Reading Wednesday
Jul. 1st, 2015 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement by Fergus M. Bordewich. This book is so good that I can't possibly recommend it highly enough. It's clearly widely and deeply researched, but that doesn't keep it from being a fascinating page-turner. I mean, it's full of stories like that of Henry Brown, who escaped from slavery by literally mailing himself in a box from Virginia to Philadelphia; William "Jerry" Henry, who was rescued from US marshals attempting to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law when a crowd of thousands surrounded the courthouse, rammed through the door, cut off the power to the lights, and held off the marshals at gunpoint (no one, by the way, ever served time for their participation); or when William Still, the son of escaped slaves, was one day interviewing people who'd traveled on the Underground Railroad on their family history, only to realize that the man he was interviewing was his own long-lost brother. Come on! That would be ridiculous in a melodrama, and it almost made me cry here. Of course, there's more famous names too: Harriet Tubman and John Brown and Frederick Douglass, or the people who became immortalized in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Beloved, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Though I didn't know it would be relevant when I started to read this, it's a good moment for this book. It's hard to claim that the Civil War was about "states' rights" when you actually look at the politics of the early 1800s. It's also an argument against the idea that "everyone was like that back then!", when you see so many people giving up their money, their homes, and even their lives to fight against slavery.
For My Lady's Heart by Laura Kinsale. A romance set in 14th century England and France. Princess Melanthe is the widow of the Italian ruler of a small city-state, who's being pursued by at least three factions, all of whom want to manipulate her into giving the right to the city to them. She's controlling them by a combination of lies and promises that she has no intention of keeping, but it's a delicate balance that's sure to fall apart eventually. She meets Ruck, an English knight who's trying to reclaim his name and inheritance by doing deeds of honor and chivalry big enough to draw the attention of the King. Neither of them knows if they can trust the other, and their relationship is full of secrets, misdirection, and outright lies. There's also so many fun tropes: there's a ton of loyalty-kink, secret wedding vows, pretty-boy assassins, duels and jousts, desperate escapes, people being chained up in dungeons, hidden castles, cold cynical heroines, pining, court politics, and an entire village of minstrels.
The historical research is much better than the average romance novel, and all of the dialogue is even written in Middle English (though not the narration, which is probably for the best, since it's not too hard to follow in dialogue but I'm not sure I could read an entire novel in it without a translation). There's a real sense of world-building, and the characters very much behave as is appropriate for the time, which sometimes makes for uncomfortable modern reading. Many of the secondary characters are just as fascinating as the leads. I'm glad to hear there's a sequel about one of them!
What are you currently reading?
Eric Walrond: A Life in the Harlem Renaissance and the Transatlantic Caribbean by James Davis. While interesting, this book is very... in-depth. Possibly including way more details than I need.
Stranger at the Wedding by Barbara Hambly. Loving it!
Headhunters On My Doorstep: A True Treasure Island Ghost Story by J. Maarten Troost. Troost is one of my favorite travel writers; this book is half an account of his struggle with alcoholism and half about him following in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement by Fergus M. Bordewich. This book is so good that I can't possibly recommend it highly enough. It's clearly widely and deeply researched, but that doesn't keep it from being a fascinating page-turner. I mean, it's full of stories like that of Henry Brown, who escaped from slavery by literally mailing himself in a box from Virginia to Philadelphia; William "Jerry" Henry, who was rescued from US marshals attempting to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law when a crowd of thousands surrounded the courthouse, rammed through the door, cut off the power to the lights, and held off the marshals at gunpoint (no one, by the way, ever served time for their participation); or when William Still, the son of escaped slaves, was one day interviewing people who'd traveled on the Underground Railroad on their family history, only to realize that the man he was interviewing was his own long-lost brother. Come on! That would be ridiculous in a melodrama, and it almost made me cry here. Of course, there's more famous names too: Harriet Tubman and John Brown and Frederick Douglass, or the people who became immortalized in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Beloved, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Though I didn't know it would be relevant when I started to read this, it's a good moment for this book. It's hard to claim that the Civil War was about "states' rights" when you actually look at the politics of the early 1800s. It's also an argument against the idea that "everyone was like that back then!", when you see so many people giving up their money, their homes, and even their lives to fight against slavery.
For My Lady's Heart by Laura Kinsale. A romance set in 14th century England and France. Princess Melanthe is the widow of the Italian ruler of a small city-state, who's being pursued by at least three factions, all of whom want to manipulate her into giving the right to the city to them. She's controlling them by a combination of lies and promises that she has no intention of keeping, but it's a delicate balance that's sure to fall apart eventually. She meets Ruck, an English knight who's trying to reclaim his name and inheritance by doing deeds of honor and chivalry big enough to draw the attention of the King. Neither of them knows if they can trust the other, and their relationship is full of secrets, misdirection, and outright lies. There's also so many fun tropes: there's a ton of loyalty-kink, secret wedding vows, pretty-boy assassins, duels and jousts, desperate escapes, people being chained up in dungeons, hidden castles, cold cynical heroines, pining, court politics, and an entire village of minstrels.
The historical research is much better than the average romance novel, and all of the dialogue is even written in Middle English (though not the narration, which is probably for the best, since it's not too hard to follow in dialogue but I'm not sure I could read an entire novel in it without a translation). There's a real sense of world-building, and the characters very much behave as is appropriate for the time, which sometimes makes for uncomfortable modern reading. Many of the secondary characters are just as fascinating as the leads. I'm glad to hear there's a sequel about one of them!
What are you currently reading?
Eric Walrond: A Life in the Harlem Renaissance and the Transatlantic Caribbean by James Davis. While interesting, this book is very... in-depth. Possibly including way more details than I need.
Stranger at the Wedding by Barbara Hambly. Loving it!
Headhunters On My Doorstep: A True Treasure Island Ghost Story by J. Maarten Troost. Troost is one of my favorite travel writers; this book is half an account of his struggle with alcoholism and half about him following in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson.
