New York: A Novel by Edward Rutherfurd

I have a weakness for Edward Rutherfurd's novels and so was very excited when I received a copy of his latest, New York: A Novel, for Christmas. I've had the good fortune to visit Manhattan several times over the past couple of years, and with each visit, my comfort level and interest in the city grows. With another Spring Break in the city looming at the end of March, I've been chugging through New York, memorizing the early maps so that I can recognize street names and geographical points, even though they may be garbed in 21st century trappings.

The book is moving at a slower pace than most of the other Rutherfurd's I've read, starting with New Amsterdam in 1664 and staying in time periods and with specific characters longer than usual. I like this. With some of the other books, I've felt frustrated that just as I was getting comfortable with a set of characters and interested in their story, he would abandon them to leap ahead and start telling me about their descendants.

I loved the first part, especially showing the contrast between the Dutch and English inhabitants, and their treatment of and interaction with the native Americans and slaves. I also loved reading about the geography of Manhattan and the East and Hudson rivers. With all the bridges and tunnels of today's city, it's easy to forget that before all those bridges and tunnels the fact that Manhattan is an island was a defining part of life there. It was so interesting to read about the currents, and the wildlife, and the bends in the river and the cliffs and the swamps and the hunting grounds and the trails.

I also really enjoyed the Revolutionary War section and the insights into why New York remained mostly a hotbed of Loyalists. Most RW literature focuses on the Patriots, and this was an interesting and different perspective, especially with the Masters family and their love/hate relationship with England.

I just finished up the section on Civil War last night and again I found refreshing the different perspective from the usual CW lit--this time mostly related to the Irish immigrants and the draft riots and Tammany Hall.

I'm really looking forward to reading about the New York of Edith Wharton days--pre-skyscraper, that is.

It's not the definitive book on the history of New York, but it's a good opening salvo for me. I'm thinking I might give Gotham a go later in the year, unless someone recommends a better definitive history of NY book.

Here is a National Geographic article and photo gallery on the Mannahatta Project, in which Eric Sanderson, an ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), superimposed maps from Manhattan since the time of Henry Hudson to develop computer-generated images of what the island looked like when Hudson discovered it.

Is this cool or what?

March Madness

In a way, winter is the real spring, the time when the inner things happen, the resurge of nature. Edna O'Brien

As a short story writer, I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't heard of O'Brien before I spied this quote, attributed to her, in this morning's paper, but I've added one of her collection, A Fanatic Heart, to my Amazon cart. While she also has a number of novels out there, I think I might enjoy getting to know her as an author via short stories first. I've found that collections of stories are a handy way to break up a long read and try on new authors. I keep a few on my reading tables for just such occasions.

I'm frustrated that I didn't get another post done since last Monday, but it's been a busy time in our family and in my reading life.

Almost done with Why Shoot a Butler, just in time for Heyer month on the Classics Circuit. I'm finding this novel so much better than Envious Casca, the only other Georgette Heyer mystery that I've read. There's actually a protagonist, Frank Amberley, in this one, and I may be old-fashioned, but I like having a central character to focus on, cheer for, care about, and empathize with.

Almost done with Fever Pitch, and the movie at Netflix is waiting in the wings, and I'm evaluating which Nick Hornby to go with next. I will be really interested to see how they extract a screen play from this book.

On a mini-break from New York: The Novel, by Edward Rutherford. It's really good--much better than the last Rutherford tome I read, The Princes/Rebels of Ireland--but I didn't want to inhale it. We're taking a week long trip to New York later this month, and I plan to be done with it before I get on the plane, so I need to resume reading it this week.

More futures. I really need to get a copy of Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. I need to have it read before our April JASNA meeting. Of course, my backup plan is to read the graphic version in Gothic Classics, Vol 14, which I bought because of its terrific version of Northanger Abbey. Personally, I think the next adaptation of NA should just use this version as its storyboard.