Category Archives: Bookaholic

Harriet the Bookaholic: July 2015

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Over the last few weeks I have continued my obsession with Russian Literature and the history of the Romanov family. I still have a fat biography of Catherine the Great that I need to tackle, but after that I think I’ll have exhausted my current stash of books about Mother Russia. For a little while, at least. I also got a bit on a classic literature kick and had a serious jonesing for the legend/history of Pope Joan, a brilliant woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to the highest rank in the Catholic Church.

Non-Fiction / Personal Development

168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, by Laura Vanderkam (3 stars). I both really loved and appreciated and really rolled my eyes a lot at this book. Vanderkam has pages of fantastic suggestions for better time management, better prioritization, and better efficiency at work. She is less helpful (in my opinion) for improvement at home. It seems her solutions for work-related time issues are solid and thought out and take into account possible cramps like office style, manager style, and industry. However, he solutions for better efficiency at home seem to all skew toward “just outsource it.” If this book was confined only to work-related efficiency I would have given it 5 stars. If it was confined only to home-related efficiency I would have given it 1 star. So, there’s that.

Additional Recommended Reading: The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande; The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin; Strengths Finder, by Tom Rath.

The Legend of Pope Joan

Pope Joan, by Donna Woolfolk Cross (4 stars). There was so much of this book that I love, love, loved. The basic premise is that during the 9th century young Joan, who loved to study and learn, eventually landed herself in a Schola where she was taught Latin and relished in reason (vs the more conventional study of uber-Catholic texts). Eventually she disguised herself as a man named John, joined a monastery, made her way to Rome and eventually rose to the office of Pope within the Holy Roman Empire (Pope John VIII). I loved the mystery and the fragmented pieces of stories that make up this half-myth / half-history. I loved the details that the author filled in out about life and the status of women in the Dark Ages of Europe. Minus one big, fat star for the gratingly irritating “love story” that the author felt just must be included. Blergh. WHY MUST THERE ALWAYS BE A LOVE STORY WHEN A BRILLIANT WOMAN IS CONCERNED!!? CAN’T SHE JUST STAND ON HER OWN!? Ahem.

Pope Joan: A Historical Study (1886), by Emmanuel Rhoides, translated by Charles Hastings Collette (4 stars). This translation of Rhoides research from the 1800’s on the authenticity of Pope Joan/Pope John VIII was full of documentation both for and against the actuality of Joan having existed. Many historians and scholars in the Catholic hierarchy claim Joan was invented by the Protestants to discredit the Throne of St. Peter. Rhoides argues that there are enough independent accounts of her that have been uncontested by the Catholic church to prove that she existed. Now, the details surrounding her life, her papacy, and her death have all sorts of inconsistencies, but in my opinion, and in Rhoides’, she absolutely existed and was elected Pope. Fascinating little book.

The She-Pope: A quest for the truth behind the mystery of Pope Joan, by Peter Stanford (5 stars) Stanford takes a much more scholarly approach than the novel “Pope Joan” by Donna Woolfolk Cross, and I appreciate the more journalistic searching/interviewing than was present in Emmanuel Rhoides book. Stanford explores ancient libraries and talks to Catholic historians and priests in the Vatican. He searches for documents and stories and plays in German and French and Latin that mention a female Pope and compares the similarities and differences to the Pope Joan story. He makes an argument for Joan as a truth and also for her story as legend (created (or not?) by Protestant Reformers trying to discredit the Catholic Church). I loved his cross-referencing of historical documents from around Europe and I also loved that in his writing he also inserted some of his own personal search, as a Catholic journalist and religious writer his grappling with facts and myth and legend was interesting and did not take away from the story. Excellent read.

Additional Recommended Reading: Joan of Arc, by Mark Twain. (Not the same Joan; different Joan.)

Classic Literature

Daisy Miller, by Henry James (4 stars). My first Henry James and I love his writing style, voice, and descriptions. Miss Daisy is a feisty young girl vacationing with her family in Europe and completely indifferent to the customs and social mores that should surround a young woman her age and in her position. I like her independence and her character, I’m less enthused by the narrator, another American man who has fallen for Daisy but whom she emotionally tortures and  then ignores.

The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James (5 stars). Oh my goodness, this book is a new favorite!! James has nailed psychological profiling for characters in ways that I doubt anyone else of his time has been able to do successfully. The intrigue and sense of propriety that surrounds the decisions of his major and minor roles is wonderfully executed. I love the introspection he gives his characters after a major scene or interaction. I LOVE Isabel and identify with her so much. In many ways she reminds me of Jo March with a little bit of Amy mixed in. She is perfection. Read this! I know you’ll love it!

Additional Recommended Reading: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald; The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain; A Room With a View, by E. M. Forster; Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott.

To A God Unknown, by John Steinbeck (4 stars). One of his earliest novels, this story is populated by the mystic, mythic, larger-than-life characters and events. There are pagan beliefs and Catholic vs Protestant struggles and, overall, a deep emotional and physical tie to the land. Joseph Wayne moves to California to homestead and is joined by his brothers, a wife, and a child. Joseph’s ties to his property and the protection of his crops and animals is fierce and reflects a lot of Native American sensibilities (rocks and trees and rain as humanistic, with needs and desires and avenging actions). Steinbeck’s writing is not as sweeping as in East of Eden (an obvious expanded theme of To A God Unknown), but his weaving of biblical imagery and earth worshiping was just wonderful. Recommended.

Additional Recommended Reading: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck; East of Eden, by John Steinbeck.

Russian Literature & History

The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, by Robert K. Massie (4 stars). What happened to the Romanovs after they were shot, firing squad style, in 1918? The short story is that their bodies were covered in acid, burned, and tossed into an unmarked mass grave and left. In the 1970’s a small handful of individuals took it upon themselves to try and locate the final resting place of the last Tsar of Russia, and by piecing together tiny fragments of information over 50 years old, and spending a LOT of time in the forests around Ekaterinburg, they finally found 9 of the 11 Romanov skeletons. (Spoiler, several years after this book  was published the other 2 were located, which included the Tsarevich Alexie.) Massie details the murder, the cover up, the exhumation, and the ensuing political and legal battle(s) over what to do with the remains of the last Tsar of Russia and his family. 

Additional Recommended Reading: Nicholas and Alexandra, by Robert K. Massie; The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg, by Helen Rappaport; The Invisible History of the Human Race, by Christine Kenneally.

Chekhov’s Major Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov (4 stars). I have seen bits and pieces of The Seagull, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard, but this was the first time I read them all. Written during Imperial Russia’s decline there is a sense of a fading aristocracy learning to deal with reality (losing estates, running out of money), family decline, and the rise of modern society. I think Ivanov was my favorite of the five, certainly the most humorous.

The Duel, by Anton Chekhov (3 stars). The basic premise is that Ivan and his mistress are living together in sin and a busy-body is so offended by this fact that he challenges Ivan to a duel that no one else really wants to see happen and is foiled at the last minute by a priest crashing out of the bushes. A few good lines, but not super intriguing.

Lectures on Russian Literature, by Vladimir Nabokov (3 stars). Nabokov is one of my favorite writers, and I was so excited to follow up some serious reading of Russian literature with this collection of his lectures and writings about various authors and books. The gist is that Anna Karenina is Nabokov’s favorite and he spends more than half of this book discussing it’s plot, characters, and Tolstoy’s writing style and philosophical platform(s). I really wish I’d read this when A. K. was fresher in my mind. Nabokov hates Dostoyevsky and finds him hardly passable as an author (I personally disagree) and appreciates Chekhov. The other Russian writers (Gogol, Turgenev, Gorki) I am unfamiliar with, but I still loved reading Nabokov’s direct, academic, often sarcastic, and sometimes hilarious reviews of their writing.

Additional Recommended Reading: Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy; The Proposal, by Anton Chekhov; Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov; Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov.

Young Adult

Coraline, by Neil Gaiman (4 stars). Not sure why I never read this before (or saw the movie, I know, I live under a rock or something), but I loved the heroine and her thought processes, I loved the idea that being brave isn’t being unafraid, it is being scared to death and doing the right thing anyway. Such a wonderful book and message. Everyone read this! Recommended by Jactionary.

Additional Recommended Reading: Star Girl, by Jerry Spinelli; Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll; The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis.

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Harriet the Bookaholic: June 2015

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In the last few weeks I’ve become slightly obsessed with the Romanov family, the last reigning monarchs in Russia. This has dovetailed into my love for Russian literature and–strangely–has given me some additional insight into psychology and neurology. See, Rasputin, the self-proclaimed holy man who seemed to help the young, hemophiliac Alexey, heir to the Russian throne, used all sorts of mind tricks on the Tsar and his family to maintain his position. The Tsarista, Alexandra, also had an arsenal of neurological issues/weapons that she employed with her children, her husband, and the Russian people. Honestly, I was so fascinated by how these seemingly unrelated topics informed and explained each other in so many ways. Go Team Nerd!

Psych

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, by Jon Ronson (4 stars). I really enjoyed this book, it is a brief skip through the mental health industry touching on a number of different components but without exploring in depth anything in particular. As an newly minted armchair psychiatrist/psychopath spotter Ronson blunders through identifying and interviewing mental health professionals, Scientologists who believe psychiatry is a total sham, criminals and professors and verified psychopaths. Entertaining and a pretty quick read–surprising for such a heavy topic–this is a good lighthearted overview of some mental health issues and the societal conditions surrounding them.

Additional Recommended Reading: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey;  Brain on Fire, by Susannah Cahalan.

Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant, by Daniel Tammet (3 stars). While I appreciated and was fascinated by the book, I’m not sure if I would say I “loved” it. It can be jarring to read, but I also think that is part of what makes it so interesting, the writing is a slightly edited version of Tammet’s thinking with some tangents and explanations and facts that seem a little off, but truly help us understand how his mind works. And that, I think, is the point. Very interesting read.

Additional Recommended Reading: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon; Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer; The Tell-Tale Brain, by V. S. Ramachandran (but ONLY the first half of this one! The last half is crap.)

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks (3 stars). I’m spoiled by Atul Gawande’s medical writing. I appreciate the case studies from some early neuro-psychology diagnosis and treatments, but I wasn’t drawn in to Sacks’ writing like I am to Gawande’s. Or to House.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, by Sigmund Freud (2 stars). Meh. Freud has a large body of research and I know he’s the father of blah blah blah, but for me it was too narrow and too anecdotal. Is Freud’s research useless? No, I found his chapters on free word association quite fascinating. But, overall, I see it as a very small starting point to explaining the much larger and more layered sciences of psychology and neurology. I also reject the idea that anything we forget–names, dates, places, faces, ideas–is a product of repression. I don’t think that every slip of language or memory is somehow due to our souls/brains being corrupted and destroyed by sex or violence or shame. I think sometimes our brains prioritize the things they view as most important, and making a mistake like forgetting the name of that restaurant you had dinner at that one time in that one place does not necessarily mean you have some kind of unrequited latent sexual need for that person/thing that is only associated with that restaurant in the vaguest and loosest possible terms.

Additional Recommended Reading: A Whole New Mind, by Daniel H. Pink; Complications, by Atul Gawande; Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, by David Eagleman; Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman.

Romanov Family

Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty, by Robert K. Massie (4 stars). I knew very little about the Romanov dynasty (or the reign of the Russian Tsars in general) before picking this book up, you know, except for that Anastasia movie with Meg Ryan’s voice (full of inaccuracies, btw! There’s a surprise!). Massie gives a detailed and thorough history of the Romanov family, which ended with Nicholas II, last Tsar of Russia, his wife, the German princess Alexandra, and their children. Additionally, he details the horror and tragedy of young Tsarevich Alexie’s hemophilia and the toll it took on their family, the disease was kept completely secret from the Russian people and the vast majority of the people at the Tsar’s inner court. Having a feeble heir to the Russian empire was seen as weak, and heaven forbid a Romanov be seen as weak (or, you know, that one of the four healthy daughters be named as heir to the throne. Ahem.). As Russia entered World War I–fascinating, by the way, how that all came about–Nicholas and Alexandra become more and more enamored with Rasputin, the peasant mystic who seemed to be able to bring healing and relief to her sickly son. These two things, Alexie’s hemophilia and Rasputin’s mystical healing powers, are ultimately, Massie argues, what brought down the Russian empire. (I think a healthy chunk of the problem was going into the 20th century the Russian empire had a complete lack of any democracy for millions and millions of starving, freezing peasants while the ruling minority grew wealthier and wealthier, but whatever.) Nicholas was busy on the war front and Alexandra was overseeing things at the capitol, St. Petersburg, despite zero real training in running a government, let alone managing a vast empire at war. Both were absolutely out of touch with the urban civilians and peasant poor and their need for more autonomy in their governments and ruling bodies and some basic human rights and guarantees. Nicholas was easily swayed by Alexandra’s opinion in politics and who was hired and fired in positions of power, and Alexandra was completely devoted to and controlled by Rasputin because he brought relief to the young Alexie. (Alexandra’s recommendations for government positions seemed to rest solely on whether or not that person believed in Rasputin.) And Rasputin was dead set on controlling the country’s affairs. So: Hemophiliac Heir + Rasputin + Civilian Unrest/War = Fall of the House of Romanov = Rise of Bolsheviks/Lenin –> Stalin/Communism = Cold War. Fascinating stuff (although, perhaps a bit incomplete in the details).

The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg, by Helen Rappaport (3 stars).  Rappaport focuses her book on the 3 months the Romanov family spent under house arrest in Ekaterinburg and the details of their execution and burial. While she does explain some of the larger political movements and background of the major players, she mostly concentrates on the personal lives of the Romanov’s, their few remaining servants, and the guards and soldiers who surrounded them. Unlike author Massie (see review above), she has a wider view of the fall of the House of Romanov which includes centuries of brutal autocratic rule, a weak Tsar Nicholas II, starving masses, and Russia’s disastrous entrance into World War I followed by a simultaneous civil war between Bolsheviks and monarchists.

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia, by Candace Fleming (3 stars). This is written for a young adult / middle-grade audience, in my (non-expert) opinion, which I didn’t realize when I picked it up. Overall, I think it was a pretty decent coverage of the events leading to the fall of Imperial Russia and the murder of the Romanov family. However, there was a lot of the more horrific details, rumors, and deception that was left out completely, most likely due to the younger target audience. Which is fine, I suppose, but when you are talking about a 300-year dynasty crumbling, an empire in ruin, and a royal family being murdered…there’s a lot of gruesome and kind of essential details for it to truly make sense.

Russian Literature

The Proposal, by Anton Chekhov (5 stars). This is a short story / one-act play and is absolutely hilarious: a hypochondriac suitor, his flustered future father-in-law, and the woman to whom he is trying to propose marriage. Go on, go read it. It may take you 15 minutes. I’ll wait. [This is you following my directions in exactness…] [15 minutes later] See? SO GOOD! You’re welcome.

Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (4 stars). Ah, Raskolnikov, why you gotta be like that? (Calculating murderer, thief, liar, benefactor to widows, students, and children.) While Raskolnikov’s reasons for ax-murdering two women are pretty twisted (he sees himself as one of The Greats, like Napoleon, and therefore his actions will bring about a better social good and will not be punishable), his mental state afterward shows some pretty interesting behaviors and I’d love a more educated analysis and diagnosis. Excellent read, beautiful language, lots of moral meat and philosophical contemplation. Recommended.

Additional recommended reading: Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy; Doubt, by John Patrick Shanley (this play was also made into a brilliant movie starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep).

Travel

Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers, by Nancy Pearl (4 stars). This isn’t so much a novel or narrative as it is a reference book to flip through again and again. Nancy Pearl (librarian extraordinaire) has made a book of book recommendations based on your travel plans, or your hopeful travel plans, or your armchair travel plans. She covers dozens of countries, cities, or regions and includes history, non-fiction, and fiction books that discuss that place. The only real problem, of course, is that while published in 2010 this already is missing so many great location-centric books! I wrote a bunch of my own recs in the margins and went through the index circling books to add to my To Read mountain. I do wish that there had been a bit more about the books than just a title and (sometimes) author, two sentences would have been really helpful on all books, not just a select few from any given geographic area.

Additional Recommended Reading: The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner.

 

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Harriet the Bookaholic: May 2015

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Book reviews from May: reading genres I’m currently obsessing about are the Iranian Revolution (1979) and it’s aftermath, and Russian literature. (Are those technically both a genre? Maybe not. But listing “Russian literature” as a topic seemed…weird. Iran is a topic and Russian lit is a genre?! I DON’T KNOW SO STOP TELLING ME HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE!)

Iranian Revolution

Iran Awakening, by Shirin Ebadi (4 stars). Shirin Ebadi became the first woman judge in Iran in the late 1970’s, before the shah was deposed; after the Revolution and the militant Islamic state had control of the government and society she was demoted to a secretarial position. In the 1990’s she returned to the legal system as an attorney defending human rights cases against the government. In 2003 she won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in Iran. I loved this book, I feel like I got a great briefing of the history of Iran in the last 40 years and how the major players and political movements influenced that history; I also got to learn more about a truly fascinating fighter who spent her life dedicated to the people of her country. Fascinating read.

The Saffron Kitchen, by Yasmin Crowther (4 stars). Maryam left Iran after being disowned by her super conservative father right after the Iranian Revolution. Her story of growing up in the realm of the Shah and the home of a military tyrant (her Pops) is heartbreaking and horrible. She marries in England and raises a daughter to be independent and successful, but Maryam never truly leaves Iran and when a young nephew comes to stay, bringing all sorts of memories to the surface, Maryam returns to the village where she was born and now the family drama spans two continents and two cultures. I really wanted to give this 5 stars, there are gorgeous descriptions and vignettes, but the ending fell a little flat and cliche for me.

Children of the Jacaranda Tree, by Sahar Delijani (3 stars). There is some absolutely beautiful, poetic language in this book about the Iranian Cultural Revolution in the 1980’s and the 2010 uprising and election. The story follows several families, some of whom are related/cousins and others who are only tangentially acquainted; Delijani describes the parents/grand-parents experiences in 1983, many of whom served time or were executed in Evin Prison. She also details the lives of many of their children, some of whom have grown up outside of Iran (California, Italy, Germany), and others who are still living in Tehran and still rebelling against an oppressive militant-Islamic state. Sometimes it was hard for me to keep track of all the characters and the timeline, I wished I’d known more about the chronology of events of the Iranian Revolution prior to reading this book, it explains details and stories, but doesn’t have a cohesive backbone of events to help link them together. (I read Iran Awakening after Jacaranda Tree and I wish I had read it first.)

Additional Recommended Reading: Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi; Lipstick Jihad, by Azadeh Moaveni.

Russian Literature

Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov (5 stars). I loved this book! I had no idea what it was going in and loved the fantastical and contemporary pieces that were woven together in this brilliant overlapping story. Master and Margarita was written in the 1930’s about Stalin’s rise to power in Russia in the same way The Wizard of Oz was written about the Silver vs Gold Standard battles in the United States during the 1890’s; however, unlike Oz, Bulgakov was unable to publish his book for fear of being killed (or worse) by Stalin’s regime and it was not published until 1967. Both are thinly veiled “fairy tales” with enormous political undertones, Bulgakov’s masterpiece is a fantastic satire on the worst parts of Soviet Russia and borrows liberally from Faustian plot and character mechanics. (Pretentiousness alert! I’ve never read Faust!) Master and Margarita stars Woland as the Devil/brilliant magician/Stalin, with a band of devilish misfits and witches—including a giant talking cat–who cause chaos and mischief throughout Moscow. Additionally, there is a second plot focused on an “alternative ending” type story about the crucifixion of Jesus, Pontius Pilate’s role in the whole thing, and the fate of Christianity. Yes, all those things in one book. With a number of trips to an insane asylum, any asylum will do. I will be thinking about this book for a long time! I had no idea Russian literature could be anything like this (because I have only ever really had The Classics recommended to me for reading, see below). A million thanks to julochka for sending this book rec my way!

The Sebastopol Sketches, by Leo Tolstoy (4 stars). This is one of Tolstoy’s first published works and he has cast himself as a war correspondent during the war with the French in the Crimea (1854-1855) and the siege of Sebastopol, a small city on the Black Sea. As a young man Tolstoy was ansty to fight in this “glorious war” and joined the army as an officer. His time in Sebastopol quickly taught him the horrors of battle and the deplorable conditions of the Russian infantry, which was a surprise for this aristocratic 22-year old from Moscow. Sebatsopol Sketches is comprised of three short stories taking place several months apart and following the lives and gruesome deaths and suffering of a handful of soldiers and officers. Eventually, Tolstoy would expand on these ideas of war and glory and bravery in the giant War and Peace, but the seeds of a brilliant writer are here in a much easier to digest volume.

War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy (3 stars). Six weeks of audiobook is a long time for an audiobook, but at 63 hours I knew I wouldn’t be able to get through this any quicker. Going in to “War and Peace” I knew very little about it’s plot or characters, I had heard repeatedly that it is one of the most important pieces of literature and that everything of any relevance to humans is within it’s pages. That all being said, any well-written book at 1,000+ pages will probably fit those two stipulations. What I did not realize is that Tolstoy spent years researching Napoleon’s 1812 campaign and invasion of Russia to write this book, he was frustrated in the way historians had handled the story and went back to primary documents including letters and correspondence between Russian and French generals. He recreated some of the largest battles and some of the smallest interactions between Russian nobility, peasants, and French soldiers. And wow, is he thorough. I got a little bogged down here and there with so much information, propaganda, chapters and chapters on a single day of battles, and so many characters. I probably won’t ever read this again, but I am glad I made it through and can check this behemoth classic off my list.

A Hero Of Our Time, by Mikhail Lermontov (3 stars). I believe I read this on recommendation of The Shelf: Adventures in Extreme Reading and while I liked it well enough I don’t really consider it a must read. This story follows a Russian playboy-soldier-cad Pechorin in his adventures, as told from various points of view. Pechorin is often referred to (either by himself or by narrators) as “Byronic”, as in, “like Lord Byron” and I had to go look up what that meant. Basically, Pechorin is a flawed “hero” who isn’t actually heroic, but is kind of famous and handsome and uses his money, situation, and love interests to his temporary advantage. I think for it’s time this was a groundbreaking novel (published in the early 1800’s), but so many characters now are these kind of terrible humans who do terrible things to the people in their lives, yet are celebrated anyway.

Hmmm…maybe I don’t need to read any more 19th century Russian war novels…

Additional recommended reading: Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. I should also probably list The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, but it was such a slog for me to finish up that I can’t in good faith tell anyone else to read it.

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Harriet the Bookaholic: April 2015

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Another month, another pile of book reviews. In addition to two books on the rulers of (and from) the Hapsburg Empire in 18th century Europe, I devoured a pile of first-person narratives on slavery in the American South and another pile of accounts of defectors from North Korea. At first glance these two topics may seem fairly separate, however the more I read accounts both of life as an American slave on the plantations of the South and human existence within North Korea’s regime–and the struggles to adjust to life outside those institutions, the more they seemed aligned in their horrors and evils as well as the difficulties to assimilate to a more democratic and free-thinking society. More to come on that, I feel. I’m still ruminating on it. (Yes, I ruminate. Like a cow. What of it?)

Also, a note: I have tried to cut this post down to, you know, something less than 3,000 words. But it just isn’t happening. That being said, each book is linked to my review on Goodreads, most of which are longer and more expansive and possibly a little rantier; you know, if you’re in to that sort of thing.

Maria Theresa & The Hapsburg Empire

Maria Theresa, by Edward Crankshaw (4 stars). Maria Theresa was one of the last rulers of Austria’s ancient House of Hapsburg and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, and her territory covered vast tracts of Eastern and Central Europe including Austria, Hungary, Germany, Czech Republic (then Bohemia), and a number of other smaller provinces and districts and states. She was crowned Queen and Empress (and a bunch of other titles) in 1740 at age 23 after the death of her father, and reigned for 40 years, a contemporary with King George II, Catherine the Great, and Louis XV. She led several wars, and had massive reforms enacted throughout the continent including small pox vaccines/inoculations, increased civil rights, primary education for peasants, and religious reforms. Maria Theresa had a gift for selecting men who knew more than she did on any given subject and then trusting them to help her make decisions. She brought stability to her empire in a time when most of Europe was rocked with revolution and civil war. She also gave birth to 16 children, the youngest, Maria Antonia, would become Marie Antoinette in an ill-fated marriage trying to create an alliance between France and the Austro-Hungarian empire. Crankshaw’s biography can be a little dry and textbooky, but I specifically wanted to know more about Maria Theresa and there aren’t many books about her. Crankshaw includes a lot of info about the rest of Europe, including the wars and leaders of France, England, Russia, and Prussia, and entire chapters devoted to culture, architecture, and music of Bavaria, Vienna, and Prague and the masters who came from that era (Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, etc), and I appreciated being able to place some of these more familiar-to-me characters into a broader historical arena.

In Destiny’s Hands: Five Tragic Rulers, Children of Maria Theresa, by Justin C. Vovk (3 stars). Of Maria Theresa’s 14 surviving children five became rulers in their own right across Europe. This book follows their stories, their children, the history and political landscape of a revolutionary Europe including the French Revolution and Napoleon’s campaigns. I loved learning more about Joseph II, Maria Theresa’s successor and Holy Roman Emperor; Leopold II, Duke of Tuscany and Holy Roman Emperor after Joseph’s death; Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma in Italy, Maria Carolina/Charlotte, Queen of Naples; and Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. I was astounded at how the children and grandchildren of Maria Theresa and their political alliances and strategic marriages eventually covered over a third of Europe. The history was fascinating and new-ish to me, I loved learning more about the different kingdom/queendoms and how they played nicely (or not) with each other. All this being said, this author needs an editor with a BIG red pen; minus two stars for lack of proper editing. Vovk always calls these five rulers “Maria Theresa’s five special children” and after the second mention of “special” in the intro I started scribbling out that particular word, it just grates on my nerves. Special? Really? Is that the best you can do? They are not a supermarket bargain!

Additional Recommended Reading: Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, by Sena Jeter Naslund.

World War II

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, by Denise Kiernan (4 stars). After multiple recommendations I finally picked this up for a church book club discussion; Girls of Atomic City follows the story of a half-dozen women working in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a secret city built to enrich uranium for the atomic bomb. At one time 72,000 people were living in this government compound with no idea what they were doing, no real idea the materials they were working with, and unable to discuss their work with anyone else, family and friends included. I wanted more information about the women themselves, their stories–although Kiernan conducted dozens of interviews with them, and to be fair, they were not allowed to keep diaries or journals at the time. I wanted more information about the African-American experience, families not being allowed to live together, blacks were banned from schools and dances and swimming pools, segregation all over the place with African-American’s having substantially sub-par facilities in every possible respect. There is a lot about the science and technology that went in to discovering how to produce enriched uranium and then use it to fuel the atomic bomb, and that was interesting. I also felt very little was spent on the thoughts and emotions of the characters after the bomb was dropped, which is when they finally figured out what, exactly, they had been working on creating. At most there is 2 or 3 sentences from a couple of individuals. All in all, however, I really appreciated and enjoyed this book.

Additional Recommended Reading:Bomb: The Race to Build–and Steal–The World’s Most Dangerous Weapon, by Steve Sheinkin.

North Korea

Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, by Blaine Harden (4 stars). The North Korean gulag are prison work camps with unimaginable conditions. North Koreans can be sentenced to years of imprisonment for stealing a bit of rice, or for making a comment in passing that one of the Dear Leader trio is perhaps not 100% divine, or any other minor offense. The conditions inside the camps, and the mortality rate of prisoners, are as bad as the worst concentrations camps during WWII. But, consider this: Auschwitz existed for three years; the North Korean prison camps have been in operation for over 50 years. Shin was born in Camp 14, his parents had been sentenced to life in the gulag after his father’s brother defected to South Korea. Shin was bred to inform on his family and his fellow prisoners, public executions were commonplace, and starvation and physical torture were a way of life. Unlike citizens outside the prison camps, Shin did not receive the indoctrination and brain washing about the Kim family; he knew nothing about the outside world (not even basic things like that the world is round). At the time of it’s publishing (2012) Shin is one of only three people to escape from a prison camp and make their way to South Korea or the West and tell their stories. Three. In 50 years. Shin is the only one who did not have previous experience outside of the camp to help him escape and survive; he was born inside it’s electric fence. His escape is remarkable, he managed to find his way to China and then to South Korea without wealthy backers, without a guide and against all possible odds. He had an incredible amount of luck on his side, which only makes me wonder how many other people with just a little less circumstantial luck have failed their attempts to escape, only to be returned to the gulag for torture and execution.

Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, by Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot (3 stars). One of the earliest memoirs of life inside North Korea, I think. Kang and his family are sentenced to the gulag/prison camp when he is 10 and remain there a decade. Kang grows up starving and malnourished, he learns to swallow salamanders and catch rats, he forms a strange type of friendship with fellow detainees, carefully trying to sort friends from informers, and his stories about the violence, deprivation, executions and lack of humanity in the camp is gut wrenching. The writing is a little choppy with some strange circular wanderings in story and chronology, so minus a star for that. Escape from Camp 14 is definitely a better book, although Kang’s experience in the gulag is perhaps a little more typical of most Koreans who were sent there for re-education/reform.

Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad, by Melanie Kirkpatrick (2 stars). Don’t even bother. I have a lengthier, rantier review on Goodreads, but the gist is this.  Kirkpatrick only highlights those who help North Koreans escape, not the refugees themselves or their stories. She has serious views about Christianity being the only way to help refugees, she calls children of kidnapped North Korean brides sold to Chinese men “half-and-half” (they aren’t dairy products!), and she has no qualms supporting the idea that there needs to be some kind of moral qualification before an escapee deserves help and assistance. For example, the Christians she discusses refuse to help those “with blood on their hands.” Even if, say, a prisoner is “promoted” to guard–receiving MUCH NEEDED extra food or clothing–and then follows orders that result in beatings or even execution of fellow prisoners. It’s not like the guy had any choice, and it’s not like the DPRK has EVER made a habit of teaching basic morality or decision making skills to their citizens. You follow The Party and The Kim, and everything else can send you to the gulag with no trial and no warning, for an undetermined amount of time. Ugh. I was so bugged by this. Skip this book.

Additional Recommended Reading: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick; Without You, There Is No Us, by Suki Kim; The Orphan Master’s Son, by Adam Johnson

Charles Darwin

Darwin’s Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore (4 stars). Did you know that Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the exact same day? Authors Desmond and Moore incorporate a ridiculous amount of research in this book pulling from political and historical documents, vast correspondence between anti-slavery and pro-slavery advocates on both sides of the Atlantic, and hundreds of newspaper articles, journal essays, research publications, and books of natural scientists around the world. They explain in detail the history of the Darwin family’s fight against slavery both in the British Empire and the America’s, they carefully lay out the political and social landscape on both sides of the Atlantic in regards to buying and selling human beings. And to exhaustive detail they point out how during the mid-19th century scientists, scholars, and theologians were debating against each other on the truth behind race, creation, humanity, and our origins. SO. FASCINATING! I also realize that at nearly 500 pages it is not for the feint of heart or the casual reader. But I absolutely loved it. A book about Darwin AND abolition?! Sign me up. And if you could manage to add a few chapters about North Korea or volcanoes that’d be perfection, thanks.

Additional Recommended Reading: Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life, by Adam Gopnik; Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, by Eric Metaxas; The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution & Future of the Human Animal, by Jared Diamond.

American Slavery

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs (5 stars) Read this book. Read it right now. There are very few first-person narratives from women who endured the tortures of slavery in the American South, Harriet Jacobs’ memoir tells the story unique to women, especially mothers, and their particular difficulty in escaping slavery and leaving their children. The plights of young women with regard to leering masters, jealous wives, and bearing half-white children who then “follow the mother” and become slaves on their white father’s plantation, sold as cattle at his whim. Harriet’s story of escape is heartbreaking, and in many ways mirrors that of Anne Frank and her family. Harriet is hidden for 7 years in a tiny garret of her grandmother’s house. She cannot stand up, she has no fresh air, no sunshine, and she does not come out. She lives above her family and children listening to them as they grow, listening to her master speculate on her whereabouts, watch her children and brother be thrown into jail for months in hopes of her returning to slavery…and she remains silent until there is a safe time for her to escape…again, SEVEN YEARS after she was in hiding. After Harriet is reunited with her children and her brother in the northern states she encounters a different type of racism, she is still viewed as less than white people and must navigate those issues, all the while worried that her master will come and drag her and her family back to the South. Seriously, read this book. Now.

Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup (5 stars). I had so many feels while reading this book! Published in 1853 the language can be a little cumbersome, but after a few pages I fell right into the rhythm and descriptions. This first-person account covers Northup’s life as both as a free black man in New York, and life as a slave in Louisiana. He was kidnapped and sold into slavery, beaten savagely anytime he protested that he was, in fact, a free man of the North. Northup’s sparse style lets the reader come to their own conclusions and feelings on the subject of slavery, and I appreciate that this was a very fact-driven narrative instead of an emotional treatise. I think the only way it could have been accepted in the literary world of it’s time would have been as it was, any additional elaboration would have been viewed as adding to the truth. This is a time when the vast majority of whites didn’t think Africans and African-Americans had feelings, intellect, or emotions; that they were, in fact, no more human than cattle or pigs. I kept thinking how many people today are kidnapped or tricked into some kind of slavery, whether indentured servant, sexual worker, or otherwise. Many of those first-person stories are written in a heartbreakingly sparse style, giving fact after fact with little elaboration on how that made the victim feel. Read this book, please. So very, very moving.

The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. Du Bois (4 stars). This is a collection of long-ish essays Du Bois wrote about various aspects of life for the newly emancipated slaves in the South. Their difficulties in gaining any kind of economic freedom, their utter lack of civil rights and due process, and the laws and culture in both North and South that continued to set them as less-than. This is not something to sit down and read through, but read an essay and think about it, about the education opportunities and how that affected the former slaves who were not allowed to be literate, and the newly free young people who desperately wanted to learn but had very few opportunities due to such low economic circumstances in their families lives. This was so heartbreaking, and I saw the seeds and beginnings of so many of the issues we still grapple with today.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass (4 stars). This is a very quick read/listen, but absolutely worth it. In the same vein as Uncle Tom’s Cabin (which I loved) this was one of the earliest books that gave the majority of free, white citizens some kind of idea that slaves may actually have their own feelings, emotions, and personalities. That they may love their children or their husbands and wives, that they may actually *want* to be free to govern their own lives and decisions. It is baffling to think that once upon a time these very basic ideas of humanity were completely absent. And, as I look at the news/media, sometimes it seems like we may not have come as far as a whole population as we like to believe.

Additional recommended reading: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe; Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, by Eric Metaxas; Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela.

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Harriet the Bookaholic: March 2015

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I really love these monthly book posts, I love keeping tabs on my own reading habits and writing a little paragraph about each book I finish. I have really enjoyed coming up with recommendations of similar or complimentary books for each of these titles/subjects and combing through past literary experiences. I am also the type of person who loved getting stickers on her chart and checking off all the boxes in a to-do list. Shocker, I know.

Classics

I feel it important to mention here that in March I took myself on two road trips, one about 1500 miles round trip, the other about 700 miles, and during those drives I listened to audio books, specifically, to Anna Karenina and Moby-Dick, both hundreds and hundreds of pages on their own (and hours and hours of listening), but with over 40 hours of drive time, it was totally manageable to get through both those behemoth classics as well as a half-dozen other books.

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (5 stars). What a tremendous story! I knew the basic plot of this sweeping novel, but I had no idea how expansive and involved the characters are, their relationships, their duties, their sense (or lack of) moral judgements and behavior. I love how Tolstoy uses various points of view to tell the story–one of my favorites was a brief chapter told from the perspective of Konstantin Levin’s hunting dog–and I love how full these characters are painted. While Anna, her husband Karenin, and Count Vronsky all fell fairly flat for me, uninteresting, and perhaps a little more one-dimensional as they were three cast as “villains” or “un-Christian”, I really loved the relationship between Konstantin Levin and Kitty; I love Konstantin the most, I think, as Tolstoy intended. I realize that as Tolstoy’s hero Kostya receives more positive attributes overall and a more sympathetic story arc, but I still loved him, even in his stumbles and faults as he makes his way as an agricultural baron, husband, and father. I know many people stumble with all the Russian names, but I really loved them and how specific people refer to others by specific nicknames or not, depending on their relationships. This reminded me of some the the great, sweeping epic pieces of literature with dozens of characters and stories and side-stories and rambling plots that overlay each other again and again.

Additional Recommended Reading: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez; East of Eden, by John Steinbeck; Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra; Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell.

Moby-Dick; or the Whale, by Herman Melville (5 stars). I went into this book with very little expectation, and I absolutely loved it. I loved Ishmael, I loved his perspective and voice and I love how Melville gave him these hilarious sarcastic moments. I actually laughed out loud on several occasions. Yes, this is a book about a whale, not necessarily about catching said whale, or even chasing said whale, although there are parts of that, for sure. But really, this is a giant, 700-page manifesto on a white spermaceti whale, and other whales, and other giant fishes, and the history and biology of all of those. I loved it. Spoiler: if you’re looking for a 700-page chase you will be disappointed. Moby-Dick himself doesn’t really show up for Captain Ahab until chapter 132 of 135. So, change your expectations on that, if necessary. Honestly, this had as much natural science in it as some of the Darwin books I’ve read; it was fascinating to me, but if it’s not your cup of tea, you know, be advised. My favorite quote (which has nothing to do with whales or whaling or sailors or ships or the sea, but still hit me in the gut): “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.”

Additional Recommended Reading: The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway; Ahab’s Wife, or The Star Gazer, by Sena Jeter Naslund;
Charles Darwin: Voyaging, by E. Janet Browne

20th Century China

Fun fact: I minored in Mandarin Chinese at University and while I don’t speak it well I can still read it with some level of proficiency…not like literary critiques or political treatises, but simple stuff. I have taken a number of college-level Chinese history and literature classes, but I kind of forgot how much I loved this topic until I selected The Good Earth on a whim for book club. And then, per usual, I had to read a million more books on 20th century China.

Harriet Reads 20th Century China_feistyharriet_March 2015

The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck (4 stars). I have so many thoughts about this book, and so many reactions and notes written in the margins. Firstly, it both angered and baffled me the attitudes and behaviors of the characters towards the women in their lives. Women are slaves, prostitutes, concubines, and bearers of children, but not equals in any way shape or form. And all the problems that come with this premise are in almost every page of this book. I realize that Wang Lung is a product of his own environment, culture, and attitudes of his country, but it still pissed me off at almost every turn. Wang Lung’s views of his own place in society are nearly completely based on what others think of him, and his opinions on his wife, concubine, and the child sex slave are all completely based on what others will think of these respective women. O-lan, the dear, loyal O-lan, works herself to the bone for her husband and their land and family, and Wang Lung is disgusted by her because she isn’t pretty and her feet are large, and this disgust continues and grows throughout his life, and it just…not okay. Other than the feminist rage, this is a sweeping epic of a family trying to adjust to the tricky cycle of poverty turning to wealth and prosperity, and the changes in the family that comes from not needing to work the land for your bread, and needing to keep up appearances. The rise and eventual implied fall of the House of Wang is so similar to that of the family who owned this land prior to Wang Lung, and we can only assume that this family will suffer a similar fate. This is a beautiful book, but it also made me very angry, but I loved it…I have so many thoughts and feelings!

Sons, by Pearl S. Buck (4 stars). The second of The House of Earth trilogy, I liked this book more than its Pulitzer-winning predecessor. Where “The Good Earth” follows the farmer Wang Lung as he acquires more and more land and becomes a wealthy man, “Sons” follows the story of his three sons, Wang the Landlord/the eldest, Wang the Merchant/the second son, and–my favorite–Wang the Tiger, a soldier who aspires to become a war lord over the lands of the north. These three Wang’s have children of their own and struggles and triumphs and must deal with their father’s estate and the changing times as agrarian China slowly becomes a staging ground for the Maoist revolution, the way of life of the Wang family must change with this new, rising China.

A House Divided, by Pearl S. Buck (3 stars). The third and final book in The House of Earth series, this one was my least favorite. It follows the life of Wang Yuan, son of Wang the Tiger, son of Wang Lung the farmer. Yuan trains to be a soldier for his warlord father, and then to be a revolutionary soldier at a school in the South (Nanjing, I think?), but he really just wants to be a farmer, despite never having hoed a row in his life. Farming is completely unacceptable to his father, so Yuan runs away and spends some time in what I think is Hong Kong becoming a modern Chinese man (i.e. one in western dress who goes dancing with loads of good looking, fashionable friends). During one of the many revolutions in China Yuan gets tossed in prison, is bailed out by his family, and is sent to America to escape further imprisonment.  (It’s kind of hard to tell what exactly is going on in a larger framework because Buck doesn’t name any cities, or years, or really any identifying information, which in many ways makes this series kind of timeless, but also makes it hard to figure out which rebellion the characters are fighting for/against, and how that plays out in the larger realm of Chinese history and ultimately what it means for the Wang family.) Yuan spends some time studying agriculture in the United States (Boston, I think) and makes friends with some white people (Irish Catholics, perhaps, due to the accent and red hair) and becomes much more patriotic about China than he ever was living there, moves back to China and tries to figure out what he will do with the rest of his life, i.e. find a girl to marry. I dunno…I just didn’t love this final book. Yuan seems to be both soldier and farmer, but also neither of those things. He has these very strange ideas about women and dating that are this bastardized version of East vs West/old vs new that is SUPER irritating, such as: “We’ve never been alone together, have hardly spoken, and certainly have never expressed any feelings, but I know I want to marry her because I love her and young people should be able to choose our wives instead of have our parents choose….but WHY DIDN’T SHE CHOOSE ME! THAT’S NOT OKAY! SHE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT ANYONE WANTS HER AND WHY DOES SHE WANT TO BE A DOCTOR AND NOT A MOTHER! HAS SHE NO RESPECT?! SHE SHOULD FEEL SO LUCKY THAT SOMEONE AS GREAT AS ME DEIGNS TO WANT HER AT ALL!”…so you know, I have some issues with his thought processes. Anyway, this seemed to drag on and on and on and I just…I was glad when it was over.

Red Azalea, by Anchee Min (4 stars). While I read this in one sitting, I wouldn’t say this is an easy read. Anchee Min was raised in Maoist China during the Cultural Revolution, was forced to denounce her teachers, became a leader in the the Red Guard (the Chinese equivalent of the Hitler Youth), and spent years working essentially as a soldier-slave on a farm, and was selected to join the film industry to work on a project for Madame Mao. Many reviews complain about choppy language and lack of introspection, and yes, both of those things exist in this book. However, you’ve got to remember that Min’s schooling was not in literature and composition and prose, or even poetry and opera. She recited by rote the teachings and writings of Mao and for 10 years the ONLY music allowed in China was 9 operas of Madame Mao which reeked of propaganda. The choppy sentences and simple language enhance the story, they are proof of the “success” of Mao’s re-education of the intellectual class to turn them to farmers and factory workers and janitors. While Min works 16 hours a day at a farm collective (which does not grow enough crops to sustain itself and has deplorable conditions) she craves human connection, emotion, something other than communist propaganda. When Min and Yan, a fellow soldier-slave, become friends and eventually lovers I wanted to cry and cheer that Min finally had some kind of human connection, that she finally could experience some kind of emotion outside of violence, control, and political propaganda which claims all emotions are unnecessary and capitalistic, and therefore punishable. I really appreciated this book, it moved me and helped me understand a lot more about Maoist China and how this man single-handedly destroyed so much of the culture and collective memory of his country.

Bound Feet and Western Dress, by Pang-Mei Natasha Chang (3 stars). I love the idea behind this autobiographical/memoir which mostly focuses on Yu-i, a woman born in China at the beginning of the 20th century who grows up and comes of age as her country moves away from its more traditional ways such as foot binding, arranged marriages, socially accepted concubines, filial responsibilities, and an abhorrent preference for sons. Yu-i’s story is told by her 20-something great-niece, Pang-Mei, who was born in Connecticut and is trying to understand her American and Chinese heritage. I loved the story; I loved Yu-i and watching her transform from a subservient woman to a strong independent one who tackled the responsibilities of her life with both Western sensibility and Eastern responsibilities. She truly was an incredible driving force of change and hope for so many Chinese women. That being said, minus one star because I didn’t love the writing (this is a first novel) and I didn’t love Pang-Mei’s additions of her life throughout the book, I felt they were detracting. In creating a dual-perspective story Pang-Mei and/or her editor/publisher did not figure out a way to help the reader determine which woman was being discussed at any given time.

Pearl of China, by Anchee Min (3 stars). I really wanted to love this book, a biographical novel of Pearl S. Buck. However, while the author is clearly passionate about Buck and her writings, her treatment of the Chinese in her writings and her lifelong dedication to good works for the Chinese…this book just doesn’t seem to do her justice. As historical fiction it is probably fine, but as a sort-of biography one of a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner she falls very short. Most of the story is focused on Willow, the narrator and childhood friend of Pearl. And while I appreciate a story about Buck told from a Chinese point of view, I feel like so much was missed and so much more was blatantly made up to make a good story. If this had simply been a story of Willow, a young peasant girl coming of age during the Boxer Rebellion and living through Mao’s terrible reign, I would have given this 4 stars. But I feel like I have to deduct a star for taking a life as prominent and famous as Pearl S. Buck and playing with chronology, characters, and history by turning her experience into fiction. (For example, an entire section of the book focuses on a hardly documented (in real life) love affair between Buck and Hsu Chih-mo, a famous Chinese poet and the husband of Chang Yu-i; yes, that Yu-i who is the star of Bound Feet and Western Dress (see review, above). However in Yu-i’s story Pearl S. Buck is not mentioned whatsoever…so….it just seemed a little more of a stretch than necessary and in digging around online for a minute I couldn’t find much that corroborated this affair. I have since ordered a proper biography and Pearl S. Buck’s autobiography, hopefully I’ll have a better response from those.

Additional Recommended Reading: Empress Orchid and The Last Empress, by Anchee Min; The Rape of Nanking, by Iris Chang; Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie; Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan; 

Women in History

Heroines of History, by John S. Jenkins (3 stars). I liked this, I liked listening to stories of these women, some of whom I knew very little about. This book gives a few chapters about the following powerful women: Cleopatra, cunning and beautiful queen of the Nile who succeeded in bedding not one, but TWO Caesars of Rome; Isabella I of Castile who maintained her place as a co-ruler of Spain and eventually funded Columbus; Joan of Arc, soldier-maid who united France; Maria Theresa, Queen Regent and final monarch of the House of Habsburg, sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, and several other kingdoms, and Holy Roman Empress, she was also the mother of Marie Antoinette (and fourteen other children!!) and a powerful and important ruler in Europe for 40 years. Maria Theresa was by far my favorite of this series and I’ve added 2 more books about her to my stacks; Josephine Bonaparte, wife of Napoleon I and empress of France; Elizabeth I, Queen of England and patron of the Elizabethan era of literature and art, as well as a lot of bloody religious battles with Scotland, Spain, France, Ireland, and Russia; Mary, Queen of Scots who reigned for only a few years in Scotland before she was thrown into prison by her bitter rival, Elizabeth I, where she remained for almost 20 years until her execution; Catherine the Great of Russia, a ruthless ruler who killed those in the way of her rise to power, expanded the Russian empire to great loss of life, lived extravagantly while her people starved..yet her reign was considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire (and it probably was, for the nobles); Marie Antoinette, the lavish young queen of France who met her ultimate demise at the guillotine, and Madame Roland, heroine of the French Revolution who was killed during the Reign of Terror.

The Story of Joan of Arc, by Andrew Lang (2 stars). This was a quick read and a good overview of Joan of Arc, however after reading Mark Twain’s lengthy and detailed account of her, this one fell pretty flat for me. It is a quick read, and gives some good biographical background of Joan, but there is hardly any spark or personality to Lang’s Maid of France, and to lead an army, crown a king, and be burned at the stake one must have personality.

Additional Recommended Reading: Joan of Arc, by Mark Twain; Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, by Sena Jeter Naslund; Antony and Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare.

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Whew. If you made it through to the end of this behemoth post, you get a gold star.