2015 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

I was so excited to find out that the 2015 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge is on and now hosted by Amy at Passages to the Past.

I love historical fiction--easily my favorite genre and one that I have been reading all my life.  In fact, for the longest time I thought all novels were historical fiction.  I don't think I read a contemporary novel until I was in Junior High and was swept up in the Love Story craze.

Anyway, the rules are delightfully simple. The challenge runs from January 1 to December 31 and there are six different levels to choose from:

20th century Reader – 2 books
Victorian Reader – 5 books
Renaissance Reader – 10 books
Medieval – 15 books
Ancient History – 25 books
Prehistoric – 50+ books

In both 2014 and 2013, I made it to the Medieval level, and that's where I'm aiming again.  Given my TBR shelf, it should be a piece of cake...and a yummy one at that!

What I've read so far:

1. When Christ and His Saints Slept, by Sharon Kay Penman
2. Ross Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787, by Winston Graham
3. Demelza, by Winston Graham
4. Life After Life, by Kate Atchison
5. Jane Austen's First Love, by Syrie James
6. Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee
7. First Impressions, by Charlie Lovett
8. My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante
9. The Agony and the Ecstasy, by Irving Stone
10. Roma, by Steven Saylor
11. The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields

The Sibyl

One of the last books that I read in college was The Sibyl, by Par Lagerkvist.  The book won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1951.  I  remember loving it's power and challenging point of view.

It is a framed story, in which a man who is cursed by Jesus on his way to Calvary for not letting him rest his head on the side of his house, stumbles upon a hermit woman living with her mentally disabled son high on a mountain outside of Delphi.  The man bemoans the curse he is under, that of having to wander the earth, blessed with eternal life but cursed with being unable to be at peace.  He asks the woman whether she knows what it feels like to have the eyes of god fall upon you.

The woman replies that she does and that "There is no joy in seeing God."

The bulk of the book is the woman telling her story.  She was the sibyl (or oracle) of Delphi from the time she was a young girl to middle age.  During festivals and holy days, she would go down to the pit in the temple after fasting for three days, bathing, and chewing on laurel leaves, and her God, Apollo, would inhabit her body and speak to his worshipers through her.  The rest of the time, she lived be herself, only being cared for by servants of the temple.

After decades of living like this, on a rare visit to her family she meets a man, falls in love, and the God Apollo wreaks his vengeance on her for betraying her role as his bride.

It's a grim, but fascinating story. It reads like a parable--the write is clean and brisk and the mood is somber. It is unsettling.

The book closes with a comparison of the two Sons of God as they ascend to heaven - Jesus and the son of Apollo, the mentally-disabled man living with the sibyl.

I don't love the book the way I did 30 years ago--I guess I just can't accept the basic premise that the author lays out, that Jesus would curse someone.  Perhaps Lagerkvist's point is that the religion that became Christianity is neither kinder nor gentler than the one centered around the Oracle at Delphi.  Regardless of one's religious beliefs, it's safe to say that that action on the part of Jesus is completely inconsistent with any reading of the Gospels.

I'm glad I reread this book, but not sure I will tackle a third time.

This book was on my Back to the Classics for 2014 list and also counts in the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Huzzah!

The Eight

I recently finished The Eight by Katherine Neville.  Honestly, I wish I hadn't bothered.  It was such a silly novel with so many loose ends, unbelievable characters, uncanny coincidences, preposterous scenarios, and cliche-laced narrative that towards the end, I was simply marking time.  The novel takes place in two timeframes--1970s New York and Algeria, and Revolutionary France.  I tended to like the story from the 1970s more, primarily because the 1790's story was littered with historical figures, some who figured into the plot and some who were simply props--among them Tallyrand, Catherine the Great, Wordsworth, Rousseau, Voltaire, Bach, Marat, Robespierre, et al.

I think this book as somewhat of a cult following, but for me it was a bit like Ayn Rand meets Dan Brown, a combo that is distasteful on several levels.  The only part I really liked was when the 1970's heroine travels around Algeria and visits some pretty cool places, archeologically speaking.  This, however, couldn't make up for the fact that the quasi-mystical mumbo-jumbo was never adequately explained and in the end I couldn't care less whether the chess pieces were reunited or not.

If you are the least bit curious about the plot, here's the Amazon blurb:

Computer expert Cat Velis is heading for a job to Algeria. Before she goes, a mysterious fortune teller warns her of danger, and an antique dealer asks her to search for pieces to a valuable chess set that has been missing for years...In the South of France in 1790 two convent girls hide valuable pieces of a chess set all over the world, because the game that can be played with them is too powerful.

Honestly the only reason I bothered to write a review is so I could count this book in my Historical Fiction Reading Challenge for 2014.

Now, on to something more savory...I'm thinking a reread of one of Steinbeck's  masterpieces, East of Eden, especially since I am headed out to California and points north at the end of this week.

2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Here's my wrap up for the 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, hosted by Historical Tapestry.

This challenge is remarkably easy because you don't have to pre-select books, just read anything in the genre, post reviews, and read others' reviews.

Here are levels readers can aspire to:
20th century reader - 2 books
Victorian reader - 5 books
Renaissance Reader - 10 books
Medieval - 15 books
Ancient History - 25 books

Prehistoric - 50+ books

I made it to Medieval in 2013 and 2014, which seems to be the right level for me.

1. Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, by Anne Rice
2. People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks
3. Longbourn, by Jo Baker
4. Stella Bain, by Anita Shreve
5. Crossing Purgatory, by Gary Schanbacher
6. The Museum of Extraordinary Things, by Alice Hoffman
7. The Eight, by Katherine Neville
8. The Gondola Maker, by Laura Morelli
9. The Sibyl, by Par Lagerkvist
10. The Invention of Wings, by Tracy Chevalier
11. A Hundred Summers, by Beatriz Williams
12. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
13. The Daylight Gate, by Jeanette Winterson
14. A Conspiracy of Paper, by David Liss
15. Highland River, Neil Gunn
16. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
17. Written in My Heart's Own Blood, by Diana Gabaldon
19. Ragtime, by E.L. Doctorow
22. The Taste of Sorrow, by Jude Morgan

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - It's a Wrap!

2013 was the first year that I really signed up for reading challenges in a big way (i.e., more than 1!), and I picked the ones that I knew I would do well in. 

I loved doing the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, hosted by Historical Tapestry.  Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, and it overlapped nicely with my TBR Pile Challenge.  I modestly made the goal of reaching the Renaissance level but blew by that and made it all the way to Medieval.

Here were the levels:

20th century reader - 2 books
Victorian reader - 5 books
Renaissance Reader - 10 books
Medieval - 15 books
Ancient History -25+ books

And here is what I read...not in order read but in order remembered:

1. Madame Tussaud, by Michelle Moran
2. The Testament of Mariam, by Ann Swinfen 
3. The Whiskey Rebels, by David Liss
4. The Ninth Daughter, by Barbara Hamilton - the first in a mystery series with Abigail Adams as the slueth
5. Cleopatra's Daughter, by Michelle Moran
6. Thanksgiving, by Ellen Cooney
7. Katherine, by Anya Seton
8. Sunne in Splendour, by Sharon Kay Penman
9. A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
10. The Last Runaway, by Tracy Chevalier
11. Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier
12. The White Queen, by Philippa Gregory
13. The Pursuit of Mary Bennet, by Pamela Mingle
14. 1876, by Gore Vidal
15. The Testament of Mary, by Colm Toibin

My favorites were Madame Tussaud, Katherine, The Sunne in Splendour, The White Queen (I also read The Red Queen but didn't really review it), The Last Runaway, and 1876.  The only disappointments were The Whiskey Rebels and Cleopatra's Daughter and Frenchman's Creek.

I will definitely be signing up for this challenge again in 2014.

2013 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

I really seem to be on a signing-up-for-challenges binge, but here's one that should be easy and overlap nicely with my TBR Pile Challenge.  It's the Historial Fiction Reading Challenge at Historical Tapestry.

The details are straightforward--over the course of a year, I can choose one of the different reading levels:

20th century reader - 2 books
Victorian reader - 5 books
Renaissance Reader - 10 books
Medieval - 15 books
Ancient History -25+ books

Without even trying, I know I'll be reading the following:

1. Madame Tussaud, by Michelle Moran
2. The Testament of Mariam, by Ann Swinfen 
3. The Whiskey Rebels, by David Liss
4. The Ninth Daughter, by Barbara Hamilton - the first in a mystery series with Abigail Adams as the slueth
5. Cleopatra's Daughter, by Michelle Moran
6. Thanksgiving, by Ellen Cooney
7. Katherine, by Anya Seton
8. Sunne in Splendour, by Sharon Kay Penman
9. A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
10. The Last Runaway, by Tracy Chevalier
11. Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier
12. The White Queen, by Philippa Gregory
13. Thanksgiving, by Ellen Cooney
14. The Pursuit of Mary Bennet, by Pamela Mingle
15. 1876, by Gore Vidal
16. The Testament of Mary, by Colm Toibin

I'm planning on finishing John Jakes' North and South trilogy, and finally reading Leon Uris's Trinity, as well as diving into some Jean Plaidy, and reading more from the incomparable Jude Morgan.

And I have a lot more historical fiction on my shelf, so I'm comfortable aiming for the Renaissance Reader 10 books) as a minimum.