I have, for the past two months, been reading Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. This, dear readers, is astonishing. And I’m not talking about the book although it is phenomenal. No–it’s that I’ve stuck with and enjoyed this book! It’s non-fiction (not my usual fare), over 700 pages long, and about war (a topic that does NOT call to me.) It’s taken me forever because I only read before going to sleep and this is so dense, I read it far more slowly than I do fiction. I’m almost done–at the 90% mark. It’s one of the best written books I’ve ever read–here’s just one of thousands of examples:
Smitten in 1906 by the twenty-three-year-old wife of a provincial governor, Sukhomlinov contrived to get rid of the husband by divorce on framed evidence and marry the beautiful residue as his fourth wife. Naturally lazy, he now left his work more and more in the hands of subordinates while, in the words of the French ambassador, “keeping all his strength for conjugal pleasures with a wife 32 years younger than himself.” Mme. Sukhomlinov delighted to order clothes in Paris, dine in expensive restaurants, and give large parties. To gratify her extravagances Sukhomlinov became an early and successful practitioner of the art of the expense account.
It’s the sort of read that makes one feel smarter just by taking it all in. I’ve really enjoyed it and, amazingly, it’s made me want to read more about the Great War. (Suggestions welcome!)
When I need a break from The Guns of August, I’ve been re-reading some of my favorite romances. I am in the process of making a list of my personal top 100 romances and, as I do so, I’ve found I want to make sure I still love the books on the list. It’s been fun and, in general, what I liked years ago, I still like today.
I subscribe to two Substack columns: Matthew Yglesias’ Slow Boring and Freddie deBoer’s Blog. I’ve been reading deBoer for over a decade–I don’t always agree with him but he makes me think and he is willing to discuss, frankly, topics most smart people stay away from. His column today, which will irk many, is about the fertility crisis. I’m still thinking about it and I’ll own up to sending it to my four millennial kids.
Dr. Feelgood and I just finished watching the third and final season of Guilt which I loved. We just started The Great which, though a little stomach turning at times, is great fun. And, after the last two episodes of the second season of Blue Lights drops this week, we’ll watch that.
How about you? What’s been entertaining you lately?
I am binge watching Brothers & Sisters (which neither I nor my friends here in the UK had never heard of before) and loving it. Reading Dopesick by Beth Macy having watched the brilliant TV drama series. Wow, terrific.
B&S has a great cast!
My sister and I watched all 3 seasons of Hacks and I’m honestly sad that I have to wait for more. Jean Smart is a national treasure.
That’s one on our list! Dr. Feelgood loves comedy–I’m much more ambivalent about the genre but I think I might like Hacks.
It’s really a dramedy, there are definitely episodes that really have nothing very amusing in them and some scenes that are really emotional and almost hard to watch. But the relationship between the two main characters – Deborah, the 70+ year old comedy veteran and Ava, the 20-something writer who she doesn’t want to work with – is so well-developed and it’s great to see how they each learn and grow from knowing each other. Also, Deborah’s kitchen is amazing.
The Sleepwalkers by C. Clark comes highly recommended. I have it to read when the „Great War“ interests me again, not now.
I’ve read Guns of August twice, once in college and again thirty years later. Really well written and engrossing. Turns out there are a lot of mistakes, some original and others turned up by later research.
i bought Speepwalkers to read in July 2014 in Paris. Read some by the Eiffel Tower and some on the steps of Sacre Coeur – really appropriate. Figured you couldn’t beat the atmosphere for the 100th anniversary. This is more accurate, but less interesting. Perhaps an unavoidable trade off.
Such a tragedy. Unbelievable arrogance and indifference to human life. Die might have been cast when Crown Prince Frederick developed and died of head and neck cancer, clearing the way for his son, Kaiser Wilhelm II to grow under the malign influence of his grandfather Wilhelm the first.
I’ve read some about the errors and I’m not sure they lessen the book for me. Though I have a degree in history, I’m not all that interested in the minutia of the field. I feel as though her overall take is on the money.
Have started watching S2 of Interview with the Vampire now that it’s almost finished airing, and I can binge it. I don’t especially care for Anne Rice’s universe, but to me, the first season of this show captured everything that’s appealing and special about the books while also modifying the setting and character backgrounds in such a way that I found it aesthetically and emotionally riveting. The first episode of the second season hasn’t lost a beat, and I’m ready for Claudia’s storyline to break my heart (something that’s never worked for me in any other version of this story). Most shockingly, I actually like Louis in the show-verse!
Between books, I watched a couple of furniture restoration videos on YouTube. There’s something so satisfying about watching a faded & broken chest of drawers being brought back to vibrant life. Then the YouTube algorithm decided that I wanted to watch videos of people painting, sewing, making baskets out of cardboard boxes, and clearing out hoarder houses. Then a few bird house cam videos popped up—and I must admit I did watch one that showed the time lapse of a bird building a nest, laying & hatching & feeding the baby birds, with the fledglings taking off at the very end. I’ll never understand the YouTube algorithm—and neither will anyone else, including people who work for YouTube.
Not THE GUNS OF AUGUST, but another Tuchman book I thoroughly enjoyed was A DISTANT MIRROR, about life in the 14th century. Although its focus is on a French nobleman who married one of Edward III’s daughters, the book is more broadly about everyday life in the Medieval period, especially the massive and long-term impact of the bubonic plague.
It’s been too long since I read Guns of August, but I remember how much the beginning hooked me. Also listened to audio for Sleepwalkers several years ago and made a note I should try to read the book since names were hard to keep track of when listening. I remember it being very informative, though.
Would like to thank whoever here recommended Sherwood Smith’s Phoenix Fledgling series. I read and loved it as well as the follow-up Sagacious books recently. Particularly loved the prequel novel, Tribute.
As for tv, my husband and I have been watching and enjoying Bosch on Amazon Prime. I also watched Mrs. Davis on Peacock and thought it was fun.
I really like Bosch although not the reboot as much.
Sherwood Smith: that might have been me – I am so glad – she is a very good author and these books are well written fun. Thank you for mentioning them!
I haven’t been reading or watching anything spectacular lately, but I can recommend another Barbara Tuchman WWI book. A few years ago I listened to the audiobook of The Zimmermann Telegram, narrated by Wanda McCaddon, and it was an immensely fascinating, rip-roaring true story of how the US was drawn into the war. McCaddon has an upper-crust grande dame voice and a style that brings out the funny side of some of the events. It’s a story full of vivid characters and some bizarre happenings that are stranger than fiction.
I have that on my TBR. She actually talks about TZT in the prologue of TGoA. It sounded fascinating.
Tuckman’s book A Distant Mirror is on sale today! All 1000 plus pages for 2.99!
https://amzn.to/3xzfEfI
Just read THE GINGER TREE by Oswald Wynd. It’s about Mary Mackenzie, a young Scotswoman (she’s 20 at the start of the book) who is on her way to Peking (as it’s called in the book) to get married. She doesn’t know her fiancé well, and the marriage is not a success. He is a military attache at the British Legation, and while he is an observer in the Russo-Japanese war, trapped in Port Arthur, she has an affair and becomes pregnant. The baby clearly isn’t his, and Mary is ostracized. The book is not at all sexually explicit, but it doesn’t shy away from showing that Mary is a sexual being – society in the early 20th Century might condemn her for it, but the author does not. The book follows Mary as she forges her way over the next 40 years, sometimes with the help of others and sometimes despite them. Years ago Masterpiece Theater did a miniseries based on the novel but I don’t know how faithful it was to the book; it may be worthwhile to see if the series is available to stream.
I have just enjoyed two lovely books:
AJ Demas House of the Red Balconies
R Cooper Fox of Fox Hall
Both are gentle, nearly cozy mm books – one set in an alt medieval place, with interesting politics, and the other in alt Ancient Greece in a house of pleasure. Both wonderful sweet reads.
On the “political side” I am reading the memoirs of Jean Monnet, one of the architects of the European Union – talk about hopeless conflict ! He went through two world wars as a negotiator and economic advisor, to create his concept of what was needed to unite people. Very accessible book (to me) and gives hope.
I had fun (occasionally, I am in that mood) with some smut from Sinistre Ange.
I read a bit of Honor Harrington due to a discussion about large organization and hierarchies and misogyny in them
And I am re-reading some Tinker books from Wen Spencer, a new one (Storm Furies) comes out soon. Such clever books, and so real confusion and learning things, I like the characters and the complexity, but it means re-reading otherwise I get lost.
I have a review of the Demas ready to go – I liked it a lot, too.