R. Blake, The Blood of Alexandria
S.C. Gwynne, Empire of the Summer Moon
W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale
J.R.R. Tolkein, The Silmarillion*
A. Zamoyski, Rites of Peace
It's been a great month for quality, if not quantity. Four of the six books here would have been contenders for BOTM at another time. Gwynne's account of the Commanche was lively and engrossing, though didn't always live up to its own rhetoric. Zamoyski on the Congress of Vienna is a great excavation of a very complex moment in history, which also alerted me to the fact the Kissinger's doctoral thesis was on the same subject. I'm surprised I've never read Maugham before, but Cakes and Ale was brilliant, waspish, and very nicely done, if a little slight. However, all were worse than Atwood's Booker winner. I've not always gotten on with Atwood. I thought the Handmaids Tale clumsy and boring, while I found some of her earlier books unreadable. This is a masterpiece. Despite being very obviously literary in construction - it's a book with a book inside it which itself has a book inside it - it's compelling, magisterially written and still manages a good twist (or two) at the end. A triumph.
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