I have decided to again detail the books I read in the previous year. My first shot at this can be seen at: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2008/01/books-i-read-in-2007.html I pretty much enjoyed reviewing the books and in 2007 I did not seem to read anything that I would warn people away from and in fact had a number of recommendations.
Looking at 2008 the first noticeable difference is how many fewer books I read compared to the previous year, only 15 in total in 2008 compared to 31 in 2007. Admittedly I read two books over 1000 pages long in 2008 compared to shorter ones in 2007, but I think that being busier at work, especially working through my lunch breaks and having a less conducive setting for reading in the house I moved into in December 2007 has had an impact.
As last year, I have split the books into fiction and non-fiction books. Generally I read one non-fiction book for every three fiction books I read. Of the fiction books, as I outlined, last year, I have long adhered to a pattern of moving through different genres in sequence to ensure I read a range of fiction. This year, as in the past, the bulk of my the books I read came from charity shops and the availability of the books in any given shop (I have moved to an area with 9 charity shops selling books, in a five minute walking distance of my current house) determines a lot of which particular books I read.
Rather than listing the books strictly chronologically, when I have read more than one by the same author, I group those books together as sometimes I make comment about the author's work in general. Anyway, here goes my review of my reading habits of the last twelve months:
Fiction
'The Assassin's Touch' by Laura Joh Rowland.
The 11th book in the Sano Ichiro series of detective stories set in 17th century Japan. The hero is now moving at the highest levels of the Shōgunate's government. As I noted last year, the main hero is rather too worthy and too bland, but his rivals are well drawn with human motives and flaws that make them intriguing if not admirable. I always reading detective stories set in societies with very different rules to our own and seeing how the constraints of such societies shape the investigation. This particular story would also interest those into martial arts stories as well as early modern Japan. Rowland's stories move along at a good pace and if her central character was deeper then these would be excellent rather than good novels. Concerns about his wife's behaviour have appeared before but Rowland is too kind on her leads to let them suffer too much.
'Looking for Jake and Other Stories' by China Miéville
I came across this book by accident, but it seems that Miéville is a leading light of science fiction/fantasy writing of the moment. In some ways he reminds me of a modern day Michael Moorcock crossed with Bruce Sterling. Many of the stories are fantastic realist in approach rather than out and out fantasy, but all the more intriguing for it. I love the conceit of a society for spotting appearing and disappearing streets and a story based on real events during the 1991 invasion of Iraq in which Iraqi soldiers were buried alive in trenches by bulldozers driven by the US-led forces was both chilling and showed a contemporary awareness. Not every story worked for me, but the author does have a good sense of place and interesting ideas many of which are worked well.
'The Female of the Species' by Sapper [Herman Cyril MCNeile]
This is another story from the 'Classic Thrillers' series from the 1980s of reprints of adventure stories from the early and mid 20th century. This is a Bulldog Drummond story and features as usual bullish men charging around the British countryside. The interesting thing about this story is that it is a sequel to the one in which Drummond's nemesis Carl Peterson has been killed and it is his mistress, Irma (who is often referred to as Irma Peterson, but there is no indication she married Peterson) who kidnaps Drummond's wife and later tries to kill Drummond and his associates in a bizarre manner tied to a replica of the Stonehenge structure. Irma is interesting being in a 1928 novel as the key criminal in a story and a woman (though this was not the first time this had happened, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes short story, 'A Scandal in Bohemia' (1891) the antagonist had been a woman, Irene Adler). Also interesting is how she uses a younger man devoted to her to carry out her plans but treats him utterly cynically remaining loyal to the dead Peterson. I have a soft spot for these kind of adventures, I suppose because the hero can get things done in contrast to our society when the average individual has minimal influence over what happens to them particularly when crime is inflicted on them.
'Victorian Detective Stories' ed. by Michael Cox; 'Rivals of Sherlock Holmes' ed. by Alan K. Russell; 'The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes' ed. by Hugh Greene.
These are three anthologies from the 1970s and 1980s featuring detective stories from the Victorian and Edwardian periods, i.e. 1837-1910, though the span of the stories in these is actually 1845-1914. The detective novel did not really get going in full force in the UK until the 1880s and was often serialised in one of the numerous periodicals of the time. Some of the same stories feature in these different anthologies. Whilst it is interesting to see the different characters and approaches and particularly female detectives, notably Loveday Brooke, having read these you soon realise why the Sherlock Holmes has continued to be popular whereas all of these 'rivals' have fallen into obscurity. A lot of it comes down to the quality of the writing. There are some good ideas, though after a while you do see some of the same plot devices repeated. There is often a sense that making an assault on an individual particularly bizarre or nasty is going to keep the reader's interest, but instead makes the story fantastical so undermining the aspect of the cold logic of the detective which is the real draw for the reader.
You can see the genre working to find its footing and the fact that Conan Doyle did this having extraordinary events but keeping them grounded and having an eccentric detective but one who adhered to deduction without it becoming tedious and who was willing to resort to fists, a weighted cane or a gun, made his stories stand out among these others. Too many of these detectives are without flaw compared to the crotchety, drug addict Holmes. Many contemporary detective story writers know you have to make the detective as least as interesting as the crime to keep the reader. Some of the stories in these collections were decent enough, but some were incredibly tedious. Read these then go back to Holmes knowing why you do.
'The Golden Key' by Melanie Raion, Jennifer Roberson & Kate Elliott.
I tend to avoid doorstop fantasty novels, this one totals 1075 pages. One reason why I embarked on it was because it is not book one of an epic series but self-contained. It is broken into three and I wonder if each of the authors wrote a different section. The setting is a kind of Renaissance Italian/North African fantasy continent in which paintings have magical abilities. The book drops into different periods over centuries, tied loosely by a single protagonist who finds a way to remain immortal through manipulating magical paintings. There is a lot of dynastic rivalry and the society is conjured up very effectively with its own culture, religion and even language. Without the fantasy element it could have been one of these historical drama/romance novels. Reflecting on the book I think of it more kindly than I did at the time of reading it. I think it could have been a little less overblown and a little further away from Italy of our world. However, it is an interesting entry into the fantasy canon, and trying not to be sexist may appeal more to female readers. That may have been the point, to attract women to fantasy in the way that The Women's Press sought to in the mid-1980s publishing authors like Joanna Russ. Though I am not rushing out to read any of these authors single authored books, if I saw one in a charity shop I would pick it up.
'Oscar and Lucinda' by Peter Carey
This book attracted a lot of attention, winning two awards at the end of the 1980s and so for a while, like 'Jaws', 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' and 'The Da Vinci Code' was a book you would find in every charity shop you walked into. It is about two compulsive gamblers, the Oscar and Lucinda of the title, who end up in Australia in the 1860s, if I remember rightly. It is pretty well written and gives you a feel for Australia at the time. However, the characters are too quirky, particularly Oscar, a failed clergyman. The climax of him travelling on a boat inside a church made of glass as part of a bet is utterly ridiculous and undermined the whole novel. I guess I am prejudiced as I do not like stories set outside Europe and certainly feel dragged down by the barreness and hostility of Australia shown in this novel. Overall I think it was far too self-satisfied; perhaps a tendency of books verging on fantastical realism like this one. I was annoyed by this novel and regretted reading it. I advise you to stay a way from this book, it is very depressing in so many ways.
'Labyrinth' by Kate Mosse.
This was an interesting story. Mosse clearly has a love of France especially the region around Carcasonne (which I visited as a boy) and further South into the Alps. The story jumps between the crusade about the Cathars in that region of France in the 1230s and a modern day archaelogical dig uncovering artefacts from that period. However, it strays into 'The Da Vinci Code' territory (both books were published in 2006 with Dan Brown's book being the only one to outsell Mosse's in the UK that year) as it has the Cathars protection a kind of 'grail', a series of three ancient Egyptian books which show people how to live for hundreds of years.
Both in the medieval setting which the 21st century heroine often finds herself fusing into (reminds me very much of the 'Assassin's Creed' computer game) and in modern day, sinister, powerful people are seeking to take and protect these books. Both settings are well written with credible characters and behaviour and if you can look beyond the incongruity of a secret way to very long life then this is an enjoyable book. Having read the non-fiction 'Montaillou' (1975) by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie about a Cathar commuity in the late 13th and early 14th centuries it was interesting to see the facts given flesh with fictional Cathars speaking Occitan a lot of the time; you learn quite a lot of that language by the end. The medieval parts remind me of Ellis Peters's Cadfael series of novels and that is no bad thing.
Non-Fiction
'Spheres of Influence' by Lloyd C. Gardner.
An unexceptional account of the beginnings of the Cold War following the Second World War. It certainly needed better editing and I seem to remember a historical error but cannot now recall it. I found this one dry and because of the poor editing, sometimes difficult to follow. There are better books covering the same topic.
'A History of British Gardening' by Miles Hadfield.
Having studied some gardening history in my time I was disappointed by this book. The focus is very much on long namings of various gardeners in British history and the large gardens they worked on. It is rather disparaging of gardening outside aristocratic estates. There are some interesting bits on how different plants were brought to Britain but Hadfield does not really follow through. There is no real analysis of what motivated the shifts in approaches to gardening, different fashions and technologies and the social and even political context which had an impact on these things. This book would be better called 'A Narrative of British Gardening' and after a while even someone interested in the subject as I previously was, is going to tire of wading through name after name and disparaging of Scotland in particular.
'The Hutchinson Atlas of Battle Plans Before and After' ed. by John Pimlott.
Does what it says in the title. Well drawn maps with interesting details on the plans for various battles in history and how they actually turned out. A useful book if you do any kind of wargaming or want to see how unpredictable battles can be.
'The Second Russian Revolution' by Angus Roxburgh.
This books fits the observation that history never moves on to the third of anything. We are always experiencing the 'second' industrial revolution. As Russia experienced three revolutions 1905-17, anything subsequent should at least be the fourth, but Roxburgh, a journalist rather than a historian, conflates those earlier revolutions and this book looks at events in the late 1980s in the USSR. I came to it too late because I knew what happened into the early 1990s which overtook much of his speculation in the book. It was reasonably well written but being a very much 'of the moment' book it now felt incomplete. As a result I also chucked out a book on Eastern Europe written around the same time as I envisaged it would suffer from the same problem. I can deal with history books stopping at a certain date, but I imagine it was because these were popular level journalistic books that made their stopping before all the events had played out jar for a reader coming to them more than a decade later.
'Dreadnought' by Robert K. Massie
Despite being over 1000 pages long, I found this book very readable. It focuses on the naval rivalry between Britain and Germany before the First World War. However, despite this being the core, it encompasses a far wider appreciation of the political context in which all of this was happening and the tensions inside both countries as well as between them. There is detail but the book is written deftly and so you do not feel drowned by it. This is the best kind of historical writing. It is not surprising that this book still turns up in charity shops despite now being 18 years old. If you read one book of modern British history in the near future, I suggest it be this one.
Showing posts with label charity shops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charity shops. Show all posts
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Books I Read in 2007
This is a feature that I cannot claim any credit for as it appears on numerous blogs. I was a little concerned that it was a touch arrogant to outline the books I have read. However, given that things I have read often prompt blog postings and people might be interested in reading these books, combined with me being able to recommend things or, possibly more importantly, warn people away from wasting their time on poor books, I think it is a valid element of my blog. Of course, I only started this blog in May 2007. However, I have been keeping a diary since 1978 and so have a lot of paper-based records to draw upon. Of course, some time has passed since I have read some of these books and so my reviews will not be as accurate as if done at the time. I find I forget plots very quickly, but hopefully have sufficient memory of the overall gist of the books to be able to make worthwhile comments on them.
I read to a very fixed pattern: 1 detective/murder mystery novel, 1 science fiction or fantasy novel; 1 novel not fitting those previous categories; 1 non-fiction book then back around that four-book cycle. I started this some years ago to ensure that I do not simply stick to reading one sort of book. I think I was in part prompted to do this by an acquaintance who was re-reading 'Gorky Park' by Martin Cruz Smith for the third time because he had no idea what to read next. It is a good novel (the plotting of the movie is even better, certainly with a more feasible final act) but he had no idea what to turn to next. In my youth I would go through a string of crime novels or fantasy novels. While I still like to read the entirety of a series written by a particular novelist, I think it is better to mix this in with a wider range of genres so that I do not become weary of the particular writing or characters.
I rarely by books new, so my choices tend to be driven by what is available in charity shops. When I was a teenager every charity shop I went in had a copy of 'Jaws' (1974) by Peter Benchley and later things like 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' (1993) by Louis de Bernières and most recently 'The Da Vinci Code' (2003) by Dan Brown. In any given set of charity shops (and I have now lived in two towns with 7-8 charity shops grouped within a five-minute walk of each other) you will find each holding a copy of that book. Of course, other more random stuff turns up and the low prices mean I am willing to take a gamble on it than if I was buying it new. It does mean that I sometimes make terrible mistakes and end up reading books that are terrible. However, at least I have not wasted £8.99 on them. After me the books go to my father who consumes books in vast quantities and then back to another charity shop, presumably cycling round until they wear out.
Anyway, rather than list the books in strict chronological order in which I read them, I have grouped them into fiction and non-fiction and furthermore have clustered books featuring the same characters or by the same author or focusing on the same topic to allow me to make general comments about them.
Fiction
'Reigning Cats and Dogs' by Tanith Lee.
A strange, almost steampunk novel set in a Victorian London in which there is a lot of debauchery and secret societies releasing ancient forces, notably connected to the Egyptian god Anubis. It seems an interesting idea but somehow lacked punch, perhaps it was trying too hard.
'The 47 Rōnin Story' by John Allyn.
This story, of course, is not actually by John Allyn as it is drawn from real events in the 18th century Japan in which 47 samurai left masterless, i.e. rōnin, took revenge on their master's persecutors. It is a renowned story in Japanese culture and is reasonably well known in the West. I enjoyed this rendering of it which combined the cunning of the 47 trying to mislead those anticipating an attack by them and the action. If you have any interest in a good action story with a range of interesting characters then I recommend this.
'Roman Blood'; 'Arms of Nemesis'; 'A Murder on the Appian Way'; 'A Mist of Prophecies' all by Steven Saylor
These are the 1st, 3rd, 7th and 10th books in Steven Saylor's series featuring Roman investigator Gordianus. The random nature of the ones I read stemmed from what I turned up in charity shops. The 12 novels in the series cover the period 80 BCE - 46 BCE; the first was published in 1991 and the latest in 2008. They are very engaging stories which because they stretch over such a long period are able to mesh with numerous major events in the period when the Roman Republic came to an end and the empire began. Though there is a political background, the stories are basically police procedural novels, featuring well drawn fictional and historical characters. Saylor certainly has an ability to conjure up the city of Rome and other locations across the Roman world without drowning you in historical detail.
'Blade Runner": The Edge of Human' by K.W. Jeter.
This is a sequel to the original 'Blade Runner' (1982) movie rather than the novel it was based on, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (1968) by Philip K. Dick or the director's cut version of the movie which came out in 1992 nor the 'final cut' version of 2007. I found the book weak. It really had nowhere to go. Without the imperative of hunting down replicants a lot of the edge was missing, you did not really feel any genuine threat to Rick Deckard nor really any advance in the question about whether he too was a replicant. This was a disappointment to me.
'The Last English King'; 'Knights of Albion' and 'A Very English Agent' all by Julian Rathbone.
The first features the adventures of one of King Harold II's (the king who was killed at the Battle of Hastings thus deemed the last 'English' king) housecarls wandering Europe and the Near East bemoaning his failure to die for his king. The settings from southern England as far as Byzantine Anatolia and details of this early medieval period are well portrayed, but the story rather runs out of steam. The hero eventually gives up, not reaching Jerusalem and simply returns to Norman-occupied England.
This tapering off is a similar complaint you can lay at the door of 'Knights of Albion'. This is set in the fifteenth century and features travellers from the advanced Indian state of Vijayanagara, a real place, travelling to France and England in search of ambassadors sent to enlist help from the Europeans for Vijayanagara's own difficulties. They find Europe uncivilised. There is some humour in seeing medieval Europe through the eyes of outsiders but this is rather laboured and again, the story lacks strong direction and tapers off at the end rather than having a clear conclusion. Perhaps I am missing the point of Rathbone's stories. I love the portrayal of the periods he is writing about but yearn for more narrative drive.
In this respect 'A Very English Agent' is better. It features the adventures of Charles Bosham an agent provocateur for the repressive British governments of the post-Napoleonic Wars era as they faced social unrest such as Peterloo and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. People have likened Bosham to Flashman in the novels of George MacDonald Fraser. Bosham seems to be at every major event in the political history of the 1810s and 1820s, though he is a highly unreliable narrator. Rathbone handles the humour better and because the story is necessarily episodic there is less trouble with him not being able to come to a strong conclusion. A sequel, 'Birth of a Nation' (2005) featured Bosham in the Americas in the 1840s. Readers often dislike the intentional anachronistic references in Rathbone's historical novels. However, I am just seeking a bit more clarity in where they are going.
'Dinotopia Lost' by Alan Dean Foster.
I had read the original picture book 'Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time' (1992) by James Gurney when it came out. It is set in the 1860s about a fictional island where humans and dinosaurs live in harmony. It has spawned numerous books for children and a mini-series on television. Part of the delight of the original was the Orientalist style paintings that fitted the era portrayed, but instead of showing Turkey or Egypt, featuring dinosaurs and humans on the island. This un-illustrated full length novel had classic themes of pirates washed up in Dinotopia seeking to exploit it. I was probably too old for this book, it was alright but nothing special.
'Queen Victoria's Bomb' by Ronald Clark
I have mentioned this before as being a steampunk classic. It owes a lot to the concerns of the time when it was published (1967) regarding the risk of nuclear war, but it is also fascinating in moving the atomic bomb back a century and finding out the potential impact. It is a bit episodic in that the story builds up to climaxes each time the bomb is to be used. However, it manages to make you entirely accept that a bomb of that kind was possible and then present early Victorians rather than mid-20th century people with the moral dilemmas. It also contains a chilling warning of the hazards of nuclear weapons testing. By showing Imperial Britons to be callous to the concerns of those they ruled over especially in India, it challenges the contemporary reader to see if they are any more caring. This is a classic book, well executed and should be on the reading list of anyone interested in steampunk and/or 'what if?' stories and I know you are out there.
'The Shores of Death' by Michael Moorcock.
This novel is also known as 'The Twilight Man'. I read it in a single day. It was very much a story in the style of 'The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus' (1604) by Christopher Marlowe in that people seeking escape from death have their wishes fulfilled but in unpleasant ways by a powerful being whose malevolence stems from people's ignorance of what they are truly wishing for. It is set on an alien world. I did not like it. I guess it made me uneasy in the way 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' (1962; movie 1983 with screenplay by Bradbury) by Ray Bradbury. I think people have a hard enough time dealing with life, death and loss without them being punished through tricks just for wishing for something better.
'The Junkers' by Piers Paul Read
This was a pretty decent book, perhaps showing its age a little (it was published in 1968) but weaving an interesting story jumping between Nazi Germany and 1960s West Germany to look at the dynamics of a prosperous German family working to cover up their secrets while continuing to prosper through changes of regime. The characters are engaging and probably in the late 1960s it would have seemed more distinctive than today, but reading it was certainly not a wasted experience. Whilst it could have fallen into the same trap as Rathbone's novels discussed above, it had a satisfying conclusion rather than tapering off.
'The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria'; 'The Dragon King's Palace'; 'The Perfumed Sleeve' all by Laura Joh Rowland
These are the 7th, 8th and 9th books in Rowland's Sano Ichiro series of detective novels set in Japan of the 17th century. Sano Ichiro is a civil servant working for the 4th Tokugawa Shōgun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. The first book in the series came out in 1991 and the 12th, last year. Part of the problem with many police series is that when the detective is successful and rises he becomes distanced from the operational aspects of investigations and to some degree as the Ichiro books have progressed, while the hero does investigate crimes, the political aspects of the Shōgun's court take on as much importance. In this the rivalry of other powerful officials is as important as the criminals Ichiro encounters. I enjoy these stories, they show a lot about life in Japan of the time, again without you feeling drowned in the detail. The key problem is that beside the devious officials and criminals that Ichiro encounters, he seems rather bland. He is hung up around his duties to the code of Bushido when they conflict with investigations but his traits seem a little pale and you end up becoming more involved with his opponents who display an interesting if unappealing set of characteristics. The 'Dragon King' a bandit leader is a classic example.
'The War Book' by James Sallis.
This is an anthology of science fiction stories from the late 1960s. However, none of them have stuck out in my mind and I have forgotten this book incredibly quickly. James Sallis is rated as a writer, much in Michael Moorcock's generation; the two have collaborated. I should have made notes about this book before I despatched it to my father.
'A Rough Shoot' by Geoffrey Household.
This was one of the 'Classic Thrillers' reprints of action and adventure stories from the early and mid-20th century. This one was a 1950s about a reasonably well off middle class man hiring some land in Dorset to do some shooting to supplement his family's groceries with meat. He stumbles across a plot to bring neo-Fascists into Britain. He works to thwart this and towards the end is aided by the authorities. The story has the feel of something written in the 1920s or 1930s and it is nice to see a thriller from this era not focused on the Soviet 'threat'. It is a fast moving, enjoyable adventure. What marks it out is the sense of place in southern England and the characters are credible and well drawn, better than in many stories of this ilk. This book is less well known than similar stories by John Buchan and Eric Ambler, but I would certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoys that kind of story.
'John McNab' by John Buchan.
This is a lighter story than 'A Rough Shoot' or the bulk of Buchan's stories. There is no dastardly political threat afoot, rather three bored, well-off gentlemen aim to trespass on their neighbours' lands, having forewarned them, and yet seek to carry off game or fish from each. It is rather about an upper class game, set in the Scottish scenery that Buchan loved. It sums up a time and a class, though Buchan does not stick entirely to the expectations and the women are pretty feisty. This is a relaxing novel without much challenge, but pretty well crafted for its kind.
Non-Fiction
'The Devil's Horsemen' by James Chambers.
This is a concise (190 pages) but chilling account of the Mongol invasions of Europe in the 13th century. It moves along briskly and manages to detail the successful tactics and the utterly terrifying methods of the invaders. You can really understand the fear of those facing these attacks. The accounts are so unpleasant that I dislike recalling them. Finishing the book I had a complete loathing for the people that inflicted these atrocities and had to rein in my distaste for contemporary Mongolia's lauding of its murderous ancestors. This is a quick and effective way of learning about the Mongol invasions and whilst dispassionate in itself, may, as in me, stir up strong feelings.
'The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century' by Will Hutton.
This is really two books and I think Hutton would have done better to separate them out. The coverage of contemporary China and how it has got to where it is today in terms of politics, economics and society is well handled. However, the second half of the book is really a repeat of Hutton's earlier works in advocating the kind of society and economy he feels the West needs. This is him repeating his old song, just using the 'threat' of China to try to drive it on. Read the first half.
'The Chinese' by Jasper Becker.
This book is an excellent antidote to all of those books out there lauding how successful the Chinese economy is and what wonders the country is doing. Becker is a clear critic of Communist China but he shows up its totalitarian state and what it has done in an effective and dispassionate way. He has excellent attention to detail and yet is able to make the stories of those millions of people who have been part of different aspects of China's turbulent history come to you in a personal way. I certainly recommend this as a book to show you the reality of China beneath the glitz and warn you of the dangers of dealing with such a dictatorship.
'China: A New History' by John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman.
In fact by the time I got around to reading this book, it was pretty much an old history as it was published at the end of the 1980s and did not cover the latest developments in China. Goldman updated Fairbank's earlier edition of this book and it is interesting that Goldman has a real belief that China will have to move to democracy. This is a common flaw among Americans who seem to cling to the Hayekian view that free economies mean democracy and planned economies mean dictatorship. You only have to compare France and China to see this is not true. Fairbank had a much more realistic perception of China and I feel his view has been borne out by what we see in China now. This book is solid if you want a decent coverage of China in the past couple of hundred years, but you would need something newer for the latter decades that we have witnessed.
'The Lion and the Dragon: British Voices from the China Coast' by Christopher Cook.
I think this book was produced in conjunction with a 1980s television series. It is a highly illustrated (with photograph) oral history of life among those Britons who worked in China in the 1920s-40s. It would be a great source book for novels in that setting. Despite the title it does also feature stories from Britons working in the interior. Notable are accounts of incidents of kidnapping and of the raucous social life that the expatriates lived in the coastal cities, notably Shanghai. An interesting slice of a lost experience.
'The Templars' by Piers Paul Read.
Given that the Knights Templar turn up in so much fiction these days and are attributed with having been involved with a whole range of fantastical activities, notably guarding the Holy Grail, whatever that might be, it is interesting to read a lucid, sober account of them. Read's conclusion is that they were a lot less exciting than anyone thinks and were pretty mundane warrior monks who got mixed up in politics and the greed/need of monarchs for their money. This was a straight forward history.
'A Brief History of the Crusades' by Geoffrey Hindley.
I really rate this book. Whilst others will give you more blow-by-blow detail of the medieval crusades to the Levant, this really deepens your understanding about what was going on. I particularly enjoyed the details on society in the Crusader States and aspects such as the different position of women there compared to back in Europe. This book gives you a real flavour of the life of the crusaders and those who worked with and who opposed them. A very engaging book that I would read again.
'The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon' by Ivan Morris.
A 'pillow book' is less lascivious than it sounds, it was simply a book a woman in medieval Japan would keep in the drawer in the side of her wooden pillow. Usually it was something like a diary or scrapbook. It was written by a courtier Sei Shōnagon at the court of the Empress Consort in the 990s CE up to 1002. It has small scraps of stories and observations about life at court and so is ideal for dipping into or reading right through. I have likened it to a modern day blog. It is certainly a lot less tiresome than reading either 'The Tale of Genji' a novel by another Japanese female courtier, Murasaki Shikibu, written some years after Sei Shōnagon's pillow book or Cao Xueqin's 18th century novel about the Chinese court, 'A Dream of Red Mansions' both of which I read in the late 1980s and have none of the wit of this book.
'What If ...?' Explorations in Social Science Fiction' edited by Nelson W. Polsby.
Strictly this is not non-fiction as it speculates on history that did not happen. However, it seeks to do this in an academic way. Unfortunately as with the worst counter-factual writing too many of the authors have been permitted to use their counter-factuals to whine about things they see wrong with their own society (USA of the early 1980s). The best is probably about a confederal as opposed to federal USA being established, which came very close to happening. There is a good chapter on Napoleon's global plans too. Otherwise I was disappointed by this book and I guess all I will take from it is a few ideas for 'what if?'s to analyse myself.
'Invasion. The Alternate History of the German Invasion of England, July 1940' by Kenneth Macksey.
This is obviously another counter-factual book. It is pretty workerlike in its rendering of a history of a successful German invasion of England, going into immense detail about the various units on both sides and their engagement. I suppose this would be useful if you wanted to wargame such an invasion, but I felt myself wanting more on the impact on Britain and so after a while found it rather sterile. I read histories of warfare, but guess that in this case I wanted more speculation beyond simply what occurred on the battelfield.
'Invasion 1940' by Walter Schellenberg.
This is a translation of the documents produced by SS Brigadeführer (Major-General) Walter Schellenberg regarding Britain ahead of the German invasion planned for 1940. Schellenberg worked in Office VI of the SD, the German counter-intelligence body, with resposibility for such work outside Germany. He survived the war and was released from prison in 1951, dying the following year at the age of 42. The book gives background from a Nazi perspective of British society and how it was seen to function. It also includes lists of those who would have been arrested on the occupation of Britain. These are interesting aspects, though after a while the long lists get tedious.
I read to a very fixed pattern: 1 detective/murder mystery novel, 1 science fiction or fantasy novel; 1 novel not fitting those previous categories; 1 non-fiction book then back around that four-book cycle. I started this some years ago to ensure that I do not simply stick to reading one sort of book. I think I was in part prompted to do this by an acquaintance who was re-reading 'Gorky Park' by Martin Cruz Smith for the third time because he had no idea what to read next. It is a good novel (the plotting of the movie is even better, certainly with a more feasible final act) but he had no idea what to turn to next. In my youth I would go through a string of crime novels or fantasy novels. While I still like to read the entirety of a series written by a particular novelist, I think it is better to mix this in with a wider range of genres so that I do not become weary of the particular writing or characters.
I rarely by books new, so my choices tend to be driven by what is available in charity shops. When I was a teenager every charity shop I went in had a copy of 'Jaws' (1974) by Peter Benchley and later things like 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' (1993) by Louis de Bernières and most recently 'The Da Vinci Code' (2003) by Dan Brown. In any given set of charity shops (and I have now lived in two towns with 7-8 charity shops grouped within a five-minute walk of each other) you will find each holding a copy of that book. Of course, other more random stuff turns up and the low prices mean I am willing to take a gamble on it than if I was buying it new. It does mean that I sometimes make terrible mistakes and end up reading books that are terrible. However, at least I have not wasted £8.99 on them. After me the books go to my father who consumes books in vast quantities and then back to another charity shop, presumably cycling round until they wear out.
Anyway, rather than list the books in strict chronological order in which I read them, I have grouped them into fiction and non-fiction and furthermore have clustered books featuring the same characters or by the same author or focusing on the same topic to allow me to make general comments about them.
Fiction
'Reigning Cats and Dogs' by Tanith Lee.
A strange, almost steampunk novel set in a Victorian London in which there is a lot of debauchery and secret societies releasing ancient forces, notably connected to the Egyptian god Anubis. It seems an interesting idea but somehow lacked punch, perhaps it was trying too hard.
'The 47 Rōnin Story' by John Allyn.
This story, of course, is not actually by John Allyn as it is drawn from real events in the 18th century Japan in which 47 samurai left masterless, i.e. rōnin, took revenge on their master's persecutors. It is a renowned story in Japanese culture and is reasonably well known in the West. I enjoyed this rendering of it which combined the cunning of the 47 trying to mislead those anticipating an attack by them and the action. If you have any interest in a good action story with a range of interesting characters then I recommend this.
'Roman Blood'; 'Arms of Nemesis'; 'A Murder on the Appian Way'; 'A Mist of Prophecies' all by Steven Saylor
These are the 1st, 3rd, 7th and 10th books in Steven Saylor's series featuring Roman investigator Gordianus. The random nature of the ones I read stemmed from what I turned up in charity shops. The 12 novels in the series cover the period 80 BCE - 46 BCE; the first was published in 1991 and the latest in 2008. They are very engaging stories which because they stretch over such a long period are able to mesh with numerous major events in the period when the Roman Republic came to an end and the empire began. Though there is a political background, the stories are basically police procedural novels, featuring well drawn fictional and historical characters. Saylor certainly has an ability to conjure up the city of Rome and other locations across the Roman world without drowning you in historical detail.
'Blade Runner": The Edge of Human' by K.W. Jeter.
This is a sequel to the original 'Blade Runner' (1982) movie rather than the novel it was based on, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (1968) by Philip K. Dick or the director's cut version of the movie which came out in 1992 nor the 'final cut' version of 2007. I found the book weak. It really had nowhere to go. Without the imperative of hunting down replicants a lot of the edge was missing, you did not really feel any genuine threat to Rick Deckard nor really any advance in the question about whether he too was a replicant. This was a disappointment to me.
'The Last English King'; 'Knights of Albion' and 'A Very English Agent' all by Julian Rathbone.
The first features the adventures of one of King Harold II's (the king who was killed at the Battle of Hastings thus deemed the last 'English' king) housecarls wandering Europe and the Near East bemoaning his failure to die for his king. The settings from southern England as far as Byzantine Anatolia and details of this early medieval period are well portrayed, but the story rather runs out of steam. The hero eventually gives up, not reaching Jerusalem and simply returns to Norman-occupied England.
This tapering off is a similar complaint you can lay at the door of 'Knights of Albion'. This is set in the fifteenth century and features travellers from the advanced Indian state of Vijayanagara, a real place, travelling to France and England in search of ambassadors sent to enlist help from the Europeans for Vijayanagara's own difficulties. They find Europe uncivilised. There is some humour in seeing medieval Europe through the eyes of outsiders but this is rather laboured and again, the story lacks strong direction and tapers off at the end rather than having a clear conclusion. Perhaps I am missing the point of Rathbone's stories. I love the portrayal of the periods he is writing about but yearn for more narrative drive.
In this respect 'A Very English Agent' is better. It features the adventures of Charles Bosham an agent provocateur for the repressive British governments of the post-Napoleonic Wars era as they faced social unrest such as Peterloo and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. People have likened Bosham to Flashman in the novels of George MacDonald Fraser. Bosham seems to be at every major event in the political history of the 1810s and 1820s, though he is a highly unreliable narrator. Rathbone handles the humour better and because the story is necessarily episodic there is less trouble with him not being able to come to a strong conclusion. A sequel, 'Birth of a Nation' (2005) featured Bosham in the Americas in the 1840s. Readers often dislike the intentional anachronistic references in Rathbone's historical novels. However, I am just seeking a bit more clarity in where they are going.
'Dinotopia Lost' by Alan Dean Foster.
I had read the original picture book 'Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time' (1992) by James Gurney when it came out. It is set in the 1860s about a fictional island where humans and dinosaurs live in harmony. It has spawned numerous books for children and a mini-series on television. Part of the delight of the original was the Orientalist style paintings that fitted the era portrayed, but instead of showing Turkey or Egypt, featuring dinosaurs and humans on the island. This un-illustrated full length novel had classic themes of pirates washed up in Dinotopia seeking to exploit it. I was probably too old for this book, it was alright but nothing special.
'Queen Victoria's Bomb' by Ronald Clark
I have mentioned this before as being a steampunk classic. It owes a lot to the concerns of the time when it was published (1967) regarding the risk of nuclear war, but it is also fascinating in moving the atomic bomb back a century and finding out the potential impact. It is a bit episodic in that the story builds up to climaxes each time the bomb is to be used. However, it manages to make you entirely accept that a bomb of that kind was possible and then present early Victorians rather than mid-20th century people with the moral dilemmas. It also contains a chilling warning of the hazards of nuclear weapons testing. By showing Imperial Britons to be callous to the concerns of those they ruled over especially in India, it challenges the contemporary reader to see if they are any more caring. This is a classic book, well executed and should be on the reading list of anyone interested in steampunk and/or 'what if?' stories and I know you are out there.
'The Shores of Death' by Michael Moorcock.
This novel is also known as 'The Twilight Man'. I read it in a single day. It was very much a story in the style of 'The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus' (1604) by Christopher Marlowe in that people seeking escape from death have their wishes fulfilled but in unpleasant ways by a powerful being whose malevolence stems from people's ignorance of what they are truly wishing for. It is set on an alien world. I did not like it. I guess it made me uneasy in the way 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' (1962; movie 1983 with screenplay by Bradbury) by Ray Bradbury. I think people have a hard enough time dealing with life, death and loss without them being punished through tricks just for wishing for something better.
'The Junkers' by Piers Paul Read
This was a pretty decent book, perhaps showing its age a little (it was published in 1968) but weaving an interesting story jumping between Nazi Germany and 1960s West Germany to look at the dynamics of a prosperous German family working to cover up their secrets while continuing to prosper through changes of regime. The characters are engaging and probably in the late 1960s it would have seemed more distinctive than today, but reading it was certainly not a wasted experience. Whilst it could have fallen into the same trap as Rathbone's novels discussed above, it had a satisfying conclusion rather than tapering off.
'The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria'; 'The Dragon King's Palace'; 'The Perfumed Sleeve' all by Laura Joh Rowland
These are the 7th, 8th and 9th books in Rowland's Sano Ichiro series of detective novels set in Japan of the 17th century. Sano Ichiro is a civil servant working for the 4th Tokugawa Shōgun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. The first book in the series came out in 1991 and the 12th, last year. Part of the problem with many police series is that when the detective is successful and rises he becomes distanced from the operational aspects of investigations and to some degree as the Ichiro books have progressed, while the hero does investigate crimes, the political aspects of the Shōgun's court take on as much importance. In this the rivalry of other powerful officials is as important as the criminals Ichiro encounters. I enjoy these stories, they show a lot about life in Japan of the time, again without you feeling drowned in the detail. The key problem is that beside the devious officials and criminals that Ichiro encounters, he seems rather bland. He is hung up around his duties to the code of Bushido when they conflict with investigations but his traits seem a little pale and you end up becoming more involved with his opponents who display an interesting if unappealing set of characteristics. The 'Dragon King' a bandit leader is a classic example.
'The War Book' by James Sallis.
This is an anthology of science fiction stories from the late 1960s. However, none of them have stuck out in my mind and I have forgotten this book incredibly quickly. James Sallis is rated as a writer, much in Michael Moorcock's generation; the two have collaborated. I should have made notes about this book before I despatched it to my father.
'A Rough Shoot' by Geoffrey Household.
This was one of the 'Classic Thrillers' reprints of action and adventure stories from the early and mid-20th century. This one was a 1950s about a reasonably well off middle class man hiring some land in Dorset to do some shooting to supplement his family's groceries with meat. He stumbles across a plot to bring neo-Fascists into Britain. He works to thwart this and towards the end is aided by the authorities. The story has the feel of something written in the 1920s or 1930s and it is nice to see a thriller from this era not focused on the Soviet 'threat'. It is a fast moving, enjoyable adventure. What marks it out is the sense of place in southern England and the characters are credible and well drawn, better than in many stories of this ilk. This book is less well known than similar stories by John Buchan and Eric Ambler, but I would certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoys that kind of story.
'John McNab' by John Buchan.
This is a lighter story than 'A Rough Shoot' or the bulk of Buchan's stories. There is no dastardly political threat afoot, rather three bored, well-off gentlemen aim to trespass on their neighbours' lands, having forewarned them, and yet seek to carry off game or fish from each. It is rather about an upper class game, set in the Scottish scenery that Buchan loved. It sums up a time and a class, though Buchan does not stick entirely to the expectations and the women are pretty feisty. This is a relaxing novel without much challenge, but pretty well crafted for its kind.
Non-Fiction
'The Devil's Horsemen' by James Chambers.
This is a concise (190 pages) but chilling account of the Mongol invasions of Europe in the 13th century. It moves along briskly and manages to detail the successful tactics and the utterly terrifying methods of the invaders. You can really understand the fear of those facing these attacks. The accounts are so unpleasant that I dislike recalling them. Finishing the book I had a complete loathing for the people that inflicted these atrocities and had to rein in my distaste for contemporary Mongolia's lauding of its murderous ancestors. This is a quick and effective way of learning about the Mongol invasions and whilst dispassionate in itself, may, as in me, stir up strong feelings.
'The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century' by Will Hutton.
This is really two books and I think Hutton would have done better to separate them out. The coverage of contemporary China and how it has got to where it is today in terms of politics, economics and society is well handled. However, the second half of the book is really a repeat of Hutton's earlier works in advocating the kind of society and economy he feels the West needs. This is him repeating his old song, just using the 'threat' of China to try to drive it on. Read the first half.
'The Chinese' by Jasper Becker.
This book is an excellent antidote to all of those books out there lauding how successful the Chinese economy is and what wonders the country is doing. Becker is a clear critic of Communist China but he shows up its totalitarian state and what it has done in an effective and dispassionate way. He has excellent attention to detail and yet is able to make the stories of those millions of people who have been part of different aspects of China's turbulent history come to you in a personal way. I certainly recommend this as a book to show you the reality of China beneath the glitz and warn you of the dangers of dealing with such a dictatorship.
'China: A New History' by John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman.
In fact by the time I got around to reading this book, it was pretty much an old history as it was published at the end of the 1980s and did not cover the latest developments in China. Goldman updated Fairbank's earlier edition of this book and it is interesting that Goldman has a real belief that China will have to move to democracy. This is a common flaw among Americans who seem to cling to the Hayekian view that free economies mean democracy and planned economies mean dictatorship. You only have to compare France and China to see this is not true. Fairbank had a much more realistic perception of China and I feel his view has been borne out by what we see in China now. This book is solid if you want a decent coverage of China in the past couple of hundred years, but you would need something newer for the latter decades that we have witnessed.
'The Lion and the Dragon: British Voices from the China Coast' by Christopher Cook.
I think this book was produced in conjunction with a 1980s television series. It is a highly illustrated (with photograph) oral history of life among those Britons who worked in China in the 1920s-40s. It would be a great source book for novels in that setting. Despite the title it does also feature stories from Britons working in the interior. Notable are accounts of incidents of kidnapping and of the raucous social life that the expatriates lived in the coastal cities, notably Shanghai. An interesting slice of a lost experience.
'The Templars' by Piers Paul Read.
Given that the Knights Templar turn up in so much fiction these days and are attributed with having been involved with a whole range of fantastical activities, notably guarding the Holy Grail, whatever that might be, it is interesting to read a lucid, sober account of them. Read's conclusion is that they were a lot less exciting than anyone thinks and were pretty mundane warrior monks who got mixed up in politics and the greed/need of monarchs for their money. This was a straight forward history.
'A Brief History of the Crusades' by Geoffrey Hindley.
I really rate this book. Whilst others will give you more blow-by-blow detail of the medieval crusades to the Levant, this really deepens your understanding about what was going on. I particularly enjoyed the details on society in the Crusader States and aspects such as the different position of women there compared to back in Europe. This book gives you a real flavour of the life of the crusaders and those who worked with and who opposed them. A very engaging book that I would read again.
'The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon' by Ivan Morris.
A 'pillow book' is less lascivious than it sounds, it was simply a book a woman in medieval Japan would keep in the drawer in the side of her wooden pillow. Usually it was something like a diary or scrapbook. It was written by a courtier Sei Shōnagon at the court of the Empress Consort in the 990s CE up to 1002. It has small scraps of stories and observations about life at court and so is ideal for dipping into or reading right through. I have likened it to a modern day blog. It is certainly a lot less tiresome than reading either 'The Tale of Genji' a novel by another Japanese female courtier, Murasaki Shikibu, written some years after Sei Shōnagon's pillow book or Cao Xueqin's 18th century novel about the Chinese court, 'A Dream of Red Mansions' both of which I read in the late 1980s and have none of the wit of this book.
'What If ...?' Explorations in Social Science Fiction' edited by Nelson W. Polsby.
Strictly this is not non-fiction as it speculates on history that did not happen. However, it seeks to do this in an academic way. Unfortunately as with the worst counter-factual writing too many of the authors have been permitted to use their counter-factuals to whine about things they see wrong with their own society (USA of the early 1980s). The best is probably about a confederal as opposed to federal USA being established, which came very close to happening. There is a good chapter on Napoleon's global plans too. Otherwise I was disappointed by this book and I guess all I will take from it is a few ideas for 'what if?'s to analyse myself.
'Invasion. The Alternate History of the German Invasion of England, July 1940' by Kenneth Macksey.
This is obviously another counter-factual book. It is pretty workerlike in its rendering of a history of a successful German invasion of England, going into immense detail about the various units on both sides and their engagement. I suppose this would be useful if you wanted to wargame such an invasion, but I felt myself wanting more on the impact on Britain and so after a while found it rather sterile. I read histories of warfare, but guess that in this case I wanted more speculation beyond simply what occurred on the battelfield.
'Invasion 1940' by Walter Schellenberg.
This is a translation of the documents produced by SS Brigadeführer (Major-General) Walter Schellenberg regarding Britain ahead of the German invasion planned for 1940. Schellenberg worked in Office VI of the SD, the German counter-intelligence body, with resposibility for such work outside Germany. He survived the war and was released from prison in 1951, dying the following year at the age of 42. The book gives background from a Nazi perspective of British society and how it was seen to function. It also includes lists of those who would have been arrested on the occupation of Britain. These are interesting aspects, though after a while the long lists get tedious.
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