's best friend, Olivia de Havilland, who happens to be starring in Gone With the Wind at the time. Eve is a larger-than-life character, the type that myths are built around. Beautiful but scarred, self-assured and fierce. I can see why Towles wanted to write more of her story. I can see a whole series of books based on Eve.

I also loved Eve's list of 20 things to do in Los Angeles. Now, I want to go to LA and do them! Although that was a list from 1939. I wonder how many things on the list are still a thing?

And this is yet one more chunkster for the Big Book Summer Challenge 2024, clocking in at 464 pages. It is turning out to be a great summer for big books. That's what retiring will do for your reading life!

Dog Days and Summer Reads

At the Edge of the Orchard, by Tracy Chevalier - I like everything Chevalier writes, and this was no exception, except it takes a lot of faith to make it through the first part, which has some of the most disagreeable characters you can imagine. Actually, I started this book five or so years ago and stopped reading after about 30 pages because I couldn't stand the company. But, my husband read it and said that the awful people are really only in the first part and the overall story is good. Then, the GoodReads True Book Talk group voted to read it in July, so I plunged back in. 

The story starts with a homesteading family in the Black Swamp in Ohio in the 1830s and their struggle to survive and grow apples, courtesy of John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed. The father loves grafting trees to produce his favorite variety to eat, and the mother loves hard cider...to a fault. 

Robert is the eldest son, and the novel really gets good when he heads west to make his fortune and after trying his hand at cowboying and gold mining, he ends up working for a botanist from England who makes his living by providing English gardens and landowners with seeds and seedlings from redwoods and sequoias. Who knew this was a thing back in the 1850s? Loved reading about California in the early days.

How to Read a Book, by Monica Wood - this was a recommendation from JoAnn at Gulfside Musing, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable novel. Shades of Orange is the New Black as a women's correctional facility figures prominently--Violet is incarcerated for manslaughter, Harriet is a retired teacher who leads a weekly bookclub at the prison, and Frank is the husband of the woman Violet accidently killed. It is truly a lovely story about second chances and the power of forgiveness as a life-giving force.

Fun Fact: did you know that African Grey Parrots are super smart and can differentiate colors and objects and show feelings and affection? I didn't, but I learned a lot about them while reading this book!

Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics, by Tom Keymer - this was the JASNA Denver/Boulder bookclub's selection for our July read. Chosen because the author is delivering a keynote at the JASNA AGM in October in Cleveland (no, I am not going this year), it turned out to be quite interesting. 

A sampling of the tidbits I learned:

• Blaise Castle, where John Thorpe takes Catherine Morland at breakneck speed in Northanger Abbey, was actually a tourist trap and folly and not a real gothic castle.
• Virginia Woolf wrote something called "Jane Austen at 60," which I think I would like to read sometime.
• Vladimir Nabakov lectured on Austen and did a drawing of Sotherton Court from Mansfield Park.

It was a fun, interesting book, and I'm sure his keynote will be excellent.

Once Persuaded, Twice Shy, by Melodie Edwards - for our September book, JASNA Denver/Boulder decided to read some fun modern riffs on Persuasion. I am traveling in September, so I got a jumpstart and read this one, which takes place in Canada (Niagra-on-the-Lake). It was enormous fun--well-written with mostly believable characters, sufficient angst, and a lovely resolution. Perfect summer escapism, but everyone agreed...the title is atrocious.

The author has also written a modern Jane Eyre story, Jane & Edward, that I might read. Has anyone read it? Worth reading?

The Scarecrow, by Michael Connelly - I've been listening to Connelly's Harry Bosch, Mickey Haller (Lincoln Lawyer), and Renee Ballard LA crime novels, but I didn't know that he had a 3-part series that featured a newspaper reporter until I was looking for something to listen to and stumbled across the middle book in the series. I generally don't read series out of order, but rules are made to be broken. 

Jack McEvoy is a LA Times crime reporter who has just been given his pink slip. He sees an opportunity to write a final, Pulitzer-Prize winning story with a tip that comes during his last week, and we're off to the races. This was classic Connelly in that I felt like I really had an insider's view of a newsroom and the relationships between law enforcement, lawyers, and the media. The set up was high-tech featuring data centers and hacking, the bad guys were smart and horrible, and the characters were terrific. I'm just sorry that McEvoy only has three books.

The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz - I was super excited to read this one, but only ended up giving it three stars because I really hated the ending, which felt so contrived and non-satisfying. I also had a hard time buying into the premise, which is that a struggling novelist uses a surefire plot that one of his students told him before that student passed away. Apparently, using this plot was somehow considered heinous, which really didn't resonate with me, and the revenge angle also stretched my ability to suspend disbelief. 

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I think that's a wrap on the reading front.

In other news, it is finally raining in Colorado, helping to dampen down the wildfires and smoky haze, which means I need to get outside a do some weeding while we have a break from the heat.

I am loving the Olympics. Women's rugby!!! Who knew it was so much fun to watch? And track and field, and swimming, and diviing, and volleyball, and tennis, and something called Cross Canoe Slalom. Wow!

I am also loving Bridgerton. I finally bit the bullet and started watching. Finished season 2 last night, now on to season 3. I used to think Downton Abbey had the best costumes, but Bridgerton is just eye-candy galore. 

The tomatoes are starting to ripen so I'll be making tomato sauce to freeze for the winter. The chili peppers are fantastic, so I've been roasting and peeling and dicing and freezing for green chili. I actually grew bell peppers this year, and they are growing and just starting to ripen. The onions are awesome.

Life is good. Hope you are well and enjoying the dog days.

Update from the Civil War Deep Dive

Erik Larson is one of my favorite non-fiction authors. When I heard that he had a new book out on the Civil War, I knew I had to read it. That put the worm in my brain to finally read James MacPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, and then that made me want to read some fiction. The best Civil War fiction writer around is Jeff Shaara, son of Michael Shaara, whose Killer Angels is one of my favorite books. You see how this goes. One minute I am planning on reading one tome on the Civil War, and pretty soon I'm down the rabbit hole and getting lost in the warren.

So, let's start with the Erik Larson book, which I finished last weekend. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War is a painstaking, slow crawl from November 1860 to the firing on Fort Sumter in the Charleston Harbor in April 1861. It may be a slow crawl, but Larson is an incredible storyteller whose writing is sharp and incisive. 

I particularly liked learning about the so-called Southern Fire-Eaters, who preached secession for decades before 1861 and were instrumental in rousing sectional violence through their rhetoric. Most of the history books I've read on the Civil War mention the Fire-Eaters as a collective but don't provide particulars as to who they were and what they even said or did. Not so with Larson--one of the Fire-Eaters, Edmund Ruffin, is a major character in Demon of Unrest. Same with Mary Chestnut whose diary is quoted frequently but not much of her backstory is provided to put the quoted parts in context.

Larson used the Southern version of the ancient Code Duello has a framework for exploring and attempting to understand the irreconcilable chasm between the North and South that made the Civil War inevitable. I don't believe in single causes, but I did find this framework to be a useful way of corralling the many perspectives on why and how Americans came to such savagery 163 years ago.

This was a 5-star book for me--compelling, structured, meticulous, insightful.

Before reading Demon of Unrest, I spent a couple of months slowly reading James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. First published in 1988 and winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1989, it is an absolutely superb cover-to-cover book on the war. Not only are the major battles and major military leaders covered in detail, but McPherson dives into the politics, the economies of both North and South, the international factors, and the role of the navy, the industrial revolution, and the western frontier in how the war was waged. I absolutely loved reading this book, and interestingly, I found it familiar in that the lecture series I listened to from the Teaching Company seemed to come straight from this book, not only in the outline but in anecdotes and references. 

Bruce Catton is one of the giants of Civil War non-fiction, with in-depth treatments of various battles, generals, and phases of the war, I decided to start with his survey book, titled simply The Civil War. It was outstanding. At 400 pages, it is less than half as long as McPherson's 867-page tome. They cover the same ground and with much the same analyses regarding the causes, the resources, and the impacts of various decisions along the way. I must say, though, that Catton's final chapters in which he talks about how the effects of the conflict are still being played out today (i.e., 1960 was when this was first published) and today (2024) are chilling and sobering, but his writing is beautiful and memorable.

If there is only one book you read on the Civil War, I would recommend this one. Truly a classic.

Now for the fiction. Michael Shaara wrote the fabulous The Killer Angels, about the battle of Gettysburg. After he passed away, his son Jeff took up the mantle and has written two trilogies about the Civil War, one focused on the eastern theatre and one on the west (meaning west of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland). Gods and Generals is the first in the eastern series. It is a prequel to The Killer Angels and ends with the battle of Chancellorsville. A Blaze of Glory is the first in the western trilogy and includes the battle of Shiloh.

I decided to read all six books, including a reread of The Killer Angels. While I love to read the non-fiction, I also love stories and both Shaaras do an excellent job of portraying the players (military officers, politicians, regular soldiers, and even civilians) with credibility and empathy. The real people only say things they are documented as saying, and I know it's cliche to say, but these novels are really meticulously researched. I trust their history!

I'm currently reading A Chain of Thunder, book two in the western theatre series, which focuses on the seige of Vicksburg on the Mississippi.

I'm also haunting Jeff Shaara's events page to see if/when he might be speaking on the Civil War. He has an October lecture in PA, but it is focused on WWII. He also has series of novels about WWI and WWII, which I will likely read at some point.

Simon the Fiddler is another novel, this time set in the immediate aftermath of the war and in the far west, Texas. in fact. The author is Paulette Jiles, author of the wonderful News of the World, and Captain Kidd from News does make a cameo appearance in this novel near the end, which was a real treat. Simon is a reluctant soldier who survived the war by playing his fiddle in the regimental band. After the fighting ceases, he teams up with three other fellow musicians and they make their way as a band playing in bars and saloons and occasionally for weddings and other social events when they can find respectable clothes. Simon falls in love with an Irish immigrant girl who is an indentured servant to one of the army officers, and the bulk of the novel is about him working towards winning her heart and her freedom so that they can start their own life together. As might be expected, there are loads of challenges along the way.

This was a really interesting novel in terms of showing the struggles of the common soldier as he was turned loose from the confines of military life and left to figure out how to survive in a hostile environment.  Simon is a wonderful character, full of grit and honor, passionate about his music, introspective, and always searching to understand who he is and how he fits into the world.

Not quite as good as News of the World, but still a very enjoyable story told in a compelling way.

Big Book Summer Challenge 

Now for the tally. Simon the Fiddler was under 400, and I started both Battle Cry of Freedom and Blaze of Glory before Memorial Day.

Demon of Unrest, 565 pages read in July 

The Civil War, 400 pages read in July

Gods and Generals, 498 pages read in mostly June and a bit of July

So, three books to add to my Big Book Summer Challenge 2024.

Shakespeare and Judi Dench

I absolutely loved listening to Judi Dench and fellow Shakespearean actor Brendan O'Hea chat about their work, their industry, their colleagues and friends, and the man himself in Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent.

On GoodReads, both are listed as authors of the book, though O'Hea did the lion's share of the work in converting 90 hours of discussion into book form. Dench suffers from macular degeneration, so reading and, I assume, writing and revision are now not possible.

The book's title is what Judi and her husband, Michael Williams, said about Shakespeare. Both were members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, aka RSC, and acting, mostly in Shakespeare's plays, was their job. They often acted together and lived outside Stratford-upon-Avon.  But I digress.

As Brendan says, Judi has an incredible memory regarding the productions she has been in, and I relished not only hearing about the director's vision and coaching, but the costuming, the set designs, the backstage chatter, the audiences, the pranks, the reviews and reviewers.

I appreciated Judi's and Brendan's discussions, at times contentious, about the various characters and especially how Judi's understanding of them changed as she changed and matured. The book is primarily a deep dive into each of the characters Judi played, not necessarily in chronological order, in each of the plays she was in. It starts with Macbeth--I loved hearing about her playing Lady Macbeth with Ian McKellan as Macbeth. I've seen the video of this production, and it is haunting and incredible and the best Macbeth I've ever seen.

I was gratified to learn that Judi dislikes Merchant of Venice and Portia for all the reasons that I do. She was in several productions of Midsummer's Night Dream, playing Titania, of course, but earlier she was one of the fairies when she was just out of acting school. She was Maria as well as Viola in Twelfth Night, Juliet as well as Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Isabella in Measure for Measure, Hermione and Perdita in the same production of Winter's Tale as well as Paulina later on, Katherine in Henry V, and the list goes on and on. Oh, I forgot, what a Cleopatra she was--I would love to have seen that production on the stage!

As Titania

In addition to remembering loads of specific details about the various productions, her ability to quote passages and not just from characters she played was outstanding.

However, three things really shine through and define Judi for me:

• Her reverence for her job--as an actress, she saw her job as telling the story as Shakespeare wrote it. That's not to say she had a problem with modern settings/costumes, she didn't--but she believed that the words told the story and she never wanted to deviate from the words. She respected the audiences she played to and felt an obligation to tell the story to them as well as she could.
• Her love of Shakespeare's genius--his words, his poetry, his understanding of the human condition in all its contradictions and complexity. She loves iambic pentameter and says its rhythm is the same as the human heartbeat. I loved her asides the passion or poetry or insight contained in a line would give her chills.
• Her joie de vivre is intoxicating. 

Truly a 5-star listen. And truly, this is a book that needs to be listened to--just to hear Shakespeare's words said aloud!

Oh, and the hardcover is exactly 400 pages, so this counts as one of my Big Book Summer Challenge books.