Review: Winter in Madrid

Title: Winter in Madrid

Author: C. J. Sansom

Publisher: Penguin

# of Pages: 535


I received this book for free to review.

Favorite Line: "I want to have adventures, far away from here."

Rating: 7.5/10

From Publishers Weekly
The playing fields of Rookwood did little to prepare reluctant spy Harry Brett for the moral no man's land of post–Civil War Spain that awaits him in this cinematic historical thriller from British author Sansom (Sovereign). But those halcyon days have made him one of the few people likely to win the confidence of fellow old boy Sandy Forsyth, now a shady Madrid businessman, Franco associate and object of intense curiosity to British intelligence. Despite his reservations, Brett—whose best friend from Rookwood, Bernie Piper, disappeared in Spain a few years earlier while battling Franco with the International Brigade—accepts the assignment as his duty, and almost as swiftly regrets it. For the Madrid he finds has become a mockery of the vibrant, hopeful place he and Bernie visited during the dawn of the Republic. As in his Matthew Shardlake mystery series set in Tudor London, Sansom deftly plots his politically charged tale for maximal suspense, all the way up to its stunning conclusion. A bestseller in the U.K., this moving opus leaves the reader mourning for the Spain that might have been—and the England that maybe never was.

I was thrilled to be contacted by FSB Associates to review this book. Not only because free books, as a rule, excite me, but also because C. J. Sansom is an author with whom I am familiar, having read two books in his Tudor mystery series starring Matthew Shardlake. If you are interested in Tudor England, particularly the court of King Henry VIII, then I would highly recommend the series (there are now four books).

Winter in Madrid is not Tudor-ific, though. It is set mostly in Madrid after the end of the Spanish Civil War. There are blurbs on the back cover that basically compare the book to every other novel written about Spain after the Civil War (including my personal favorite, The Shadow of the Wind). I don't think this is a fair comparison; not because Winter in Madrid isn't good, but because I don't really see much similarity between it and The Shadow of the Wind or much by Ernest Hemingway.

I enjoyed Winter in Madrid because its characters were all so very flawed. I didn't love any of them- and more surprisingly, most of them didn't even seem to like each other. This led to some awkwardness in scenes, but in general, it was more interesting than awkward. And for all the book's being set in Spain and being about intelligence operations with Spaniards and the clash between Communism and Fascism and the poverty and pain the Spaniards faced... let's be honest, this book is all about England. The end of English imperialism, the English class system, English idealism about sharing their society with the world, etc., etc.

The plot of the book is WWII-era political intrigue and thriller, but the over-arching theme is about sunset falling on the British Empire, as played out by three boarding school alums and a lonely Englishwoman. Personally, I think the theme had a great deal more depth than the plot- but maybe that's because I'm so fascinated by English history.

I also think the Spanish Civil War is overshadowed by World War II, so it was great to read a book that was set in Madrid during this time. It is fascinating and horrifying to read, especially when I compare the Madrid in the novel to the city I visited several years ago, and loved. It's amazing to see how people can rebuild and overcome such atrocities in their history. But maybe that's also part of the reason that subsequent generations are dulled to the pain of the past- because there are so few reminders of what happened.

I enjoyed the book, though it took me some time to read. At over 530 pages, it is a bit long for a political thriller, especially as it isn't fast-paced. But it reminded me of the film noir that was so popular at the time, and the pace of the story fit in very well with the era. I enjoyed it, and if you read it, I hope you'll share your thoughts.

Review: The Book of the Unknown - Tales of the Thirty-Six

Title: The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six

Author: Jonathan Keats

Publisher: Random House

# of Pages: 240

This review is based on an advanced reader's edition.

Favorite Line: Torment isn't about what you don't know. It's about what you have and can't give.

Rating: 9/10

From Publishers Weekly
Keats (The Pathology of Lies) re-imagines Jewish folklore in his collection of stories about the Talmudic idea of the Lamedh-Vov, 36 righteous souls who must exist at all times in order for humanity, and the world, to sustain itself. A fictional author's foreword by Jay Katz, Ph.D., summarizes the idea of the Lamedh-Vov and establishes its legitimacy by citing a list of names Katz found while excavating a German synagogue. The stories that follow—covering 12 of the 36 souls—are based on Katz's discussions with villagers. The heroes of these stories include a liar, a thief, an idiot and a whore—not your typical folk heroes. Gimmel the Gambler, for example, loses his fortune to a beautiful peasant woman with one roll of the dice; with her new riches, she's able to marry the king. The accomplishment of this book is more about stylistic mimicry than originality; Keats's ear for the language of folktales comes through nicely, though because of the stories' limited scope, they lack bite.

Jonathan Keats' collection made me realize, for the first time, that maybe I do enjoy short stories. I never really did before, but this book, coupled with In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, really impressed me. I have always been under the impression that I don't like short stories, mainly because I feel that the plot develops at the expense of character development. However, most of the stories in both The Book of the Unknown and In Other Rooms, Other Wonders were character-driven, not plot.

The Book of the Unknown reads very quickly and smoothly, though it is not light reading. Each story presented has a definite lesson- not in a quasi-Judaic morality tale way, but in a "You would enjoy your life more if you were more like this person" sort of way. I did not feel that the book was especially religious, so I hope its description of being based on Jewish folklore does not turn people away from it. I am neither Jewish nor religious, and I really enjoyed the book. My personal favorite story was about a golem who becomes a princess, and then watches as her husband loses interest and begins going after many other women in the palace. Instead of being vindictive or bitter, she spends her time doing other tasks that make her world better.

And maybe that's why I really enjoyed the book- all the stories were uplifting and happy, not the dire moralistic tales that you might expect. Many of them are more fairy tale-like than anything else. Publishers Weekly may say above that the stories "lack bite," but for a bedtime treat before allowing your dreams to take over, they are excellent. And surprisingly not as straight-forward as one might think- some of them, I was still mulling over the next morning.

The book begins with a preface from the "collector" of the stories and ends with a note from the editors that makes it clear that sequels could very much be in the picture (after all- we only heard tales from twelve of the thirty-six). I hope there is because the stories themselves are vastly entertaining, and the afterword makes me think that an over-arcing plot would be fascinating to read about as well.

Review - Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object

Title: Live Nude Girl

Author: Kathleen Rooney

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press

# of Pages: 165

This review is based on an advanced reader's edition.

Favorite Line: We are drawn to- but baffled by- the experience of other people, thwarted by our inability to ever know what it is like to be someone else, but compelled by the duty we feel as humans to at least try.

Book Description Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object is a lively meditation on the profession of art modeling as it has been practiced in history and as it is practiced today. Kathleen Rooney draws on her own experiences working as an artist's model, as well as the famous, notorious, and mysterious artists and models through the ages. Through a combination of personal perspective, historical anecdote, and witty prose, Live Nude Girl reveals that both the appeal of posing nude for artists and the appeal of drawing the naked figure lie in our deeply human responses to beauty, sex, love, and death.

This is a difficult review to write for a myriad of reasons. One- I know the author. She is the elder sister of a very good friend of mine and has more recently become one of my friends as well. Tricky, tricky. Two- this is not the sort of book I usually read. I didn't realize before trying to start this review just how subjective my scoring system is. I rate books in relation to similar books that I have already read and rank them accordingly. I have never read another book like this one- a mixture of scholarship and memoir. And so I don't really know how to rate it.

Live Nude Girl challenged me in ways that I haven't been challenged since high school literature classes. Rooney quotes ancient Greeks, references Leonardo da Vinci, sets her book to a soundtrack of indie rock bands, and shares her own thoughts on what it's like to be a nude model for artists. The book is much more about people's perceptions of beauty and of art than it is about Rooney's experience of being a model. Rooney seems to be trying to figure out why she wanted to be a model by writing the book, rather than share the actual experience with readers. Towards the end of the book, she says, "I haven't made any single Big Self-Discovery or arrived at any exclusive Life-Changing Knowledge over the course of my art modeling career... So I don't know how good of a story my experiences make, lacking, as they do, both a clear climax and a natural endpoint."

At this point in the book, I paused (though there wasn't much point, as I was practically at the end), and wondered why an author would write a story when she herself admitted to a lack of climax or resolution. But really, Live Nude Girl is not so much a story as it is ruminations and stream of consciousness. For example, there is a lot of talk on how Rooney wants to be perceived as "pretty" by the artists she poses for. And then she wonders why she wants them to see her as pretty. And why people, in general, want to be perceived as pretty. And then shares quotes from famed and esteemed philosophers and writers. It sometimes made the book difficult to read, as I would go into and out of quotes and deep thoughts and all the rest. But it was interesting, nonetheless.

I don't think this is a book one can read all at once- it may be slim, but it is dense. Each chapter can stand as an essay on its own, and in retrospect, I recommend reading the book in that manner so that you can better mull over the ideas Rooney presents. And there are a lot of ideas presented, from the "nude model vs. loose woman" debate to the "artist's perception of the model vs. the model as she really is" debate. It's a thinking person's book- and it was fun to read it and be challenged by reading again, in ways I haven't been for so long.

Review: Point of Honour

Title: Point of Honour

Author: Madeleine E. Robins

Publisher: Tor

# of Pages: 344

Favorite Line: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Fallen Woman of good family must, soon or late, descend to whoredom.

This is the first book in the Sarah Tolerance mystery series.  I review the second book here and the third book here.


Rating: 8/10

From Booklist
In Regency England there were very few career options open to a woman with a ruined reputation. Disowned by her family after she ran off with her brother's fencing master, Sarah Brereton returns to England, takes Tolerance as her new last name, and becomes an "agent of inquiry." Hired to find an antique Italian fan, Sarah traces the fan through several owners, but her quest seems to cause the murders of several innocent people. After discovering that the earl of Versellion, Edward Folle, is really the man who hired her, both Sarah and the earl become the target of the killers when the seemingly harmless fan's secret is revealed to be quite dangerous. Robins plays a bit with history, but she effortlessly captures the texture of both the elegant realm of London's aristocrats and the far less glamorous world of those who serve them. As skilled with a sword as she is at uncovering secrets, Sarah is a fascinating heroine, and Robins surrounds her with equally intriguing secondary characters. Politics, deception, danger, and a bit of romance all come together beautifully in this superb debut.

I am a complete glutton when it comes to the Georgian or Regency era of history in England. Really, any non-fiction book I find that takes place within that slim 1770-1820 timeframe... I buy it. I don't even have to be interested in the subject matter. I just have to have it. Same goes for fiction, really. So when I heard about a book that takes place in an alternate Regency world, I snatched it up as soon as possible. What are the chances of a book involving elements of Regency and fantasy?! Too good to be true!

As it turns out, there is no magic or anything fantastical in the nature of this book except that it takes place in an alternate universe. However, even without magic, it's still a good time. I was caught from the first, Austen-esque sentence quoted above. Anyone who can start a book with an amusing Jane Austen reference is a winner to me. Fans of the era and of historical mystery, please don't let the creepy, apparition-like appearance of the pistol-wielding woman on the cover deter you. The writing is good. The cover could use some work. Really, how many women in the Regency era wore their hair down? None that I know!

Which is a neat way to segue into historical accuracy, a driving force in whether or not I will enjoy a book- especially one that is set in my chosen era of existence, if I were allowed to ensure that I would be born an independently wealthy and beautiful aristocrat. Robins makes her home in an alternate universe, with Queen Charlotte the Regent instead of the Prince of Wales, and the Prince of Wales a widower to a Catholic (and thus removed from the succession).

The change in history served the purpose of making the entire premise of the book possible- that a "Fallen Woman" could gain credibility to become a private detective, trusted by High Society to carry out their discreet investigations. This part of the story was hardest for me to swallow (though I did, because it makes it much more fun). Is it plausible that a young lady, fallen as she may have been, was likely to go around cross-dressing and hitting up brothels in very dangerous areas of London? I don't know if I believe that. But hey, it makes for entertaining reading.

There was another plot point that I found unrealistic, but I feel that describing it would be a spoiler, so I will hold my tongue.

Those are my main quibbles with what in all other respects is a really solid period mystery! The alternate history makes an interesting twist which I hope will be taken further in future novels starring Sarah Tolerance. Overall, a fun historical mystery that is a delight to read on the train and after a long day of work. If you like the Regency era, I highly recommend the book.

And if you are a Regency fan and have book recommendations- please let me know! Or if you would like recommendations, I am more than willing to give those out, too. And if you, like me, think that the combination of fantasy novel and the Regency era is like finding Atlantis, then I highly recommend Teresa Edgerton's Goblin Moon. It is one of my favorite reads of all time (sadly out of print and difficult to find) and its heroine, Sera, has a coveted spot on my "Heroines That Don't Annoy Me" list on the right. Sarah Tolerance has not made it to that list- but she has a lot of potential. The next book in the series, Petty Treason, may destine her for fame...

Review: Unpolished Gem

Title: Unpolished Gem

Author: Alice Pung

Publisher: Plume

# of Pages: 282

Rating: 5/10

I received this book free from Penguin Books to review.

From Publishers Weekly I was doomed, early on, to be a word-spreader, Pung writes, and her special burden was to tell these stories that the women of my family made me promise never to tell a soul. The stories are not of scandalous secrets or shocking revelations, but of the struggles faced by three generations of Asian women as they settle in a culturally Western country. Pung, a lawyer, recounts the journey her family made over the decades—from China, her grandparents' birthplace, to Cambodia, where her parents are born, through Vietnam and Thailand to Australia where, one month after their arrival, Pung is born. In retelling her grandmother's stories, the imagined is rendered credible; Pung captures her form of magic, the magic of words that became movies in mind. In recollecting her own story, Pung loses that magic in the ordinariness of adolescence, and as the family moves toward achieving the Great Australian Dream, it passes through familiar stages—the hard work of both parents, the distance created between generations and the anxieties suffered by the younger generation (I had done everything right, and I had turned out so wrong). The non-European-immigrant-girl-grows-up story is a familiar one to American readers. What's new about Pung's book is the Australian setting. That twist of focus reveals how more alike than different the experience is.

I am not sure if I think a girl my sister's age should be writing her memoirs. (My sister is turning 28 this year.) Egotistically, I compare people's life experiences to mine, and I don't think I have done anything memoir-worthy yet. I don't think the author of Unpolished Gem has done anything memoir-worthy, either. Basically, she grew up Asian in Australia. That is it.

I have read many books with the "child-of-immigrants-trying-to-assimilate-into-western-culture" storyline (see one I reviewed here). Actually, I live that story. I don't think it can be that different than other people's. But I will get into that later.

I think the story starts strong- perhaps because it is more about her parents and her grandparents than about her. She describes the plight of her mother with empathy- her mother is a strong, intelligent and hard-working woman living in a country where she is completely isolated due to language barriers. She also talks about her grandmother, and her wonderful ability to weave stories with words and gestures and voice inflection.

However, after that, the story goes to Alice herself, and I started to lose interest. It seems like Alice didn't really talk to anyone for much of her life- we rarely hear about her friends, and those that are mentioned only feature peripherally. We don't know much about any of her life that takes place outside her parents' home. Though it seems like she doesn't have much of a life that takes place outside her parents' house. She attends her high school graduation and realizes the only people in school she talks to are other Cambodian/Chinese students. She blames this on her "culture," and the inability for other people to understand it. Also, on her parents' strict curfew. She gets a white boyfriend, whom she breaks up with for reasons that I didn't quite understand. Though she was 18 at the time, so I suppose it is natural to break up with a guy at that age for obscure reasons.

I didn't really love the book. But that said, it looks like Australia doesn't have many books about the immigrant experience in that country, at least based on the newspaper reviews I've seen. In that case, maybe it is an important book.

Back to my earlier statement, though- can the second-generation immigrant experience really be that different than that of the "locals"? And would I even be allowed to ask that question if I weren't an ethnic minority myself? I know that I grew up eating different food than other kids in school, and wearing different clothes... but everyone has quirky relatives, and everyone's parents have odd rules (or an odd lack of rules), right? I enjoy having a very "strong cultural identity." That doesn't mean that every aspect of my life is directly related to being Indian. I feel like some people use the culture thing as an excuse for any issues they may have in their lives. Alice Pung seems to be one of those people. That's not to say that she doesn't have very real problems, or that her life isn't difficult. It is- but they are not all the fault of her parents and her immigrant culture.

Review: The Domino Men

Title: The Domino Men

Author: Jonathan Barnes

Publisher: William Morrow

# of Pages: 387

Rating: N/A

I did not finish reading this book (DNF).

Product Description

In an earlier century, Queen Victoria made a Faustian bargain, signing London and all its souls away to a nefarious, inhuman entity. Now, generations later, the bill has finally come due. . . .

Henry Lamb, an amiable and anonymous file clerk, pushes paper in the Storage and Record Retrieval section of the Civil Service Archive Unit. His life has always been quiet and unremarkable—until the day he learns that he's expected to assume the covert responsibilities of his universally despised grandfather, now lying comatose in the hospital.

Summoned to the gargantuan Ferris wheel known as the London Eye, Henry receives his orders from Dedlock, a gilled and wrinkled old gentleman eternally floating in a pool of amniotic fluid. London, it seems, is at war, resisting an apocalyptic fate foisted upon it by a long-dead queen. A shadowy organisation known (to very few) as the Directorate wishes to recruit Henry to the cause. All he has to do is find "the girl" and save the world from the monster Leviathan, who can already taste the succulent metropolis that will soon be his to devour. Simple enough.

But there are formidable enemies lining up to oppose Henry, all gathering in and around the royal family. His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Arthur Aelfric Vortigern Windsor—the sniveling, overbored, underappreciated sole heir to the British throne—has been shaken from his resentful malaise by grisly, seductive visions of unrestrained power . . . and by an extremely potent narcotic called ampersand. And an unspeakable evil lurks in the cellar of 10 Downing Street: the twin, serial-slaying schoolboy nightmares, the Domino Men—so-called for their hideous desire and terrifying ability to topple every towering edifice in the city, one after the other . . . just for a giggle.

Gosh, that is a long-winded description of this book. If it takes that long to describe it, you can imagine how long it takes to read it. That is unfair, actually. The book does not take a very long time to read. It is just finding the motivation to do so that takes time.
I read Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist about a year ago and reviewed it here. I enjoyed the book for the first half, and then Barnes lost me, and then I lost respect for the story. However, I ended that book with the feeling that Barnes was a promising author to keep on my 'To Watch" list.
So I picked up the sequel to The Somnambulist through Amazon's Vine program. I did not finish it. Once again, the narrator caught my attention at the beginning and held it, but the plot just didn't do it for me. Barnes's plot requires a massive suspension of belief. I read and enjoy fantasy novels; it is difficult for me to do this. It really depends on the rhythm of the story. I think that Barnes has an excellent style of writing- it's the plot that continues to leave me cold. He is so grisly and his story so convoluted that I just didn't care to continue. So I didn't. I could just tell that once again, I was going down bizarre and disturbing twists that I didn't wish to see through to conclusion.

Some people feel compelled to read a book to the end, whether they enjoy it or not. I do not subscribe to this. There are so many books to read, so many stories in which to immerse yourself. Why waste time forcing yourself to read one you don't like when you could instead read one that could leave you breathless?

And the winner is...

Kay! Congratulations, Kay- you left the very first comment and you won :-) Please e-mail me your address (aarti.nagaraju at gmail.com) and I will get the book off to you as soon as possible.



Thank you to everyone who entered- I am so glad to see that Persuasion made the list twice! That is my favorite Austen book as well, though I think it is probably her least-read, depressingly. It's absolutely wonderful and far more romantic than any of the others, I think. Also, her caricatures of personality are excellent in that novel. In my opinion :-)

My heart, though, shall always belong to Mr. Darcy. Or, to be honest, Mr. Darcy as played by Colin Firth. Though Mr. Knightley as played by Jeremy Northam is quite attractive as well. Oh, so many fictional men, so little time...

In any case, I hope you all have a lovely Sunday, thank you for visiting the blog, and thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to visit all of yours as well! I will have to either "follow" all of you or add you to the blog roll!