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Review of Mary Queen of Scots "Captive Queen" book
Just posted on my academic blog. This book is a comprehensive discussion of her correspondence during captivity.
Book 54 of 2024: The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke
Just read this, for my book club. It's an incredibly short read. It took me just 11 minutes to read the main story in the book, and 4 more minutes to read the author's afterword.
There were elements I liked. The illustrated small hardback book (and I lucked out by chance getting a signed one) is a gorgeous item. The illustrations are beautiful. And there is a sense of magic and winter running throughout. Some very nice animal elements in the book.
But it feels like the first draft of the start of a story that needed much more depth and especially length. I think if it had been improved in that way it could have been something incredibly special. As it is it is disappointing me and the other book club members who've read it.
The author's afterword is interesting, and worth reading. But if anything it just highlights how slight the main story is. For example the afterword discusses other wintry stories in the lyrics of Kate Bush songs. And those sounded far more interesting than what I just read ...
I am glad I read it. But equally glad I still have loads more to go in my first (and leisurely) read of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Because I'm enjoying that way more than I did this.
Rating 2.5/5, or generously rounded up for Goodreads purposes to 3/5.
There were elements I liked. The illustrated small hardback book (and I lucked out by chance getting a signed one) is a gorgeous item. The illustrations are beautiful. And there is a sense of magic and winter running throughout. Some very nice animal elements in the book.
But it feels like the first draft of the start of a story that needed much more depth and especially length. I think if it had been improved in that way it could have been something incredibly special. As it is it is disappointing me and the other book club members who've read it.
The author's afterword is interesting, and worth reading. But if anything it just highlights how slight the main story is. For example the afterword discusses other wintry stories in the lyrics of Kate Bush songs. And those sounded far more interesting than what I just read ...
I am glad I read it. But equally glad I still have loads more to go in my first (and leisurely) read of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Because I'm enjoying that way more than I did this.
Rating 2.5/5, or generously rounded up for Goodreads purposes to 3/5.
Entry tags:
Researching poet lives
I'm finishing off a book review I'm writing for an academic journal. The book is a new collection of Scottish poems in the long 18th century. Each poet's section includes a short biography before one or more poems from them. And I can't help myself constantly researching the poets and their lives more. My big success last night was confirming one poet being baptised in my home town Hawick in 1764. Far more precise than "born in one of the border counties washed by the Tweed" in DNB etc. He had many siblings baptised in Hawick or Wilton, then younger ones in Gala and Edinburgh before the parents moved to Kilmarnock and more baptised there. I should probably write this up as an academic journal paper too, not least to show the possibilities of easily accessed digitised Scottish parish registers to expand on these life stories.