Wrapping up Fall Reading

I'm just wrapping up my Fall reading before diving into Holiday books, so here's a quickie look at what I read this Fall.

I Am the Chosen King, by Helen Hollick - read this one with the GoodReads True Book Talk Group. November was historical fiction month, and while this wasn't the book I voted for, I really enjoyed it. It's about Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, who was defeated by William the Bastard in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings. Having visited Bayeaux last summer and viewed the Bayeaux Tapestry and listened to the French side of the story, it was a story fresh in my mind and was cool because I had visited many of the places in Normandy mentioned in the book. It was well-written and detailed and covered a period of history that I want to learn more about.

An Infamous Army, by Georgette Heyer - this was my second time listening to the audio version of this incredible book. It is a mashup of a Regency Romance and a very detailed narrative of the Battle of Waterloo, with definite overtones of Vanity Fair. I really need to read it next time with a map in hand because listening to it in the car means I can't research all the place names. Thoroughly enjoyable, though.

Varina, by Charles Frazier - an exceptionally creative and well-written novel about Varina Davis, wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and the African-American child who was part of her household during the Civil War but who was taken from her when the Union Army captured the Davises after Richmond fell. Varina reminded me of Frazier's Cold Mountain in that both books are journeys--in Cold Mountain, Inman is going home after the Civil War whereas Varina is fleeing Richmond and trying to reach Florida so she can escape to Cuba. One of the best books I read this year.  Now, I am very eager to read A Diary from Dixie, by Mary Chesnut, who was one of Varina's closest friends before, during, and after the war.

To Die but Once, by Jacqueline Winspear - the most recent (#14) in the excellent Maisie Dobbs series. I love these books, always listen to them as the actress is so good who reads them. It's set during the Dunkirk evacuation, and is an absolutely first-rate mystery. Loved it!

The Caves of Perigord, by Martin Walker - I really wanted to visited the Dordogne region of France on my trip last summer so I could go to the Lascaux caves, but I just couldn't fit it in. So, I did the next best thing...read a novel about the region. Martin Walker writes lovely mysteries set in the Dordogne region, but this one was a stand-alone that bounced between pre-historic times when the cave paintings were done, WWII (when British, American, and French soldiers were prepping for D-Day and encounter the caves), and modern-day (when a fragment of one of the paintings is part of theft). It was okay--I loved the pre-historic story about how the paintings were done, what they meant--all conjecture, of course, but fun to read. The WWII part was also good, but the modern-day was pretty weak in terms of story and characters.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson - another second listening of this favorite book. All about how the stuff we take for granted--light, toilets, kitchens, essentially everything in a house including its structure--came to be.  I love listening to Bryson read his own works.

Drums of Autumn, by Diana Gabaldon - I'm 75% done with this reread, which I am doing while watching season 4 of Outlander. I'm a fan of the whole series and never tire of reading about the adventures of Clarie and Jamie and their family that literally spans the centuries. Gives new meaning to the term "extended family."

Now, on to Holiday reading!

Bill Bryson's "At Home"

I prefer to listen to Bill Bryson read his work, and so have been putting off reading his latest, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, which I received in hardbound form for my birthday last November until I could listen to it. I wasn't disappointed. At Home was an absolutely marvelous book--chock full of fascinating information delivered with wry humor.

At Home is an excellent book for people like me who love history and historical fiction, particularly the Regency and Victorian time periods. Bryson uses his house in England, which was built in 1850 as a rectory, as the framework for discussing virtually all aspects of human life by visiting each room and discussing in a rambling, folksy, anecodote-laden way the facets of society and technology associated with that room over the millennia, but with a focus on the last 200 years.

In the Kitchen chapter, for example, Bryson discusses not only what people ate and why, but how the food was procured, prepared, and consumed. This means we are treated to information on farming, refrigeration and the use of ice, cooks and scullery maids, the East India Company, the quest for spices and the associated voyages of discovery, medicine, vitamins, and a host of other interrelated topics.

And so it goes, from the cellar to the attic, by way of the hall, drawing room, bathroom, stairs, nursery, bedroom, etc. with the axle of the book being the year 1851, the year of, among other things, the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. In fact, a discussion of the building of the Crystal Palace is really the first in-depth story Bryson tells and I enjoyed this part so much that I listened to it a second time. I loved hearing about Joseph Paxton, the energetic gardener, who designed the Crystal Palace as basically a gigantic greenhouse, and how this was made physically possible by recent technological advances in the manufacture of both glass and cast iron, and financially possible by the dropping of a tax on glass.




The whole book is like this...from how salt and pepper became our seasonings of choice, to how the Eiffel tower was built, to how lighting in the home before electricity was achieved and at what cost, to clothing, wigs, cosmetics, lice, vermin, plumbing, and on and on.

Another favorite section, again near the beginning, was a dicussion of the role of the clergy in the development of science, technology, and the arts, but not necessarily in religion. The crux of the idea is that most clery in the 18th century through the mid/late 19th century had a comfortable income with not a lot of responsibility and so those who were motivated were able to pursue their pet interests with a great deal of energy. Many key contributors to archeology, geology, linguistics, and a variety of other endeavors were devoted and passionate amatuers who were also clergymen.

Speaking of archeology, I found absolutely riveting the section in which Bryson recounts the discovery of the neolithic village of Skara Brae, in Orkney, Scotland, in 1850 (yes the same year Bryson's house was built!). I never knew about this well-preserved village and now I'm trying to figure out how I can visit it.




Much as I love to read history books and historical fiction, it's been awhile since I was under any illusion that I was reading about the "good old days." Even so, At Home reminded me strongly that I am thankful to be living out my life in the 21st century. His discussion of the lives of servants, children, and the poor in particular provide a strong lesson in how far we as a society have come, even in the last half century. Hearing about living conditions, whether urban or rural, workhouses, and factories is sobering. So much of life in the past was neither pleasant nor easy...but it is endlessly fascinating to learn about.

Here's an illustration that I found in a San Franciscio Chronicle review of the book that will give you a further taste for the rich depth of interesting facts that Bryson delivers in this marvelous book.