desertvixen | Reading Update #38

The book catalog is up to 1675. It will have to be thinned before the next PCS, most likely, but until then I don't have any plans for that sort of thing.

The Kingergarten Wars by Alan Eisenstock is one of those books that I've read and thought, "Thank God that's not my life". It's about trying to get children into private schools in NYC and includes people who make more money than we likely every will. It's also insane.

Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Psuedoscience in Archaeology by Kenneth L. Feder was fairly good.

The Peninsular War by Roger Parkinson is one of the Wordsworth Military Library series, and it is excellent, focused on the conflict in Spain and Portugal between Britain and France. As a Regency fan, this has been referenced numerous times, but it was interesting on its own. Lots of quotes from letters and stories, very informative without being tedious.

Queen Victoria's Children by John van der Kiste is an interesting overview of Queen Victoria and her children. Talk about families with issues. Much of it was already familiar from other reading, but I would recommend it as a good opener to the subject.

I got another of the Applewood Nancy Drew reprints, this one being #20, The Clue in the Jewel Box. This one dates from WW2, and didn't have any glaring things that made it different from the one I read, other than the cover art. This is one of the mysteries that I think would lend itself to an adult rewrite, much like The House on the Point was for the Hardy Boys. The mystery isn't too outlandish, and everyone gets a fairly decent part.

An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England by Venetia Murray is definitely worth the read. It deals with the ton (the real one, not the enlarged one of Regency romance writers), because let's face it - some of what actually happened is better than what you could invent. She stretches the boundaries of the Regency period a little, but not badly. One of the things she touches on is the manic flavor of the period - how people went from intense highs to lows - as well as the society that surrounded their antics, and the attitudes of Society towards money. The bibliography is also quite informative.

ETA: According to reviews on Amazon, the book is riddled with errors. The organization lacks something, but the 2 errors that were harped on by name were not, as far as I could tell, made in the book. The flavor of the period is captured nicely, and it's still worth having. It might be wise to fact check before sharing.

The Ruby Ghost by June Calvin is staying on my shelf, but not as a good thing. It started out promising and interesting, but it got bogged down. Characters had too much back story that wasn't explained enough, until it came into play - it could have used another hundred pages or so. It's a shame, because I liked the beginning, but it just went downhill and muddled fast.

AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes by Kathy Roth-Douquet (a political type married to a Marine pilot) and Frank Schaeffer (a pretentious writer-type whose youngest son decided to join the Marines) is very good. It's not pushing a solution so much as it is looking at what happens when the military service is seen as being for "other people" and "not for our kind". Parts of it irritated me, and parts of it made me go Yes!. Definitely worth reading.

DV