J. Brotton, Sale of the late King's goods (2006)
E. Crispin, Love lies bleeding (1948)
S. Dercon, Gambling on Development (2023)
R. Harris, Act of Oblivion (2022)
R. Harris, Act of Oblivion (2022)
A. Keay, The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown (2022)
P. Lawrence, Needle (2022)
T. Shippey, The Road to Middle Earth (3rd ed. 2005)
B. Stanley, Let's do it! (2022)
Apart from months where I just read the Booker shortlist, I think this may be my most modern month of reading ever. Two thirds published in the last two years. It's also been a fantastic month. I have things to say on almost all of them
Stanley's prequel to his exceptional history of modern pop is not as good, but it's still very very good. And, while I still don't really like jazz, it's made me more appreciative, as well as extended my love of mid century musicals. It's very good too on the technology of music listening, which I think is more important that we think now. I read several seventeenth century histories in honour of the martyr this month, and the best was Keay's on the Interregnum. It won everything, and it's a very well done piece of writing: it doesn't drag, but really brings through the narrative of the 1650s. Strong recommendations too for Dercon (though it would have been a better book were it shorter) and Edmund Crispin (one of the best of the minor golden age crime novelists, and short).
My favourite of all was Rundell's absolute jewel of a book. I'm increasingly infatuated with her as a writer, though I'm not convinced we agree on anything else. I am delighted that someone took their All Souls fellowship, and their doctorate in Donne, and wrote for children. I liked her Donne book, but I loved this. She's read deeply of the well of children's (and wider) fantasy literature in its widest sense. It's beautifully written, and it's clever, inventive, funny, and well embedded in that weave of older fantasy lit and legend. It's notionally for children. It's worth everyone reading it.
As an aside, there's a very mean spirited Private Eye review of it that basically complains that all fantasy tropes have been done before. I don't think that's accurate (there are plenty of fun new bits in this, in content and form - I thoroughly enjoyed the opening bestiary), but it also misses the point twice over. Firstly, this particular novel is explicitly in part about 'real' legends, so it's deliberately playing on this. The sphinx section is a case in point. Secondly, all fantasy does that; that's the point. Part of the enjoyment is how people reassemble the deck as well as what new cards they play. Shippey's formidable, but illuminating book on Tolkein's sources is magisterial on how he did it, though hard to read in parts.
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