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Vodkafan's 2016 Reading Adventure


vodkafan

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I nearly bought The Yard last week, I'm glad I didn't now! I don't think I would have noticed the specific inaccuracies in the police department because I don't know enough about it but the dialogue mistakes would have bothered me.

 

I know this is a bit late as well but if you're interested in Victorian paintings there's a good book called Victorian Fairy Painting edited by Jane Martineau. It has seven essays which are all really interesting and then a catalogue of some of the most notable paintings at the back with little explanatory notes next to them. The essays look at the subject of fairies in Victorian literature, music and theatre too, as well as in book illustration. It's quite a large hardback (although not that thick) and very pretty, I got mine really cheaply on ebay, it shouldn't be hard to get hold of, I'd definitely recommend it.

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Thanks Hayley, I will look out for that one! It's never too late to tell me about a book about Victoriana. Paxman actually had a little section about fairy painting in his book, but not in detail.

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Well Victoriana is a subject I'm always happy to talk about  :D

 

Are there any (Victorian) topics you're particularly interested in?

 

Have you seen 'Victorian Things', 'Victorian Cities' and 'Victorian People' by Asa Briggs? I've only read the first one so far but that's really good. It's literally packed with information which does make it quite dense, I probably wouldn't recommend just reading it in one sitting, but a great reference book. You can also get the three in a really, really pretty folio set for £20.

 

I've actually just realised (by going to check if you already had Briggs on there) that you have a section in your 'to read' list specifically for books set in the Victorian period so I'm going to go and steal some of those ideas now  :giggle2:

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Hayley, I didn't realise that you are another Victorianaphile! (If that's an actual word) I have Victorian Things although it doesn't appear on my list, and have been working through it slowly in between other reads.

It is amazing how Victorians packed their houses with things . I have twice visited Linley Sambourne's house in 18 Stafford Terrace which has been preserved as it was, and you literally can't move for objects everywhere.

Have you been to the back to backs in Birmingham? I intend to go there this year. 

In answer to your question, I am interested in everything about them.

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Capturing Jack The Ripper  In the Boots of a Bobby in Victorian London  5/5

 

Neil R. A. Bell

 

This was the excellent factual book from which I gleaned the information revealing The Yard such a risible effort of a novel. I don't have much interest in Jack The Ripper, it was originally the first half of the book that I wanted to read for research purposes. It is a mine of precious information that is not often covered in other books about Victorian London. To give just one example, I already suspected that 19th century Police stations were connected by electric telegraph; not only did this confirm it, but even told the method used, the way the networks was connected so that messages cascaded down, and even some of the callsigns used ! Indirectly just as important, It also confirmed that police stations did not have telephones, even as late as 1888! (the first London phone book was printed in 1880, with about 200 numbers). The only station with a telephone line was Scotland Yard, but this was later disconnected because the public kept phoning up!

 As one of the characters in my novel is a detective, I was particularly interested in the chapter covering the"tecs" , which showed most everything I needed to know. Because of this I have had to change the rank of my character, to make him more plausible he cannot be an inspector as I first made him. So that's all good.

I carried on reading into the second half of the book, which covers the awful Ripper murders from a police point of view. It makes no sensational claims or theories about the identity of the killer. All the cases still remain open to this day.

I cannot praise this book highly enough. It even had descriptions and diagrams of the insides of police stations.  

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The Keys Of Egypt      5/5

 

Lesley and Roy Adkins

 

Because we have grown up in age of colourful books about Ancient Egypt, it's easy to assume that we have always known what we now know. But in fact almost nothing was known about the land or its long forgotten peoples until the very last years of the 1700s. It was good old Napoleon Bonaparte who sent a scientific team of "savants" (love that word!) and artists (it was before photography) to begin to prise open the secrets buried in the deserts.   They were amazed by the pyramids and other artifacts, but nobody could read the hieroglyphs or other ancient writings. The Rosetta Stone was an early find which seemed to offer a key, as it was believed to show the same text in three different languages, one of which was Ancient Greek.

The book details, in a very readable way, the life story of the man who would eventually decipher the hieroglyphs, Jean-Francois Champollion.

The path was far from smooth, involving ill health, revolution and upheavals, political intrigue, scholarly jealousy and an English rival!

This book was great fun and good history.

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The Selfish Gene   5/5

 

Richard Dawkins

 

I should have written this review while it was still fresh in my mind, as some of the more detailed arguments are already fading from memory. This book is a keeper, though, so I will certainly read this again before too long.

The basic premise is that evolution happens at the level of the gene rather than the individual organism, which was previously thought. His arguments are cogent and very persuasive. Genes are virtually indestructable (we have sequences of genes in us unchanged from when life  had much simpler forms) but the individual person or animal is a shuffle of chromosones  from two parents that is totally unique and lasts only one generation. That was the first and shocking revelation; how truly unique each person is. Your particular shuffle of genes has never existed before and will never be duplicated again.  

It is our genes that must survive; the organism is just a very complex survival machine, a biological robot that does it's job for a single generation and dies. In this sense we are expendable.

I read on, now hooked. Dawkins pulls in lots of different arguments for and against to prove his points. I particularly enjoyed the chapters about Game Theory (something I had never heard of) and their relevance to gene survival.

I will be reading much more of Dawkins.        

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Destined To Be Wives  The Sisters of Beatrice Webb   2/5

 

Barbara Caine

 

This book comes under the category of women's social history. The  upper middle class Potter family had ten daughters.  They were also spread over a period that covered a time of great change in society attitudes to women and what roles they were allowed.  Beatrice Potter (not to be confused with Beatrix Potter who wrote the rabbit stories) was a bit of a rebel who became a social and political reformer after marrying Sidney Webb. She was the famous one. Because the younger sisters had quite different opportunities to the oldest sisters this family offers an almost unique opportunity for study.

The author looks at every aspect of their lives  from childhood, education, social life, marriage, old age and death and compares them to each other. It also looks at how they (sometimes) formed a female support and survival network  for each other.

It was interesting, (far more interesting than the book I read about the Mitford sisters) but because it is essentially a scholarly work could not help but be a bit dry in places.    

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Kursk    4/5

 

Lloyd Clark

 

Kursk. Biggest ever tank battle in history.  I mean really really big. The Russians had over 5,000 tanks and about 2 million men in this one event. One of those pivotal moments that undoubtedly shaped the way history went. After it was over the German army's strength was sapped and it could never have won the war.

 The early chapters cover Stalingrad the previous year which was good to read too which explained how Kursk came to happen. With such a huge battle It has to take a fairly large overview so there is not too much from individual soldiers perspective, but snippets from memoirs skillfully mixed in keep it exciting and shows how awful it must have been. 

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Hayley, I didn't realise that you are another Victorianaphile! (If that's an actual word) I have Victorian Things although it doesn't appear on my list, and have been working through it slowly in between other reads.

It is amazing how Victorians packed their houses with things . I have twice visited Linley Sambourne's house in 18 Stafford Terrace which has been preserved as it was, and you literally can't move for objects everywhere.

Have you been to the back to backs in Birmingham? I intend to go there this year. 

In answer to your question, I am interested in everything about them.

 

If it's not a word, it should be  :giggle2:

Linley Sambourne's house looks really interesting! 

I haven't been to the back to backs, which I know is terrible because I live really close to them, but it's just one of those things I never got round to doing! Have you been to the black country museum? I think it goes up to about the 1940's but a lot of it is Victorian. I haven't been for years but I used to love it. 

Since you're interested in everything about Victorians, I can recommend another book I got last year - Victorian Entertainment by Alan Delgado. It's actually a really fun, easy read and some of the pictures are great (there's a mixture of illustrations and early photographs). 

 

Capturing Jack the Ripper sounds good. To be honest I would have assumed from the title that it did try to make sensational claims about the identity of the murderer and for that reason probably wouldn't have picked it up. I can't believe Scotland Yard disconnected their phone because people kept calling them  :giggle2:

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Had a sort through of books this morning and selected about a dozen that I haven't read but now can't remember why I wanted to read them in the first place. Sadly they didn't even ever get added on to my TBR pile so I won't be making that any shorter. I will take them to the charity shop. 

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Had a sort through of books this morning and selected about a dozen that I haven't read but now can't remember why I wanted to read them in the first place. Sadly they didn't even ever get added on to my TBR pile so I won't be making that any shorter. I will take them to the charity shop. 

 

I've done that several times over the last few months. It's a nice feeling actually, and takes the feeling of pressure off. I had a fair few books on my shelf that I had no interest in reading, so off they went to the charity shop.:boogie:

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Having another bitty reading cycle right now. Can't seem to finish a book or even watch a movie all the way through. Some things going on which I will talk about in my New Life thread when I get around to it

 

Along with a clutch of other books I have started, I am reading two books sort of side by side that are written by women and deal with the female experience, although are not exactly feminist.

The first is Marge Piercy  Woman On The Edge Of Time .  I started it ages ago and the plot premise is exciting but I am really struggling with it. The second is The Crowded Street by Winifrid Holtby, which I will have finished by the weekend. It is fiction grounded in the writers own experiences but, strangely I am finding this more surreal than the SF novel!  

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Well I have been completely pathetic this year. Haven't been updating this at all. I have even forgotten some books I have read because I didn't note them down here. 

This week I had a purge and took about 30 books to the charity shop. However most of those had never even made it to be written down on my official TBR plie so it hasn't made much difference there. Also I bought about 15 second hand books on holiday ( I showed commendable  self-restraint in my opinion !) 

Best find of all was a Jack Vance novel I had never read! As far as I know it's not even available as an e-book!  . The Last Castle . I consumed it in a day. 

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The Passenger                          5/5

 

Lisa Lutz

 

I picked this one up at work on the big table where everyone dumps books they don't want. It's not my usual thing as it is set in America in the here and now but it was fantastic! I couldn't put it down and had to read it all in one day. Just when you think you know where the story is headed it veers in another direction at a breakneck pace. One of the best things is ...ok I'm not going to tell you! It's too much of a spoiler.

But I have to give this five out of five and recommend it without reservation.

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Sounds interesting. I have added it to my wishlist.

 

I wish my work had a place where people could 'donate' their books!!! Sounds like a great idea! :readingtwo:

 Yes there are some very quirky books that turn up sometimes.

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The Midnight Palace                1/5

 

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

 

This one has been on my bookshelf for ages. I did not realise it was a YA novel. I am afraid it didn't grab me at all. I kept imagining the evil character as the cartoon Jafar the sorcerer in the Disney version of Alladin. The ending was disappointing but I had lost interest long before the end anyway. 

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The Midnight Palace 1/5

 

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

 

This one has been on my bookshelf for ages. I did not realise it was a YA novel. I am afraid it didn't grab me at all. I kept imagining the evil character as the cartoon Jafar the sorcerer in the Disney version of Alladin. The ending was disappointing but I had lost interest long before the end anyway.

I wasn't too hot on this one either. His other YA book, The Watcher in the Shadows, was better.

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I wasn't too hot on this one either. His other YA book, The Watcher in the Shadows, was better.

 

 Thanks chaliepud! I'm glad it wasn't just me then. I loved Shadow Of The Wind and The Angel's Game though.

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