Recent reading

[luzula]

I haven't made a book logging post for over a month! This is partly because I've been reading a lot of Yuletide, but also because I needed to save my hands. But now, with the joys of dictation, I can make one.

Britain’s Lost Revolution, by Daniel Szechi (2015)
Yes, it's another book about Jacobite history! I was fascinated by the stuff in his other book about how Jacobite policies rapidly became less and less about autocratic kings and more and more about guaranteeing the power of parliament. This book goes deeper into how that shift happened in the early 1700s, and about the failed Jacobite rising of 1708. Apparently the author has dug deep into French archives, so there's a lot about the diplomatic maneuvering between the French court, the Jacobite court, and their British supporters. Queen Mary of Modena seems to have been a skilful politician.

A Spindle Splintered, by Alix Harrow (2021)
This was for book club, and I didn't entirely bounce off it as I did with the author’s witch book. But I also thought it was fairly forgettable. The secondary world felt kind of thin, because it was mostly constructed for the purposes of a meta discussion of fairy tales. I think this author is just not for me.

I have also participated in regshoe’s readalong of Flight of the Heron, which has been a delight and a joy. It's so good to see new people coming into the fandom, and get new interesting angles on the book. I also beta read a novel draft by naraht, which I greatly enjoyed, though I also did a lot of nitpicking around navigation, which I guess is typical of me. I guess you could describe it as a science fictional gen soulbond story with deep space exploration? And finally, I read about a fourth of Christopher Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down (1972), about radicals during the English Civil War. Then I had to take it back to the library because someone was waiting for it; I guess I'll order it again.

Comments

[regshoe]

The continued Jacobite reading sounds good! All that politics and diplomacy is really another side of the whole thing from the memorable image of the '45 and romantic Highland Jacobitism, and must be fascinating to learn more about.

Ooh, I hope you can return to The World Turned Upside Down soon—how are you finding it so far?

[luzula]

Yes, the focus in this book was on diplomacy and plotting, not very romantic. It really shows how contingent many events were, for example an emissary threw all his documents overboard when he thought an enemy ship was approaching, so when he got to France, he had to go back again to Scotland to get the credentials to prove that he was a proper representative. This delayed the planned rising for a year!

Yes, I did enjoy the world turned upside down, but it is an academic book and not a popular one. Since I don't know as much about the 17th century, there were a lot of references to people I didn't know.

[regshoe]

Oh, wow—that is certainly a good example of highly contingent history!

Yes, I do remember it assuming quite a lot of background context that I didn't know about. I ought to read more about the period, really, it's a fascinating bit of history. (I've very much enjoyed reading a bit more about it in The Rider of the White Horse, which I've just finished!).