Private Lives of the Impressionists — Sue Roe
Summary: Though they were often ridiculed or ignored by their contemporaries, today astonishing sums are paid for their paintings. Their dazzling works are familiar to even the most casual art lovers—but how well does the world know the Impressionists as people? Sue Roe’s colorful, lively, poignant, and superbly researched biography, The Private Lives of the Impressionists, follows an extraordinary group of artists into their Paris studios, down the rural lanes of Montmartre, and into the rowdy riverside bars of a city undergoing monumental change. Vivid and unforgettable, it casts a brilliant, revealing light on this unparalleled society of genius colleagues who lived and worked together for twenty years and transformed the art world forever with their breathtaking depictions of ordinary life.
Comments: This was a very enjoyable overview of the Impressionist movement, with a focus on the painters’ personal lives as well as the social/cultural background. A good mix of informative and entertaining (my favourite).
The Sentence Is Death – Anthony Horowitz
Summary: “You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late . . . ” Heard over the phone, these are the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer Richard Pryce, found bludgeoned to death with a bottle of wine—a 1982 Château Lafite worth £2,000, to be precise—in his bachelor pad. Odd, considering Pryce didn’t drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on his wall? And, most important, which of the victim’s many, many enemies did the deed? Baffled, the police are forced to bring in private investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, the author Anthony, who’s getting rather good at this murder investigation business. But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes clear that he, too, has secrets to hide. As our reluctant narrator becomes ever more embroiled in the case, he realizes that these secrets must be exposed—even at the risk of death . .
Comments: I really enjoy Horowitz’ murder mysteries, and this was a good one. Kept me guessing, with a good “cast” of suspects.
Madresfield — Jane Mulvagh
Summary: Amazon is not coming through on this one, but basically it’s about the history of the real life aristocratic family that inspired Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.
Comments: Books about quirky British aristocrats are my reading catnip, and this one benefits both from good writing and a good story.
Life Among the Qallunaat — Mini Aodla Freeman
Summary: Life Among the Qallunaat is the story of Mini Aodla Freeman’s experiences growing up in the Inuit communities of James Bay and her journey in the 1950s from her home to the strange land and stranger customs of the Qallunaat, those living south of the Arctic. Her extraordinary story, sometimes humourous and sometimes heartbreaking, illustrates an Inuit woman’s movement between worlds and ways of understanding. It also provides a clear-eyed record of the changes that swept through Inuit communities in the 1940s and 1950s. Mini Aodla Freeman was born in 1936 on Cape Hope Island in James Bay. At the age of sixteen, she began nurse’s training at Ste. Therese School in Fort George, Quebec, and in 1957 she moved to Ottawa to work as a translator for the then Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources.
Comments: A must read. Incredibly absorbing memoir, written in a unique voice. As a Canadian, I feel like this should be required reading in high schools.
Murder in Paradise, Killjoy, A Lesson in Dying, Another Man’s Poison — Ann Cleeves
Summary: These are Cleeves’ earlier murder mysteries, written before the Vera Stanhope and Shetland ones. Some feature a police detective protagonist, some an amateur detective.
Comments: They are not as polished as her latter work, but still very enjoyable. I love how she explores the psychology and inner workings of each character, and their motivations and actions are always realistic (unlike, ahem, the Michaelides books below).
Post Colonial Astrology – Alice Sparkly Kat
Summary: In a cross-cultural approach to understanding astrology as a magical language, Alice Sparkly Kat unmasks the political power of astrology, showing how it can be channeled as a force for collective healing and liberation. Too often, magic and astrology are divorced from their potency and cultural contexts: co-opted by neoliberalism, used as a force of oppression, or distilled beyond recognition into applications that belie their individual and collective power. By looking at the symbolic and etymological histories of the sun, moon, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter, we can trace and understand the politics of magic–and challenge our own practices, interrogate our truths, and reshape our institutions to build better frameworks for communities of care. Fearless, radical, and fresh, Sparkly Kat’s Postcolonial Astrology ushers in a new wave of astrology revival, refusing to apologize for its magickism and connecting its power to the spirituality and politics we need now. Intersectional, inclusive, and geared towards queer and POC communities, it uses our historical and collective constructs of the planets, sun, and moon to re-chart our subconscious history, redefine the body in the world, and assert our politics of the personal, in astrology and all things.
Comments: This was an impulse buy, but I ended up really enjoying it. I think of it as more of a “semiotics of astrology” book, framed through an anti-capitalist, postcolonial lens. Lots of food for thought.
A History of the Wife – Marilyn Yalom
Summary: How did marriage, considered a religious duty in medieval Europe, become a venue for personal fulfillment in contemporary America? How did the notion of romantic love, a novelty in the Middle Ages, become a prerequisite for marriage today? And, if the original purpose of marriage was procreation, what exactly is the purpose of marriage for women now? Combining “a scholar’s rigor and a storyteller’s craft”(San Jose Mercury News), distinguished cultural historian Marilyn Yalom charts the evolution of marriage in the Judeo Christian world through the centuries and shows how radically our ideas about marriage have changed. For any woman who is, has been, or ever will be married, this intellectually vigorous and gripping historical analysis of marriage sheds new light on an institution most people take for granted, and that may, in fact, be experiencing its most convulsive upheaval since the Reformation.
Comments: I expected this to be right up my alley as a lover of historical non-fiction, but I DNF-ed it about 2/3 of the way through. Yalom’s approach to the treatment and place of Black and Indigenous women in American colonial history were terrible, IMO. After that, I lost my interest in what the author had to say.
Cavalier – Lucy Worsley
Summary: William Cavendish, courageous, cultured and passionate about women, embodies the popular image of a cavalier. Famously defeated at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, he went into a long and miserable continental exile before returning to England in triumph on the restoration of King Charles II to the throne in 1660. Lucy Worsley brings to life a fascinating household of the 17th century, painting a picture of conspiracy, sexual intrigue, clandestine marriage and gossip. From Ben Jonson and Van Dyck to a savage, knife-wielding master-cook, Cavalier is a brilliant illumination of the stately home in England and all its many colourful inhabitants.
Comments: I enjoyed this – it’s a detailed look at English upper class society in the 17th century through the eyes of a prominent aristocrat. The book is organized in section based on key moments in Cavendish’ life, each one exploring various facets of his household and environs (including his famous house).
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About The People We Don’t Know – Malcom Gladwell
Summary: How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn’t true? Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller, David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.
Comments: I normally enjoy Gladwell’s books but this was a miss for me. The premise is simple: we are bad at telling if people are lying to us, or even just figuring out what they’re thinking or what their motivations are. He summarizes lots of studies/experiments around that topic, and some of his “case studies” — like the CIA stories, and the Chamberlain-Hitler saga — are fascinating and compelling. But his choice of other examples (like the Sandusky scandal, the Sandra Bland case, the Brock Turner trial) are not so great; I felt like Gladwell was massively oversimplifying them in order to suit his theme, in ways that were not acceptable in this day and age.
The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides
Summary: Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations―a search for the truth that threatens to consume him..
Comments: Gosh, doesn’t that premise sound so intriguing? And make no mistake, this is a compulsive read. But once you’re done, you quickly realize that it’s all utterly implausible/unrealistic. The plot and twists are bonker balls, though, so you can just shut off your brain and not question things too much, and you’ll have fun.
The Maidens – Alex Michaelides
Summary: Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike―particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens. Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge. Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister. And she becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. But why would the professor target one of his students? And why does he keep returning to the rites of Persephone, the maiden, and her journey to the underworld? When another body is found, Mariana’s obsession with proving Fosca’s guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships. But Mariana is determined to stop this killer, even if it costs her everything―including her own life.
Comments: Same as above. I have a soft spot for books that are obviously inspired by The Secret History, and this one is like a Hollywood blockbuster version of that.
Bearskin Diary – Carol Daniels
Summary: Raw and honest, Bearskin Diary gives voice to a generation of First Nations women who have always been silenced, at a time when movements like Idle No More call for a national inquiry into the missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Carol Daniels adds an important perspective to the Canadian literary landscape. Taken from the arms of her mother as soon as she was born, Sandy was only one of over twenty thousand Aboriginal children scooped up by the federal government between the 1960s and 1980s. Sandy was adopted by a Ukrainian family and grew up as the only First Nations child in a town of white people. Ostracized by everyone around her and tired of being different, at the early age of five she tried to scrub the brown off her skin. But she was never sent back into the foster system, and for that she considers herself lucky. From this tragic period in her personal life and in Canadian history, Sandy does not emerge unscathed, but she emerges strong–finding her way by embracing the First Nations culture that the Sixties Scoop had tried to deny. Those very roots allow Sandy to overcome the discriminations that she suffers every day from her co-workers, from strangers and sometimes even from herself.
Comments: I wanted to like this more, but the writing was a bit of a letdown for me. That being said, the story is gripping and tackles some very important themes in a compelling way.
The Last Knight: Twilight of the Middle Ages and Birth of the Modern Era — Norman F. Cantor
Summary: There may not be a more fascinating a historical period than the late fourteenth century in Europe. The Hundred Years’ War ravaged the continent, yet gallantry, chivalry, and literary brilliance flourished in the courts of England and elsewhere. It was a world in transition, soon to be replaced by the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration – and John of Gaunt was its central figure. In today’s terms, John of Gaunt was a multibillionaire with a brand name equal to Rockefeller. He fought in the Hundred Years’ War, sponsored Chaucer and proto-Protestant religious thinkers, and survived the dramatic Peasants’ Revolt, during which his sumptuous London residence was burned to the ground. As head of the Lancastrian branch of the Plantagenet family, Gaunt was the unknowing father of the War of the Roses; after his death, his son usurped the crown from his nephew, Richard II. Gaunt’s adventures represent the culture and mores of the Middle Ages as those of few others do, and his death is portrayed in The Last Knight as the end of that enthralling period.
Comments: I picked this up because I thought it was about Gaunt, but it’s not, really. It’s about the “Zeitgeist” (if you will) of the late Middle Ages, as personified (per Cantor’s argument) in Gaunt. The book skips around a lot, but I found myself enjoying Cantor’s commentary (very very dry wit) much more than I expected. I haven’t read others of his books, so I don’t know if this book is typical of his work. His parallels between figures like Gaunt and modern day billionaires were really interesting to me (though, accordingly to GoodReads, a lot of people hated these parts of the book).
Nureyev – Julia Kavanagh
Summary: Rudolf Nureyev, one of the most iconic dancers of the twentieth century, had it all: beauty, genius, charm, passion, and sex appeal. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement, for both men and women, on or off the stage. In this superb biography, Julie Kavanagh deftly brings us through the professional and personal milestones of Nureyev’s life and career: his education at the Kirov school in Leningrad; his controversial defection from the USSR in 1961; his long-time affair with the Danish dancer Erik Bruhn; his legendary partnership with Margot Fonteyn at the Royal Ballet in London. We see his fiery collaborations with almost all the major living choreographers including Ashton, Balanchine, Robbins, Graham, and Taylor. And we see Nureyev as he reinvigorated the Paris Ballet Opera in the early 1980s before his death from AIDS complications in 1993. Nureyev: The Life is the most intimate, revealing, and dramatic picture we have ever had of this dazzling, complex figure.
Comments: This is a long book, and one that is probably most enjoyable to balletomanes. I don’t know much about ballet, so I found it stultifying in parts. I ended up skipping a lot of it. It’s a who’s who of the international ballet world of the mid 20th century. But so much detail! I basically just wanted the Coles Notes with a side of gossip, haha!
