Thank you so much to everyone who commented on my last post! I think things will work out OK, and I know I’m lucky to have found a job that’s a good fit and has good colleagues, even if the pay and location are not ideal.
I’ll probably end up writing about all of the topics I listed at the end of my last post, but in the meantime I’m going with the most popular one: recent non-work-related books I’ve read.
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It, by Tilar Mazzeo
This is a well-written biography of a very interesting woman — Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot, the Widow behind Veuve Clicquot, now one of the world’s most widely recognized champagne labels. Mme. Clicquot’s career as an entrepreneur began during the Napoleonic Wars, and she fought trade regulations and anti-French sentiment to make her wine a European sensation.
Mazzeo has a fascinating subject in the Widow, but the book suffers from the historian’s worst nightmare: a thin source base. Simply put, not much documentation on Mme. Clicquot or her business empire has survived. Mazzeo does what she can with the surviving sources and weaves them into a compelling, interesting tale, but the narrative sags at points, largely due to the absence of documentation. Mazzeo uses other historical sources to suggest what Mme. Clicquot’s life might have been like, and generally does so thoughtfully, but on occasion she veers too far into the speculative realm. For example, she breezily claims that young Barbe-Nicole “must have” poured over plates of Parisian fashions as a teenager — why “must”? How could we possibly know that, when Barbe-Nicole herself hasn’t left us any indication that she was interested in fashion?
The book is a good read for those interested in the history of winemaking, in female entrepreneurs, or in French history in general. But I would advise the reader to take those “must haves” with a grain of salt.
The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
As a teenager, I was a borderline-obsessive fan of epic fantasy. I discovered Robert Jordan and Katherine Kerr when I was fifteen, living abroad with my family, and totally miserable in my temporary school. I’ve since branched out into other genres, happily, but well-written fantasy can still absorb my attention like few other books can. (A case of revertigo, perhaps?)
Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind is the best fantasy novel I’ve read in several years. Part coming-of-age tale, part heroic ballad, the book is beautifully written and has a rich, compelling main character. If I have one complaint, it’s that Rothfuss’s female characters are too enigmatic and come across as riddles rather than real people, although the story’s sketchy understanding of women is arguably appropriate given that the main character is a teenage boy.
The Name of the Wind is the first book in a projected trilogy, and when the second book has a publishing date, I’ll be one of the crazies in line reserving my copy in advance.
U is for Undertow, by Sue Grafton
Most mystery writers with wildly popular characters and bestselling series eventually settle into a comfortable formula for their books, churning out novels that are basically indistinguishable from one another but still sell millions of copies.
Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone “alphabet mysteries,” is not one of those writers. I suspect that she’s just too darn smart and talented to be happy writing the same book over and over again. Twenty-one books into the series, Kinsey’s voice feels as fresh and as lively as ever.
Grafton’s latest installment, U is for Undertow, continues her recent experiments with narrative structure. Kinsey, our private detective heroine, is hired by a young man who thinks he might have witnessed a crime as a child — specifically, he thinks he saw two men burying the body of a kidnapped girl. The story of Kinsey’s investigation is occasionally interrupted by flashbacks from other characters, and at first, it’s not quite clear how these flashbacks relate to Kinsey’s case. Slowly, the tale comes together, and the book’s final scenes made my heart race.
I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone, so I apologize for being deliberately vague in this paragraph, but one of the things I most admire about U is for Undertow is the way Grafton avoids overexplaining in the book’s closing chapters. Most novels built around a Mysterious Event in the Past give just enough hints to allow the reader to figure out what happened right before the narrative climax. At this point, a novelist with little faith in his or her readers will put the narrative on pause to give a blow-by-blow description of the Mysterious Event in the Past, even though the reader has already figured out what happened. Grafton doesn’t do that, and the climax of the book is much more exciting and compelling because she trusts her readers to put the pieces together.
Anyone want to share a few more recommendations?
Love fantasy sagas. I am putting “The Name of the Wind” on to my to read list. I really liked “Committed” by Elizabeth Gilbert. She was really likeable in Eat, Pray, Love if yet a bit flightly. But her book on marriage was very good. Not quite the narrative that Eat, Pray, Love is but we have come to many of the same conclusions about marriage and it is nice to read another, more talented, writer put it down into words.
“Inheritance of Loss,” Kiran Desai.
G. recently read this book and LOVED it–have been meaning to pick it up since.
I just read The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster, which I LOVED. It was my first Auster, and G. recommended it because it was my travel read and he said it is Auster’s lightest book. It isn’t light in that it deals with hard stuff, but the characters are so wonderfully HUMAN that there’s a sort of lovely optimism to it, in that “we’re all fuck ups and that’s ok” kind of way. I recommend it.
Will have to check out Grafton!
Before we went on vacation, I downloaded a bunch of new books to my kindle. One was Audrey Neffinegger’s latest – Her Fearful Symmetry. If you like depressing books about human nature, it’s good. If you read books to feel happy, like I do, well, don’t bother.
I also picked up Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, because well, I liked his first two. This isn’t as good, but it had it’s moments.
The best book I’ve read lately is The Help. It’s three narratives, woven together skillfully, and it’s a really great portrayal of women in the civil rights movement.
I’m currently reading The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver, but it’s slow going because school started back up and I can’t take my kindle on the bus because well, I live in Baltimore.
Also, do we think a kindle counts as reading the printed word?
I found Robert Jordan as a teenager too! But then I got tired of the – everyone falls in love with Rand – plot device.
A few fantasy recc’s:
Steven Erikson – Malazan Book of the Fallen (10 books, the last to be published this summer). He’s an archaeologist and anthropologist so there is A LOT of detail in the books (and hundreds of characters) and it’s often graphic, but I am really enjoying them.
Scott Lynch – Lies of Locke Lamora (fun, Ocean’s 11 type of book set in an alternate world)
George RR Martin – Song of Ice and Fire (If he ever finishes, it will be one of my faves)
I also recently finished Elizabeth Kostova’s The Swan Theives and enjoyed it almost as much as her previous The Historian.
Thank you for the fantasy recs, kc!! I love Song of Ice and Fire — Econo Man and I have been known to have hours-long conversations about the development of the story so far and where we think it’s going next.
And WORD on getting sick of the “everyone’s in love with Rand” plot device. To say nothing of the “everyone’s so in love with Rand they decide they’re OK with sharing him” thing. Just … not convincing.