My schedule has been overbooked for some time now, but the last few months I have made it a priority to focus on posting notes on books after I finish certain tasks. Unfortunately, most days I only get some of those tasks done, leaving no time to work on posts. In the next few weeks, though, I would really like to get a few posts out the door on some books I'd really like to share with you. In the (hypothetical) pipeline:
Passage through the Red Sea by Zofia Romanowicz
Originally published in Polish as
Przejscie Przez Morze Czerwone
See the post at
The Neglected Books Page for more information on this book, which included a review on an out-of-print book that described it as odd, repellent, and powerful. As the NBP editor noted, such descriptions are the call of one neglected book fanatic to another. Yes, I read it. And yes, it is odd. Repellent. And powerful. More on that soon.
The Disinherited by Benito Pérez Galdós
Originally published in Spanish as
La desheredada
This is the novel where Galdós hit his stride. Starting with
The Disinherited, Galdós published 22 novels in a decade, what are now called the Novelas españolas contemporáneas. It's clear in this book that Galdós was now on a higher plateau in writing, although he still had a little way to go to reach the level of
Fortunata and Jacinta. Still, it's a pleasure to find writing of this quality.
The White King: Charles I, Traitor, Murderer, Martyr by Leanda de Lisle
See
the publisher's page for the Author’s Note and the opening of the Preface. From the Author's Note:
This new portrait, informed by previously unseen royal correspondence, depicts a brave and principled king who inspired great loyalty but who was also a man of flesh and blood. Charles the Martyr and Charles the Murderer, lauded by friends and condemned by enemies, is largely forgotten, but in popular memory something just as extreme remains. Charles has been pinned to the pages of history as a failed king, executed at the hands of his own subjects, and now preserved like some exotic but desiccated insect. In may accounts it seems that Charles was doomed to fail almost from birth, his character immutable.
Lastly, a couple of books read last year on the American Revolutionary War. First is a work of fiction: Oliver Wiswell by Kenneth Roberts, which looks at the war from the perspective of a Loyalist. The second is Scars of Independence: America's Violent Birth by Holger Hoock. Hoock focuses on the violence carried out by both sides so a reader can better understand what really happened during those years.
