Graciously, and Grandly

The Grand Sophy
by Georgette Heyer

A regency romance?  Me?

Finished it?  And loved it?

No way!  But true. I screamed and cheered at the end. (Figuratively, of course--not being you-know-who, I'd never dream of exhibiting such shocking behavior.)

Don't expect deep meaning, symbolism, harsh criticism of societal mores, or psychological observation.  Go with a light heart and a willingness to suspend disbelief, and go very prepared to be entertained.  It's like an Avengers movie set in Regency-era England and minus the super powers or evil genius.

I immediately started looking for another of Georgette Heyer's books on CD at the library. They have several, but the only ones that people liked as well as this were checked out.

Sort of okay, or somewhat okay

The Mystery of the Periodic Table 
by Benjamin D. Wiker, Jeanne Bendick

More like what I wanted "The Disappearing Spoon" to be but still not what I wanted.  This one was much shorter and better organized; I closed it feeling like I'd learned a bit. And I was entertained, which is the real reason I read these sort of books.  If I wanted to learn chemistry I'd pick up a textbook.

That sounded sarcastic but really wasn't--a well written textbook can be eminently readable.  And so was this.  And I now remember what an isotope is.

It's a pretty good history and recommended for budding young chemists who want to go back and see how we figured all this out.  Definitely a sokay.

Didn't Bomb at all

Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon

by Steve Sheinkin

Shelved as YA but they could put a copy on the A shelf if they wanted to.  It's a quick but seemingly comprehensive story of the race of the U.S. to beat Hitler to the atomic bomb and of the equally determined race of the Soviet Union to steal the science behind it.  Oppenheimer is the central figure in the building of the bomb--I'm not sure if that's completely accurate but certainly not inaccurate.  Harry Gold, David Greenglass, and Klaus Fuchs are the villain spies.  Not so villainous villains, however. Spies have reasons for doing what they do--don't assume that all spies are simply out for the money.

Ethyl and Julias Rosenberg are only mentioned briefly at the end, so it's odd they're the only ones I even heard about. I guess being executed makes you notorious.  The book really made me interest in poor Oppenheimer, almost enough to read a book about him. I wished he'd lived to see the arms race end.  The one between the US and Russia, of course.  Will it ever really end?

Great book; lively and fast but not skimpy.  I guess if he'd been writing for adults he could have put in more detail, especially about Oak Ridge, the Rosenbergs and the Russian scientist.  But that might have slowed the pace.  I recommend the audiobook highly, for pacing and suspense, but I don't think I would have been disappointed with the written version.

(Seems like there ought to be an easy semantic to use in distinguishing 'audiobook' from 'book'. You know, like 'email' vs. 'snail mail'. What is it?)

Disappearing spoons and waning interest

The Disappearing Spoon:

And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, 

and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

 
by Sam Kean

Really detailed story of the "discovery" of the periodic table.  I quote "discovery" because of course it was a not a single discovery or even a final discovery.  We were taught in high school science class to believe in the table and assume that any new element discovered would be put quickly and easily in its place--and then we got to college and learned about quantum mechanics.

Better to think about it as the evolution of the periodic tables. Tables plural, because different ways of diagramming the chemicals show different ways in which they share similar properties or differ in interesting behaviors.

A book of this scope can't help but be fascinating, but it was a little overwhelming.  I haven't studied chemistry in over thirty years and have forgotten everything I every knew about it. His book seemed to skip around from topic to topic, future to past, chemical to chemical. I can imagine a different way of telling the story (with a lot of illustrations) that starts with the table in about 1960, explains what it meant and what it showed, and goes into considerable detail so you have a really good handle on it.  Only then can he go back in history to show how it got that way, and forward in history to show how it has moved on since then.

Makes you want to get a couple of goats

Goat Song: a Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese

by Brad Kessler

I don't know why it didn't click. Liked it but didn't love it.  That's still a recommendation, because it is a lovely book.

And not preachy--well, not very much.  He got a little pointed in the last few chapters, describing how pasteurization became a cheap and easy substitute for cleanliness, careful handling, and proper storage. And for--most importantly--local sources. Without a local farmer you trust, you have no other choice than to choose pasteurized milk. But I don't understand the cheese issue.  The U.S. government forbids the sale of cheese made from unpasteurized milk. Didn't the idiots realize that that's the whole point of making cheese--to convert milk into something that can be stored without refrigeration?  Some of the hard cheeses can be stored for years.

My own personal failure to love may have something to do with his way of telling the story--linear and matter-of-fact with an occasional jump into other times and other places. (I liked those parts.)  What I missed was the decision-making.  Why were things done the way they were?  Was there never any discussion that things might be otherwise?

Why were the kids weaned at birth instead of after a few weeks?  Did he ever consider getting a large dog of a breed used to protecting goats? Why did he make mostly Chevre cheese and occasionally mozarella?  Maybe they were simply favorites. Why did he not try a few of the simpler hard cheeses--from other reading I've done, I know they're not as complicated as the one he chose to learn.  Why, why?  Man, I'm nosy!

Lovely book and I'm not going to hoard it for myself by putting it on the bookshelf.  I'll give it to the library for someone else to enjoy.

Still don't get this woman

Who Bombed the Train
by Judith Yates Borger

I can't believe I've just read three of her books and still can't decide if I like them or not.  They are certainly interesting, but there's a certain lack of depth that offputs me.  (Is offput even a word?)

I'm willing to believe the author deliberately created a main character with a lack of personal insight.  It's an effective trick, after all--think of Scarlett O'Hara.  Ms. Borger's Skeeter Hughes swears again and again that she's going to put family life first and newspaper work second, but she never does and we all doubt she ever will.  If she did it'd be boring as heck.

And I don't want an insipid teenybop heroine who agonizes over her choices eternally (think--any of them you know), nor a self-centered nincompoop who never doubts her decisions (think Bella).  I just want a little honesty, eg, a grownup being honest with herself.

So I don't know whether to recommend this or not.  I guess so.  There's lots of good stuff here about real people and real stuff.  It's just the detective person I don't get.

Short and awesome history

Zealot: 

The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth 

 by Reza Aslan

A true historian with a flair for language gives himself a herculean task--dig the life of the man Jesus out of the writings of those who convinced he was the Messiah...and had more on their minds than writing accurate history.  And remember--the notion of recording history--"just the facts, ma'am"--is a fairly modern invention.  Think of The Iliad, The Odyssey, or even the writings of Josephus, that invaluable early historian.  If you truly believe in gods and devils, why wouldn't you put them into your history?

How well he actually did I will have to leave to other scholars to debate, but I think he did a fine job. One of the best books of history I've ever read. A very few times he seemed to get off topic but it was awfully interesting so I didn't mind.  I'll be listening to this again. 

(And next  time, in the proper order.  Somehow a couple of chapters got rearranged on my Ipod and ended up coming AFTER the ending credits.)

New food of the month...sort of

 






Mayocoba beans!


I really wanted cannelini beans but this is what the grocery had.  A little smaller than pintos and they didn't shed their shells as badly.  Tasted exactly like a great northern to me and certainly prettier.






And a cooking adventure although at the time it felt a little like Frodo and Sam's quest.  For me, Mango Tofu Raisin Curry.

It turned out good but no spice at all!  I helped it out with a little Sriracha.


 For Ed that crab-shrimp fettuccini I make and a strawberry dessert that was supposed to make bland, insipid supermarket strawberries taste like heaven.  Hint: it didn't.

I'm missing them already--may start over

The FitzOsbornes at War

I was disappointed to find out that it closed the trilogy. But anything is possible--if a new generation of FitzOsbornes comes of age to carry on the wild and wacky legacy, I'll be ready!

By the way, that's not a spoiler--I saw it on a publisher's blurb. Of course, that doesn't mean it's not a spoiler...oh, darn...let me start over.

This third novel of the trilogy (how's that for an out?) takes the FitzOsbornes through the second World War. Montmaray is occupied by the Germans and they're still in exile in England. Studious and determined Veronica, carefree Toby, ambitious Simon, level-headed Sophie, and the stubborn tomboy Henry, grow up to adults in a middle of a gritty, horrid war.

 It wasn't a pretty war for the British people and Ms. Cooper doesn't try to make it that way. Be prepared to shed a good bit of tears over this one. It wasn't near as funny as the previous two but that was okay.  And anyway, if you read them, you have to read this.  But don't dare read them out of order!

Lot's of "I never thought about it that way" moments here

The Gnostic Gospels
by Elaine Pagels

If you can make it through the world's longest introduction, you'll learn that this is a book about what the Gnostic Gospels found at Nag Hammadi tell us about the formation of the early Christian church. In several fascinating chapters, Elaine Pagels tells how certain principles of the Christian creed, held in common by all modern denominations, were necessary--both politically and socially--to unify diverse churches into the one Catholic faith. Anyone who disagreed was cast out and any heretical writings were destroyed.

Most exciting are the chapters on the bodily resurrection of Jesus; the belief that God is sole king, creator, master and judge; and the necessity that the church leaders be the ones to whom Jesus appeared in the flesh and delivered special powers to.  Peter was the leader and ultimate authority as selected by Jesus.  Later the disciples added Matthias, to restore the original count of twelve disciples; women were not included.  Less interesting--and highly speculative IMHO--was the chapter that compared Gnostic beliefs to Carl Jung's encounter with the unconscious. It didn't seem to belong in the book.

Just kidding about the introduction. It was important stuff and not at all boring. It dealt with the finding of the clay jar near Nag Hammadi and the slow, winding and treacherous road that the writings took to publication. It was about 20 years from the finding in 1945 to the publication of the complete translation in English in 1977, although photographic editions were available earlier.

They were:
Coptic translations, made about 1,500 years ago, of still more ancient manuscripts. The originals themselves had been written in Greek, the language of the New Testament: as Doresse, Puech, and Quispel had recognized, part of one of them had been discovered by archeologists about fifty years earlier, when they found a few fragments of the original Greek version of the Gospel of Thomas.

This quote is from
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/pagels.html which I highly recommend if you're thinking about reading them. Odd, though--this page reads almost exactly like the original book. I wonder...oh, yeah.  It's a reprint from the introduction.