Joint Musings: King Hereafter, Part 2

To start this year off right, Sharon from Library Hungry and I decided to do a buddy read of Dorothy Dunnett's King Hereafter, which is a book that's been on my TBR pile for years and years. King Hereafter is about Thorfinn, better known to history as Macbeth, and his rise from an awkward boy trying to defend his small plot of land to a respected king of a vast swath of land. And at his side is his beautiful, brilliant wife Groa, who helps his come fully into his own.

King Hereafter is a very long book, so we've broken up our discussion into the books four parts. Below is the first half of our discussion on Part 2. For the second half, please visit Sharon's blog at Library Hungry. The first part of our discussion can be found here and here. Enjoy!

Joint Musings: Farthing

Farthing is the first book in Jo Walton's Small Change trilogy set in an alternate post-WWII Britain.  The United States never entered the war, and Britain came to terms with Hitler to end the war - so Hitler's campaign to cleanse the world continues in Europe, and Britain's powerful Farthing set continues to set post-war policy for the country.

One morning, a prominent politician is found dead at a house party.  The top suspect is a Jewish man married to Lucy, a pretty, naive young woman who just happens to be the daughter of one of Britain's political power coupons.  Detective Carmichael is assigned to the case, which becomes more and more murky.  Can he clear Lucy's husband of murder without exposing his own secrets?

This was an utterly brilliant novel, and I was so thrilled to discuss it afterward with Kelly and Ana.  Kelly unfortunately had to bow out of our discussion early, but Ana and I discussed the whole book.  Below is the first half of our group discussion, and you can find the second half on Ana's blog, things mean a lot.

Joint Musings: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

Ana from things mean a lot and I read Patricia McKillip's World Fantasy Award winner The Forgotten Beasts of Eld together some time ago.  And thank goodness I had a reading partner for this one because it was a surprisingly complex and subtle novel.  Completely different in tone from the previous McKillip I've read (and loved), Alphabet of Thorn, The Forgotten Beasts of Love is about power and the effect it can have on both the wielders of it and the victims of it.

Sybel is descended from gods, and she lives happily without any human contact for a very long time.  Her only companions are the animals that she has sought out and brought under her power.  Her goal is to find the liralen, an elusive and beautiful bird that continues to evade her.  But one night, her solitude is interrupted by Coren, a man who comes to her with a baby boy and begs her to raise the boy and keep him safe.  After a long hesitation, Sybel agrees, and this decision changes everything because the boy is not just any boy, but the heir to a kingdom.  As Sybel tries to balance her allegiance to two enemy camps, she struggles to keep her own independence and stay true to the person she wants to be.

Below is the second half of the conversation Ana and I had about this book.  Check out the first half on her blog.  It's pretty long and it's a spoiler minefield, so be warned if you plan to read this book (though we warn you below in bold letters when you are getting to the spoilers, so don't worry yet)!  But we noticed that there isn't a lot of discussion of this book on the interwebs, and it's one that really begs for detailed discussion, so we thought we'd put our thoughts down on a lot of details, for posterity.  (And when I say "our" thoughts, I mostly mean Ana's.  As you will see, she was not nearly as flummoxed by the book as I was and made the book so much clearer to me!)  Enjoy!

A and Z March Through the Middle: Middlemarch Book IV

Zibilee and I are here once again, discussing Book IV of George Eliot's epic novel Middlemarch.  We're halfway there!

For those of you who may not know, the lovely and fabulous and eloquent Zibilee and I are reading George Eliot's Middlemarch together over the next several weeks (possibly months) in a fairly meandering and highly unscheduled manner.  Basically, our plan is to read one book (there are eight books that comprise the novel) and then discuss it and analyze it into submission so that our weary modern minds can understand it :-)

Based on the nature of our discussion, spoilers abound ahead!  But so does pure literary conversational awesomeness, so weigh your options to read or not to read and choose accordingly.

The first half of our Part IV discussion is here, and the second half is at Zibilee's blog, Raging Bibliomania.  We chat about farcical funerals, the issues of power and control, poor parenting and life decisions gone wrong.  We hope you enjoy the discussion and participate if you've read the book!  If you've not yet read Middlemarch, our discussion will be in the archives, waiting for you.

Joint Musings: Lions of the West Epilogue - John Quincy Adams

 A couple of months ago, Kari from Five Borough Books asked me to read Lions of the West:  Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion with her and participate in a blog discussion about the book.  I jumped at the chance, not only because I wanted to get even more in-depth on this historical era, but also because Kari is really pretty awesome. 

Lions of the West presents short biographies of eight men who were integral to the process of America expanding west across the North American continent.  Kari and I chose to discuss each man in-dept over the course of a few weeks.  We started the discussion here with the chapter on Thomas Jefferson.  Below is our discussion of the book's epilogue and final thoughts about the book as a whole.   Hopefully, it piques your interest enough to delve more into American history and understand the complex relationships that existed, and continue to exist, between so many different cultures.

For links to every discussion we have had on this book, please see my "Books Reviewed by Title" tab.

Joint Musings: Lions of the West, Chapter 8 - Kit Carson

 A couple of months ago, Kari from Five Borough Books asked me to read Lions of the West:  Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion with her and participate in a blog discussion about the book.  I jumped at the chance, not only because I wanted to get even more in-depth on this historical era, but also because Kari is really pretty awesome. 

Lions of the West presents short biographies of eight men who were integral to the process of America expanding west across the North American continent.  Kari and I chose to discuss each man in-dept over the course of a few weeks.  We started the discussion here with the chapter on Thomas Jefferson.  Below is our discussion of Kit Carson, one of the West's greatest scouts.  As you can see, we are both suffering a bit of Mexican War fatigue with this book, but we hope you enjoy the below discussion, anyway.  Hopefully, it piques your interest enough to delve more into American history and understand the complex relationships that existed, and continue to exist, between so many different cultures.

Joint Musings: Lions of the West: Chapter 6 - James Polk

 A couple of months ago, Kari from Five Borough Books asked me to read Lions of the West:  Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion with her and participate in a blog discussion about the book.  I jumped at the chance, not only because I wanted to get even more in-depth on this historical era, but also because Kari is really pretty awesome. 

Lions of the West presents short biographies of eight men who were integral to the process of America expanding west across the North American continent.  Kari and I chose to discuss each man in-dept over the course of a few weeks.  We started the discussion here with the chapter on Thomas Jefferson.  Below is our discussion of James Polk, a president neither of us think we would like much at all.  We hope you enjoy the below discussion and that it piques your interest enough to delve more into American history and understand the complex relationships that existed, and continue to exist, between so many different cultures.

A and Z March through the Middle: Middlemarch Part III

You probably thought we gave up on this read, didn't you?  Bot no!  Zibilee and I are back with a vengeance here, discussing Book III of George Eliot's epic novel Middlemarch.  For those of you who may not know, the lovely and fabulous and eloquent Zibilee and I are reading George Eliot's Middlemarch together over the next several weeks in a fairly meandering and highly unscheduled manner.  Basically, our plan is to read one book (there are eight books that comprise the novel) and then discuss it and analyze it into submission so that our weary modern minds can understand it :-)

No, for real, this is how the novel is meant to be read!  It came out in eight separate parts originally, and who are we to disagree with George Eliot, the woman so tough she wrote as a man?  Plus, this way, we can get into great detail on each section of the book, instead of trying to converse on the whole 1,000+ pages of it all at once.

Based on the nature of our discussion, spoilers abound ahead!  But so does pure literary conversational awesomeness, so weigh your options to read or not to read and choose accordingly. 

The first half of our Part III discussion is here, and the second half is at Zibilee's blog, Raging Bibliomania.  We chat about debts (mainly those of one particularly well-meaning but bumbling young man) and social cluelessness (also in the character of a well-meaning but bumbling young man) below, and at Heather's, we talk about death (particularly of an older, unkind gentleman) and jealousy (of the May-December marriage variety).  Hope you'll check out both the entries and share your thoughts with us!

Joint Musings: Lions of the West: Chapter 4 - David Crockett

A couple of months ago, Kari from Five Borough Books asked me to read Lions of the West:  Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion with her and participate in a blog discussion about the book.  I jumped at the chance, not only because I wanted to get even more in-depth on this historical era, but also because Kari is really pretty awesome. 

Lions of the West presents short biographies of eight men who were integral to the process of America expanding west across the North American continent.  Kari and I chose to discuss each man in-dept over the course of a few weeks.  We started the discussion here with the chapter on Thomas Jefferson.  Below is our discussion of the fourth chapter, on Davey Crockett.  We hope you enjoy the below discussion and that it piques your interest enough to delve more into American history and understand the complex relationships that existed, and continue to exist, between so many different cultures.

See our post on Chapter 3, Johnny Appleseed, here. 

Joint Musings: Lions of the West, Chapter 1

A couple of years ago, I started reading and learning more about Native Americans.  I fell in love with Sherman Alexie, bought a copy of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, started reading some articles about the Indian experience, visited the National Museum of the American Indian in DC, and realized that so much of American history happened with Indians and whites together, whereas now the two are nearly separate.

A couple of months ago, Kari from Five Borough Books asked me to read Lions of the West:  Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion with her and participate in a blog discussion about the book.  I jumped at the chance, not only because I wanted to get even more in-depth on this historical era, but also because Kari is really pretty awesome.

Lions of the West presents short biographies of eight men who were integral to the process of America expanding west across the North American continent.  Kari and I chose to discuss each man in-dept over the course of a few weeks.  Below is our discussion of the first chapter that centered on Thomas Jefferson.  On Thursday, Kari will post our discussion of the second chapter, on Andrew Jackson.  We hope you enjoy the below discussion and that it piques your interest enough to delve more into American history and understand the complex relationships that existed, and continue to exist, between so many different cultures.

See our discussion of Chapter 2, Andrew Jackson, on Kari's blog here.

A and Z March Through the Middle: Middlemarch Part II

Heather and I have finished Part II of George Eliot's Middlemarch!  For those of you who may not know, the lovely and fabulous and eloquent Zibilee and I are reading George Eliot's Middlemarch together over the next several weeks in a fairly meandering and highly unscheduled manner.  Basically, our plan is to read one book (there are eight books that comprise the novel) and then discuss it and analyze it into submission so that our weary modern minds can understand it :-)

No, for real, this is how the novel is meant to be read!  It came out in eight separate parts originally, and who are we to disagree with George Eliot, the woman so tough she wrote as a man?  Plus, this way, we can get into great detail on each section of the book, instead of trying to converse on the whole 1,000+ pages of it all at once.

Based on the nature of our discussion, spoilers abound ahead!  But so does pure literary conversational awesomeness, so weigh your choices and choose accordingly.  The first half of our Part II discussion is over at Raging Bibliomania and goes into series detail on the men that populate Middlemarch, particularly the evil Mr. Bulstrode, so hop over there first and then come back here to catch up with the second half, where we discuss almost everybody else.

Let us commence.

Joints Musings: The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands

I've mentioned many times before that my great love for my Kindle stems almost entirely from the massive, obscure, esoteric and fabulous free library that is at my disposal through Project Gutenberg.  I often look through the Gutenberg website specifically for memoirs written by women, and I came across The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands in exactly this manner.

Mary Seacole was a mixed race woman born in Jamaica in the 19th century.  She was married and widowed young, and never remarried, instead running several hotels throughout the Caribbean and becoming a very capable nurse.  When the Crimean War started, she decided to take her healing skills to the front and took on a substantial loan to travel from Jamaica to England and then to the Crimea to open a hotel and tend the soldiers there.  She was a very strong, determined and fascinating woman and I was so excited to read about her.

Ana from things mean a lot read the book, too, and below is the first half of our conversation about the book (and a much more general conversation that stemmed from the book but doesn't relate directly to it).  For the second half of the conversation, visit Ana's blog- it has a lot of the good bits on a woman's place in Victorian England and the fine line between what we say drives us to do things and the motivation that actually does drive us.  I hope you enjoy it!

A and Z March through the Middle: Part I

Hello friends!  As you may or may not know, the lovely and fabulous and eloquent Zibilee and I are reading George Eliot's Middlemarch together over the next several weeks in a fairly meandering, unscheduled (well, we started scheduled and quickly lost sight of that) manner.  One of the first things I noticed about the book was the beautiful covers it has sported through the years, and so I'll be sure to share those with you over the course of our discussion.  Basically, our plan is to read one book (there are eight books that comprise the novel) and then discuss it and analyze it into submission so that our weary modern minds can understand it :-)

No, for real, this is how the novel is meant to be read!  It came out in eight separate parts originally, and who are we to disagree with George Eliot, the woman so tough she wrote as a man?  Plus, this way, we can get into great detail on each section of the book, instead of trying to converse on the whole 1,000+ pages of it all at once.

Based on the nature of our discussion, spoilers abound ahead!  But so does pure literary conversational awesomeness, so weigh your choices and choose accordingly.  The first half of our Part I discussion is here on BookLust, but for the real meat of our discussion, be sure to check out Heather's post on Raging Bibliomania.

Let us commence.

Joint Musings: The Sleeping Partner

The Sleeping Partner is the third book in Madeleine Robins' Sarah Tolerance mystery series (see my reviews of the first book, Point of Honour, and the second book, Petty Treason) set in an alternate Regency England in which Queen Charlotte rules as Regent (currently).  I am a huge fan of this series because I love the way Robins has played so subtly with the Regency to bring attention to gender roles and sexual power in this historical period.  I also love the series because Sarah Tolerance is awesome.  She is in the perfect position to straddle all levels of society, from the cream of the Ton that comprise her clients all the way to the young boys that work menial jobs sweeping the streets.

In this outing, Sarah Tolerance is hired by a lady whose sister Evadne has gone missing.  She's terrified for her sister's well-being though she's also quite frank about the fact that, now that her sister has been missing for several days, her future even if found safe is pretty dire.  Sarah, being a Fallen Woman herself, immediately feels for the missing girl and sets out to find her, embroiling herself deep in a sordid family history that involves war profiteering, re-encountering her own lost family and meeting both Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley along the way (hey, it's an alternate history, so it's possible!).  And all the while, she's struggling with figuring out her complicated feelings for her good friend Sir Walter Mandiff and trying to determine if her brothel-keeper Aunt Thea is going insane or just being odd.  Sarah's a busy girl, but she's up to the challenge!

I read this book with my friend Sudha, whom I introduced to the series when I first started reading it.  Sudha is the one who alerted me to the fact that a new book was out, and we were both excited to drop everything we were reading at the time to get cracking on this one.  Below are our thoughts on the book.

Joint Musings: The Night Circus

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, is one of the most-anticipated novels of the year.  In it, two highly skilled magicians, Celia and Marco, are unwittingly ensnared into competition with each other.  Celia has been raised by her very self-absorbed father to be the greatest magician possible.  Marco, an orphan brought up by an emotionally unavailable man, has trained his whole life for the same thing.  Their venue?  The Night Circus, an incredibly imagined and gorgeously executed idea that they use to share their magical prowess with the world and with each other.  But as Celia and Marco become more intrigued by each other, the circus begins to wobble, and the two must choose whether to be together when everything they've worked for may collapse, or to collapse themselves under the strain of the circus itself.

Erin Morgenstern was an artist before she was an author, and so her descriptions of The Night Circus are stunning.  It's a fully realized and fascinating place.  I loved reading about it, but that was one of the few things that I truly loved about this novel.  Unlike many, I was not swept away by this book.

I read it with one of my best blogging buddies, Zibilee, and chatting with her about the book was so rewarding and really opened up many more doors to interpretation and discussion than I had originally anticipated.  Below is the second half of our joint review of this book.  Check out Raging Bibliomania for the first half.

Joint Musings: A Band of Noble Women

I heard about the book A Band of Noble Women:  Racial Politics in the Women's Peace Movement from Eva and was instantly interested in reading it.  We both got to read the book through NetGalley and decided to discuss our thoughts and share them with all of you in a joint review format.


A Band of Noble Women is a non-fiction book about key players in the Women's Peace Movement after WWI- a group of women internationally who wanted to ensure that war would never happen again.  As the group was comprised of women all over the world, there were many politics involved, but the US contingent in particular had to deal with the racial politics of the day and African-American women serving as delegates faced significant setbacks.  The result?  They started fighting for rights at home.  This book highlights some truly wonderful, fascinating women who did so much to fight discrimination in the world, specifically in the United States.  While the book had some severe flaws, I am grateful to have read it solely to have learned more about these strong and passionate women.

Below is Eva's half of our review of this book.  I responded to the same questions, and these are posted over on Eva's blog.  Check it out, if we've piqued your interest at all!

Joint Musings: The Blind Assassin

In her intricately woven novel, The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood gives us the life story of Laura and Iris Chase, two sisters whose fates are intertwined from their first recollections to their last.  Daughters of a dissolute and extremely wealthy factory owner, both Laura and Iris are raised in the lap of luxury by their parochial mother, but when she dies, it is up to their housekeeper Reenie and Iris herself to do the job of raising the sisters, a job that their father cannot do.  While Iris is mostly a solitary young girl and woman, Laura is more flighty and taken by strange notions and beliefs that shape her consciousness and the way that she views the world, a fact that will change both her destiny and her sister’s.

Meanwhile, running concurrently with the story of Laura’s and Iris’ lives, a third story, housed within a second, is taking place simultaneously. A young woman is having an affair with a man who is on the run, and the two are forced to meet in various abodes that he has been able to negotiate. The young man begins to create a fantastic tale for the woman’s entertainment, of an alternate universe where aliens make hostile overtures, bands of a renegade tribes are on the loose, and where human sacrifice is the order of the day. The hero of this universe is the titular blind assassin, who will go to great lengths to live up to his calling. As the story of young lovers and their fantastical story moves forward, it is sandwiched between the continuing life saga of both Iris and Laura, one of whom will end up dead under mysterious circumstances, leaving the other to carry her memory.  Both fantastically imagined, and beautifully crafted, The Blind Assassin is a triumph of literary achievement from one of the world’s most beloved authors.

I read this book with Heather from Raging Bibliomania as one of our sporadic buddy reads.  We have the good fortune of picking really great, meaty books to discuss with each other, and this one was no exception!  What follows is the first half of an (heavily truncated, for the sake of spoiler-protection) email chain between the two of us, chatting about the book.  Check out the second half at Heather's blog today here.

Joint Musings: In a Dark Wood Wandering

I have had Hella Haasse's In a Dark Wood Wandering sitting on my shelf for over five years, but never brought myself to pick it up.  Somehow, a few months ago, Heather from Capricious Reader and I started talking about the book and how neither of us had ever seen any reviews of it on any of the blogs we followed, which we thought strange.  So in the interest of helping blogosphere discover the work, we decided to do a buddy read of it.  And then everyone would learn the glory of Haasse's fabulous work!

Unfortunately, though, neither of us thought the work fabulous or got much past the halfway point of the book.  So gone are our grandiose plans of sharing this wonder with you, but in case the below description intrigues you enough to give this book a try, the second half of our discussion on the book is here.  The first half is on Heather's blog.

In a Dark Wood Wandering is set in 14th and 15th century France and England, centering on Charles d'Orleans, the nephew of the mad French king.  Charles enters the frightening world of French political intrigue at a young age, after both his parents die and leave him to defend his claims to his rightful inheritance.  But France is at war with itself and Charles must navigate his life through alliances and debts that he can barely understand.  Charles d'Orleans was a real person, and is considered one of France's greatest poets.  However, I didn't get far enough in the book to actually read the poetry!

Heather's Musings: The Hakawati

I was lucky enough to do another buddy read with Heather from Raging Bibliomania to close out 2010, and it was a great way to end the year!  This time, we chose to read The Hakawati, a modern-day story wrapped up in a fabulous re-telling of the Arabian Nights.  We both really enjoyed the story, particularly being able to discuss it with each other!  But this time, rather than sharing with you our conversation about the book, we thought we'd just swap reviews.  So below are Heather's very eloquent thoughts on The Hakawati.  My thoughts are much the same, but if you want to read them in my less-beautiful writing style, feel free to hop on over to Heather's blog to see them.

Heather, I'm so glad to have read this with you!

Random side note:  I think every cover of this book is GORGEOUS, so I'm sharing them all in this post :-)

Joint Musings: The Lions of Al-Rassan

The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay, is one of my favorite books of all time.  I read it several years ago, I think in high school.  And then Heather over at Raging Bibliomania said she wanted to read it, and I jumped at the chance to read the book again.  It did not disappoint, and I'm excited for the opportunity to share the book with you all!

The Lions of Al-Rassan takes place in an alternate (BARELY alternate, I might add) version of Spain in the Middle Ages, when the country was ruled by the Moors.  Kay gives us three main characters, all from different religions.  There is Jehane, the Kindath physician (who also already holds a place on my Women Who Don't Annoy Me list), Ammar the Asharite warrior-poet, based loosely on the historical figure El Cid, and Rodrigo, the Jaddite counselor whose king dismisses him.  All three of these characters meet at King Badir's court as political intrigue, racial tension and military maneuvering begin to overwhelm the region.  Life will never be the same for anyone, but for Jehane, Ammar and Rodrigo, their time at Badir's court will mark them forever.

What follows is a Q&A Heather and I had about the book.  Tomorrow, Heather will post a more a casual conversation we had about more general themes.  Check it out!