Just Readin'

So, a little while ago, for fun, I read the Oresteia of Aeschylus. In general, I'm a big fan of Greek tragedy, but the Oresteia was really something else. The great thing about Greek tragedy is that you get this huge outpouring of emotion in a very short, condensed space. It took me about two hours to read the Oresteia, but when I was done I felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach. There's something so vital about Greek tragedy; it has a huge emotional impact. I mean, you just don't get that from other works of poetry or fiction. Anyway, one of the reasons I liked the Oresteia is because you're never really sure whose side your on.  Obviously, Clytemnestra did a horrible thing by killing her husband, but her husband should not have killed her daughter. By the same token, two wrongs don't make a right; Orestes should not have killed his mother, Clytemnestra. Like, is this one messed up family or what? While most everyone sides with Orestes and Ele...

So, to combat the great injustice done unto the human race by Showtime when they denied the world a fourth season of The Borgias , I set out to read all the books ever written about the Borgia family ever. That goal lasted about five seconds because, let me tell you, there are a lot of books about the Borgias. They're so delightfully scandalous. Anyway, before I totally gave up on that goal, I was able to read Blood & Beauty by Sarah Dunant. Normally, I don't read recent releases, but I have to say, in this case, this book totally lived up to the hype. Blood & Beauty is a compelling, vividly imagined portrait of renaissance Italy at it's best, worst, and smuttiest. I loved it. Blood & Beauty wasn't the first book I read about the Borgias, so I knew the basic plot line going into the story, but what shocked me was the depth of emotion that Dunant was able to summon when writing about people so long dead and, more importantly, so long disliked. Like, I h...

When I was working on my historical fiction blog last week, I noticed that my original list of recommendations was like 90% Jean Plaidy. Quite simply, Jean Plaidy is the queen of historical fiction (which is funny because she writes about royalty a lot). In case you've never heard of Jean Plaidy (not her real name), she was an English novelist who wrote tons of books under a bunch of different pseudonyms, but her historical fiction was mostly written under the name Jean Plaidy. The first book I read by her was Victoria in the Wings , a novel about the succession crisis that resulted in Queen Victoria's birth. With a title like Victoria in the Wings, you would think that the book would mostly be about Queen Victoria, however I was surprised, though not disappointed, to realize that that was not the case. Like a lot of her novels that I later read, Plaidy approaches the historical figure by first firmly establishing the political and familial setting. I appreciate that ...

So, in the spirit of continuing on the theme of 'historical' blogs, I have decided to give you some historical fiction recommendations. As you may have guessed from my frequent rants on history and historical inaccuracies, I rather enjoy reading about history. As a result, I read a lot of historical fiction. And, when I say a lot, I mean a ton. So, without further ado, here are some of my recommendations for good, historical fiction reads.   1) The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory - This was one of the first historical fiction novels I ever read that was written for adults. While it was quite a shock for a twelve year old, after re-reading it as an adult, I have to say that is quite an entertaining book. It tells the story of Mary and Anne Boleyn, two girls locked in a fatal battle for a king's affection. I think the struggle with historical fiction is always, first and foremost, humanizing the characters. This book especially does a wonderful job of humanizing Henr...

As an English major, I have to have an opinion about Shakespeare. Personally, I'm a fan of the histories. I like the comedies as much as the next person, but I think that there's some perspective to be gained from reading dramatizations of real (or mostly real) events. I quite like King John and Macbeth (which, in my opinion is both a tragedy and a history), but my favorite Shakespeare play is, without a doubt, Richard III . While half the fun of Richard III is Richards wile and villainy, I think that a lot of people make a mistake when they assume that Shakespeare's Richard is the same as the historical Richard. I recently wrote a post on my main blog about my evolving opinion of Richard III ; to make a long story short, I think that, while Richard made some bad decisions, he wasn't evil. It was hard to be a good guy in England during the War of the Roses. Even the much applauded Edward IV was capable of extreme acts of brutality and even executed his own brot...

I recently finished reading a book that I didn't think that I would like. The Night Gwen Stacy Died was an unexpected gem. I originally checked it out of the library because, excusably, I thought it was about Spider Man. Incidentally, I still think that someone should write a novel about Spider Man, but I'm glad that Sarah Bruni wasn't the one to do it. Her novel so was so much better, so much stranger, sadder, and romantic. The story follows two unlikely allies: 'Peter Parker', a man who has spun a comic book fantasy life in his mind and believes himself to have something akin to 'Spidey Sense', and Shelia, a high school student who dreams of escaping her small town life. The two throw their lot in together when they rob the gas station where Shelia works and run off to Chicago to save the life of a man that Peter has been dreaming about for months. Peter's dreams have a nasty habit of coming true and, after having a premonition about a man who tri...