The Earth Moves: Galileo and the Roman Inquisition

In November, I handed my mom a Daedalus Books catalog with circled "suggestions" for Christmas.  All of them enforced my Pale and Geeky reputation, and one of them was The Earth Moves.  I probably should have skipped it.  I don't regret reading it, but Dan Hofstader's writing style is a bit dry and the book made very little impression on me.  Other than learning that the inquisitorial court was closer to modern appellate court than trial court and that Galileo didn't actually confirm Copernicus's theory (he merely said that there was evidence to support it), I didn't learn much.  Perhaps it just wasn't a good commute book, being neither lightweight enough to enjoy in short bursts nor engrossing enough to stay in my mind as I walked across the platform.

Shakespeare’s England

Our image of an era mutates over time.  There’s a meme about how teenagers dressed in the 80s (a screenshot from The Breakfast Club) and how sorority girls think teenagers dressed in the 80s (all neon, legwarmers, torn necklines/boatnecks and giant hair – as if the fashions of my junior high, high school, and college years were compressed into one horrendous image).  400 years on, we think of Shakespeare’s era as it’s portrayed in his plays, portrayals which in some cases have ossified into works more Serious than entertaining.  Shakespeare’s England uses contemporary documents – diaries, reports, guidebooks, plays, and poems – to give a more accurate view of what life was really like.  Elizabethan and Jacobean England was in transition.  The former backwater became a world power under Gloriana, and the Renaissance was soon to give birth to the Enlightenment and an explosion of scientific discovery.  The urban merchant  middle-class began to rise, although it had not yet eclipsed the agrarian feudal society and would not for a few hundred years.  Shakespeare’s England shows that transition.  It’s interesting and informative, but, like most surveys, doesn’t quite grab the reader.  It’s not exactly disjointed, but it doesn’t flow from chapter to chapter either.  Shakespeare’s England is best used as a reference.  Read it, file away a few facts, and then keep it on your shelf  to look up or confirm something  a few months down the road.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in 1985.  I remember reading the final chapters while sprawled across a chair in the entrance of the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, after taking achievement tests in Math and American History and while waiting for my mother to come out of a lecture.  With that in mind, the cryptic message (a Boston phone number with "ask for Maria N.B. overnight") must refer to my application to MIT.  It's strange that I can remember so much about when and where I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but can only remember the identity of the murderer and how he did it and nothing else about the book.  Well, not quite nothing - I did remember Hercule Poirot hurling a vegetable marrow at Dr. Sheppard.

Dr. Sheppard narrates the mystery, and it's typical Christie.  A rich man invites his sister-in-law and her daughter, a gruff house guest, and Dr. Sheppard to dinner and confides in the doctor that he's being blackmailed.  A few hours later, Dr. Sheppard receives a phone call - Roger Ackroyd is dead.  He returns to the house and discovers Ackroyd's dead body behind a locked door.  Ralph, Ackroyd's stepson and heir is the logical suspect, but Flora (Ackroyd's niece and Ralph's fiancée), Ackroyd's butler, the housemaid, and a mysterious stranger all have motives or opportunity.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd made Christie's reputation.  Her first six books were generally successful, but this one made her part of the mystery cannon.  It's good, but for some reason it didn't grab me the way some of her other (often lesser) books do.  What interested me most was the possible confirmation of a theory.  A year or so after I started reading Jane Austen, I decided that Christie's debutants, fortune hunters, and widows living in genteel poverty could trace their linage back to Meryton and Bath.  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd features a semi-hysterical widow obsessed with her daughter's marriage prospects, and an unseen but frequently discussed character named Mrs. Ferrars.  Coincidence?  I don't think so.

The Green Man

I've read a number of disappointing mysteries over the past few years.  A few of my favorite series hit lulls (or I reached the lesser installments), but I could rely on Kate Sedley to provide me with a crisply written puzzle which I could solve (but not too easily).  The Green Man isn't a bad book, but it doesn't live up to Sedley's prior books.

England is suffering from famine and turmoil during the summer of 1482 when Timothy Plummer (spymaster to Richard, Duke of Gloucester) arrives in Bristol with a mission for Roger Chapman.  Guard Alexander, Duke of Albany and prospective heir to the Scottish throne during a military campaign against the Scots.  Albany believes that someone is out to kill him, possibly someone close, and he believes that Roger's presence will save his life.  Roger reluctantly leaves Adela and their children and shadows Albany as someone apparently makes several attempts on his life.  Someone who usually disguises himself as the mythical Green Man.

I've complained about subplots in the past, but for me at least, the subplot to The Green Man, a murder charge against Rab Sinclair, one of Albany's closest friends, was more satisfying than the somewhat convoluted question of the threats against the Duke.  Perhaps it's because I'm less well-versed in the history of the English Monarchy (the years between Edward II and Henry VIII, particularly the Wars of the Roses, confuse me) than her average reader, but I just couldn't get a handle on the political implications.  It may be, though that Roger is more at home solving crimes in Bristol or in one of the settlements where he sells his wares.  There, as in the subplot, Roger merely has to discover and interpret the fact, and uncovering a simple lie (as happens in the Sinclair case) unravels the mystery.  Political intrigue is murkier and less easily solved.  Roger began his detecting career in the service of Duke Richard, but Sedley should probably keep him away from politics in the future. 

Einstein's Refrigerator

I started this blog when I joined a 52 Books in 52 Weeks group on Ravelry.  25 years ago, I decided I was reading too many 'books without words' (as my parents called my science and engineering textbooks) and started keeping a list of the 'books with words' I read, with a goal of reading at least 52 each year.  I read at least 60-70 (and sometimes more than 90) every year I wasn't a student until 2003.  That's when I started my current 50+ hour job, but I managed to keep my total over 52 until I bought my house and shortened my train ride by 8-10 minutes each way.  That doesn't sound like a lot, but (assuming I read during 3/4 of my train rides), it's well over an hour a week and perhaps 8-10 books per year.  More than that, it affects what I can read on my commute.  A few years ago, I tried reading The Brothers Karamazov, but by the time I got the names straight and read three or four pages, it was time to get off.   19 minutes from platform to platform is maybe 12-14 minutes of reading time, not always enough time to lose myself in a novel or to contemplate a more serious piece of non-fiction so I've started choosing less challenging books as "commute books."

Einstein's Refrigerator is the perfect commute book.  I bought it on my last trip to Daedalus because it looked interesting, and it was interesting in a completely non-challenging way.  It's a collection of blog entries by a high school teacher who's interested in the odder points of history.  Some of his essays covered familiar territory - I remember when Larry Walters took flight in his lawn chair and when Hedy Lamar's contribution radar technology became public, and Steve Silverman read the same book about the history of the zipper that I did (the few regular readers of this blog should know that I have odd tastes in non-fiction).  Others, like the titular refrigerator (designed to keep food cold but ultimately used for scientific purposes) and the day Niagara Falls ran dry were completely new to me.  Ultimately, though, the book is amusing but disposable.  It's not something I'd even consider reading again, but I recommend it to anyone who likes the side alleys of history.  If this appeals to you, tell me - I'll give you my copy.

The Daughter of Time

I'd never heard of The Daughter of Time and always known it existed.  I know that doesn't make sense, but it's perhaps the first well-known book in my preferred sub-genre but until a few months ago, I knew nothing about it.  And yet...when others would mention it, something felt familiar.  Deja novel, I guess.

Inspector Alan Grant broke his leg while chasing a subject.  Not while making a grand leap to arrest the  fleeing felon, but by ignominiously falling into a hole.  Confined to a hospital bed and bored out of his skull, he tries to amuse himself with the pictures of historical figures which his friend, Marta Hallard has brought him.  He fixes on the portrait of Richard III who appears tortured to his eyes, rather than the historical monster of history textbooks.  He decides to read up on Richard, and finds that most of the "contemporary" histories aren't, but were written by Tudor courtiers.  With an adrift American doing the legwork, Grant discovers that Richard didn't have the motive, and may not have had the means to kill the Princes in the Tower, but another man *did*.  I won't name Tey's historical culprit here, but I will say that it makes sense to me.  As Sr. Maureen Christi told us in 9th grade, Shakespeare knew how to flatter his patrons.  Richard III may very well have been a victim of the playwright's lasting popularity.

The Cloud Pavilion

Series authors sometimes get bored with their characters and decide to retire some of them and introduce replacements.  Fourteen books into her Sano Ichiro series, I think Laura Joh Rowland has reached that point.  Sano's fortunes have risen and fallen since he was plucked from the police force to serve Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, but The Cloud Pavilion feels like it's signaling a wider transition. 

A few years ago, I declared "the year of the subplot" - a comment on the number of (often poorly integrated) subplots the mystery series authors I read fell compelled to include.  Perhaps it was because their publishers required manuscripts of a certain length, but most of those novels would have benefited from either excising the subplot or adding 30 pages to better integrate them into the story.  In The Cloud Pavilion, Laura Joh Rowland gets it right.  

Several months after Yanigasawa's return from exile, Sano shares the position of Chamberlain with his old rival, warily expecting to be attacked when his uncle introduces himself.  Sano's mother's family had cast her off after a scandal; now, after his sister's rehabilitation, Major Kumazawa reluctantly asks his nephew for help.  Someone kidnapped Kumazawa's daughter Chiyo, and as Sano investigates he learns that a Buddhist nun and a gangster's teenage daughter have also disappeared under similar circumstances.  Sano finds the missing women and with the assistance of both his wife Reiko (who's better suited to questioning the emotionally and physically battered women) and his second-in-command Hirata, solves the thickly plotted but relatively straightforward crime.  He also uncovers Yanigasawa's plot with the help of an unexpected spy and manages to make peace with his estranged relatives, but at a social cost.  Because the ending ties the solution to the mystery and what I think is Rowland's new array of characters, I feel like I can't describe the latter without spoiling the former.  I'll just say that the political landscape of the Shogun's palace has become even more treacherous.

A Vein of Deceit

Most of my friends read fantasy and science fiction, but those genres don't interest me.  Give me a suspicious death and some financial shenanigans any day.  That's exactly what Susannah Gregory gives us in A Vein of Deceit - a Sara Paretsky style mystery set in 14th Century Cambridge.

Michaelhouse College, while never prosperous, has at least been able to remain financially stable.  That has changed in 1357, leaving physician Matthew Bartholomew, theologian and university official Brother Michael, and college Master Ralph de Langelee to contend with oversubscribed classes, overcrowded quarters, and abominable food.  One evening, Langelee asks Matthew to look over the college's accounts to confirm that Brother Wynewyk has apparently embezzled from the college.  He apparently has, but before Langelee can confront him, Wynewyk literally dies laughing.  Did he have some sort of seizure, or could he have been poisoned?  Matthew's grief at his friend's death is compounded by his inability to determine a cause of death and the evidence of his financial duplicity.

Wynewyk's shady dealings center on two nearby settlements, so Matthew, Michael, and Matthew's three students travel to those towns in an attempt to recover some of their missing money.  They don't, but they do stumble into a murder and find their lives endangered when they explore an alleged coal mine.  They also come across information that lends credence to Matt's sister's theory that her friend, who recently bled to death during a pennyroyal-induced miscarriage, may have actually been murdered.

Gregory does a good job of hiding the solution under layers of town/gown conflict, squabbling medical students, inter-college competition, and the unintentionally hilarious actions of Master Langelee.  This is the fifteenth book in Gregory's Matthew Bartholemew series, and possibly the best.  They do not need to be read in order, but there is a minor subplot which requires backstory knowledge to fully appreciate.

Bright Young People

The Kardashians are not original.  Before they infected our tabloids there were Studio 54 denizens who were famous by proxy and before that fur-and-diamond wearing socialites and social climbers.  Even they weren't the first superstars who were famous for being famous. Nearly 100 years ago, British newspapers breathlessly followed the exploits - real and imagined - of the Bright Young People.  A strange mix of the titled, the noveau riche, and pretenders to both titles, they flitted from party to manor house to elaborate practical joke, entrancing the public and (in some cases) horrifying staid parents.  DJ Taylor engagingly catalogs the parties and scandals, but was perhaps a bit too even-handed in applying attention to the range of characters.  Perhaps that's because Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell were on the edge of the group, and the Mitford sisters (save Diana) were too young to fully participate in the social whirl.  Elizabeth Ponsoby and Brenda Dean Paul, on the other hand, staggered from party to scandal to salacious exploit, and they feature more prominently in Taylor's book than the truly accomplished members of their generation.  In a way it's comforting to see how prominent they were and contrast that with how obscure they now are.  It gives me hope that in a dozen years or so, the "reality" TV starlets who infect the magazine covers I see while buying groceries will have faded in to blessed obscurity.