Recent reading
Jan. 23rd, 2022 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaI 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 inregshoe’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.
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.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-27 10:00 pm (UTC)Okay, it makes more sense now that I know it was a university library :D
I did not actually know that Mary Queen of Scots grew up in France...
I do find academic history books quite difficult to read because the authors spend so much page space arguing with other authors whose works I am not familiar with, and explaining how their theories differ from other existing theories that I'm also not familiar with... I guess it's normal, because they have to justify that their grant money was used to produce new and significant research, but it does make it very difficult for the poor non-academic reader like me! I wish they would just clearly state the facts or say what their own theories are! I was very proud recently when I realised that I had now struggled through enough academic books about the industrial revolution to understand what authors mean when they say they agree or disagree with the Hammonds, Thompson, Hobsbawm, etc. but it took years.