--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "wayback71" <wayback71@...> wrote: > > Any good reading suggestions for the summer - fiction or non?
I recently read "A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea" by journalist Joel Achenbach, a very well-done blow-by-blow account for the general reader of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. One big disappointment: he tells you almost nothing about the operators of the underwater remote vehicles that actually did most of the incredibly exacting physical work of rebuilding the wellhead to stop the gusher. I read so much "nonfiction" on the Web that I stick mostly with fiction for bedtime reading. "The Brothers Boswell" by Philip Baruth is a sort of literary thriller told from the perspective of the brother of James Boswell, the biographer of Samuel Johnson. Very offbeat, gorgeously written. I found it oddly unsatisfying at the end, but it's one heck of a ride. I'm on a historical mystery kick and have been working my way through two "historical detective" series that I've been greatly enjoying. One is the Matthew Shardlake novels by C.J. Sansome. Set in Tudor England in the waning days of Henry VIII, they involve the attempts of a middle-aged hunchbacked London lawyer to unravel various murders and political plots. They're generally very well written with a great deal of engrossing period detail (although the author has a few careless "tics" that can be annoying and should have been cleaned up by his editors). Shardlake is a fascinating character study as he develops through the novels in the series, a good-hearted, honest, intelligent, reflective man with the best of motives whose personality flaws often get him in trouble nonetheless. These are *long* novels, 500-700 pages, and while there's plenty of action, they don't always move at a breakneck pace. You have to be willing to let the author take his time unfolding the story and just let yourself soak in the setting. The other set of historical mysteries is the Sugawara Akitada series, set in 11th-century Japan, by I.J. Parker. Much of what I said above about the Shardlake series applies to this one as well, but the setting is much less familiar and even more colorful. For me, the main attraction here is not so much the plots (which are intricate and certainly compelling) but the main character, who is so enormously engaging in his complexity and humanity that I actually feel bereft of his company when I finish one of the novels. He's such a vivid personality it's hard not to imagine he must have been a real person who has "channeled" himself through Parker. The quality of Parker's writing is uneven. It's mostly very good--and there are some wonderfully lyrical passages--but every now and then you'll run into awkward bits, especially in the dialogue. Both series, although they're very neatly plotted, are primarily character driven, so you should, if possible, read them in order, as all the important characters develop and change over the course of the series. More than enough light but absorbing reading to last through the summer. (And all but the most recent in each series are available used on Amazon for under a dollar plus $3.98 shipping.) This is my 50th for the week. See you all Friday or Saturday.
