I loved the way this book was written. Sometimes I have a hard time with non-fiction books, because they’re not very exciting. Don’t get me wrong – I love facts, and I understand that certain things need to be built up to and earned before they make sense. I just find some non-fiction dry. This was not dry. It probably helped that it was told through the eyes of the actual “Radium Girls”. I just read the author’s final words, and she was actually struck […]
A somewhat problematic murder mystery
Last year, I gave up on Cannonball Read in February. I kept reading, but the pressure to review got to be too much, and I ended up too far behind. This year, I’m not going for quantity, but instead am aiming to tackle all the books that I’ve bought over the years that for one reason or another have sat unread on my shelves. The first of these books is The Fashion in Shrouds by Margery Allingham, which I bought several years ago at Hatchard’s because […]
I’m always happy to discover a promising new romance author
Jack Turner and his siblings grew up in the slums of London and they have all worked hard to get out from under the criminal enterprises of their parents. Jack’s sister is a dressmaker, while his brother seems to keep very posh and rarefied company these days. Jack uses some of the skills he’s learned over the years to help women in trouble. He can locate stolen items, deal with blackmail claims, even make an unpleasant husband disappear to somewhere far away – his only […]
The Greatest Work That Four Men Have Ever Done
Note: This review is long. The book was long and interesting, so the review is long, but may not be interesting. I love history, but I’m not a diligent scholar. My history knowledge is thin and wide spread with occasional deep dives. I have been fascinated by the events that led to World War 1, but didn’t know much about the Paris Peace Conference that dealt with the end of the war. Last year I listened to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History series, “Blueprint for Armageddon.” […]
Libba: The Magnificent Musical Life of Elizabeth Cotten
I have one word about this book: Chills. It gave me chills to read. Chills to look at the illustrations. Chills to hear the story of Elizabeth Cotton. She had always heard music, but when she was a child she borrowed her brother’s guitar and taught herself to play. But not just in the usual way. She was left handed and had to play her brothers guitar “upside down and backwards” to make it feel right. Over the years she played and wrote songs. But […]
From the East to the West
While the novels are all divided into three parts, in some the breaking points between the parts are much more obvious than others – for example, His Majesty’s Dragon basically divided as the initial time between Laurence and Temeraire, their military training, and their time on active combat duty. For others, it was less clear and the stories bled over between parts a lot. This novel almost feels like three novellas united in one book, but in a good way. After the mostly successful mission […]
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