I can appreciate Calvino’s prose (albeit veiled through translation), but I can’t seem to get on with his work as a whole. If On A Winter’s Night A TrI can appreciate Calvino’s prose (albeit veiled through translation), but I can’t seem to get on with his work as a whole. If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller is just really frustrating to me, no matter how good he is at conjuring up a scene, an atmosphere, an intriguing idea. I’ve never been much for experimental novels and the like, so it was probably inevitable I wouldn’t like this, but I had hoped I’d like it more than I did — it’s all about books, after all! But it annoyed me from the start, first because it’s not written for me at all. I don’t think Calvino thought for a moment about a female reader really picking up the book, because it’s all addressed to a male reader who you can supposedly, as a reader, relate to. So he wasn’t talking to me, but to some man: isn’t there enough literature that does that?
Secondly, the whole construction of the thing is just infuriating. It’s not what I look for in a novel at all, because the entire point is that disconnectedness and incompleteness, the constantly broken thread of story.
Besides, this might sound weird, but the way he writes, he seems untrustworthy. I can get behind a good unreliable narrator, but I don’t like it when I feel as if the writer himself is deceiving me, sneering at me....more
Monstress is definitely a beautiful book. Takeda’s work makes it worth reading just for the sake of looking at it, though I could’ve done with some brMonstress is definitely a beautiful book. Takeda’s work makes it worth reading just for the sake of looking at it, though I could’ve done with some brighter colour palettes in places. As it was, the tone felt consistently… subdued, dulled.
Unfortunately, the story itself… there’s a lot of interesting stuff there, and in a book about a ‘monstress’, you’d expect some exploration of monstrosity. (And, no surprises, it’s not always the literal monsters who act in a monstrous way.) Buuut, there’s also a lot of world-building to keep up with, and I didn’t follow it very well. I’m fully aware that a lot of that might be because I’m just not that good at reading comics. This book has such a rich background and history that there’s a lot to keep track of. Add that to following the action, and I definitely needed the semi-regular info dumps at the ends/beginnings of issues. (Though those felt a little clumsy.)
Character design is really cute and it looks gorgeous, but I’m not invested. I’m not sure what I was meant to get invested in. I feel like I missed half the story.
Monstress is definitely a beautiful book. Takeda’s work makes it worth reading just for the sake of looking at it, though I could’ve done with some brighter colour palettes in places. As it was, the tone felt consistently… subdued, dulled.
Unfortunately, the story itself… there’s a lot of interesting stuff there, and in a book about a ‘monstress’, you’d expect some exploration of monstrosity. (And, no surprises, it’s not always the literal monsters who act in a monstrous way.) Buuut, there’s also a lot of world-building to keep up with, and I didn’t follow it very well. I’m fully aware that a lot of that might be because I’m just not that good at reading comics. This book has such a rich background and history that there’s a lot to keep track of. Add that to following the action, and I definitely needed the semi-regular info dumps at the ends/beginnings of issues. (Though those felt a little clumsy.)
Character design is really cute and it looks gorgeous, but I’m not invested. I’m not sure what I was meant to get invested in. I feel like I missed half the story.
Monstress is definitely a beautiful book. Takeda’s work makes it worth reading just for the sake of looking at it, though I could’ve done with some brMonstress is definitely a beautiful book. Takeda’s work makes it worth reading just for the sake of looking at it, though I could’ve done with some brighter colour palettes in places. As it was, the tone felt consistently… subdued, dulled.
Unfortunately, the story itself… there’s a lot of interesting stuff there, and in a book about a ‘monstress’, you’d expect some exploration of monstrosity. (And, no surprises, it’s not always the literal monsters who act in a monstrous way.) Buuut, there’s also a lot of world-building to keep up with, and I didn’t follow it very well. I’m fully aware that a lot of that might be because I’m just not that good at reading comics. This book has such a rich background and history that there’s a lot to keep track of. Add that to following the action, and I definitely needed the semi-regular info dumps at the ends/beginnings of issues. (Though those felt a little clumsy.)
Character design is really cute and it looks gorgeous, but I’m not invested. I’m not sure what I was meant to get invested in. I feel like I missed half the story.
I worried from the title and first few pages that this might prove too flippant and shallow from me, but I was wrong to worry. I quickly settled into I worried from the title and first few pages that this might prove too flippant and shallow from me, but I was wrong to worry. I quickly settled into it, and it’s obvious that Southon knows her stuff, takes deep joy in it, and knows where she can skimp on explanations a bit in order to get to the meat of things. She gives a lot of context without getting too bogged down in it, while telegraphing that the point is coming; if you really hate comments like “bear with me, we’re getting to the good stuff”, then it won’t work for you… but mostly, I thought she did a really good job.
The idea of a book about murder in Rome gave me a bit of pause, since I didn’t think they really had such a concept… and indeed, I was right, and Southon acknowledges that it’s a very modern way to interrogate these sources, and that in many of the cases described, no one batted an eyelid (the murder of slaves, particularly). As she says, though, the deaths and the attitudes to those deaths still tell us a lot about Roman society and the place of various people within it.
I was intrigued by the topic, but didn’t expect to find it a pageturner; that it was says something about how engaging Southon’s writing was. I found it deeply enjoyable — particularly as it was one of those books that had me turning to my wife to delightedly ask ‘did you know?’ and read bits out or wave my hands excitedly as I connected up bits and shared the fun....more
Focusing on 1660 to 1900 (a very precise time range!), this book uses the tie-on pocket as an ‘in’ to dig into women’s lives via the historical recordFocusing on 1660 to 1900 (a very precise time range!), this book uses the tie-on pocket as an ‘in’ to dig into women’s lives via the historical records, including the physical records (pockets which have ended up in collections and museums), writing and court records. It’s a fairly academic book — lots of “meaning resides in the blahblahblah” type language — and also serves as a pretty comprehensive repository for photographs of extant pockets and their details, but it’s accessible enough if you have enough of an interest, and there’s a lot of fascinating detail.
What really surprised me was how long the tie-on pocket lasted, and the wealth of evidence the authors were actually able to show about how they were used, made, obtained, bought, bartered, pawned and gifted. They really do make a good entrée for the history of women’s lives; I thought one of the most interesting parts were the court records, giving us a glimpse into what women carried in their pockets and why.
Not the most riveting read, even for non-fiction, but the photographs are beautifully done and in full colour, and the subject is fascinating enough that I found it well worth the slightly dry and academic approach....more
This book is about the importance of sleep: the functions it fulfils for us, how that changes throughout our life cycles, and the consequences of not This book is about the importance of sleep: the functions it fulfils for us, how that changes throughout our life cycles, and the consequences of not getting enough. It has a wealth of citations, and most of it was unsurprising to me, suggesting it's a reasonable synthesis of the current state of our knowledge.
However, and this is a really big but, I lost count of how many times Gregory proclaims something and then admits in the next sentence or a footnote that it was a 'small study' and hadn't been replicated in other studies, especially when she says it hasn't been replicated in larger studies. The fact that she made it sound like these things were facts, when actually it was that shaky, gave me pause about more or less everything she said.
You can't make big claims from small, underpowered studies. That's just not how it works. They can be a testing ground, a starting point, but there's no way you should be presenting them as fact in a pop-science book where people might actually think these are tried and tested facts, even if you explain the study is small. People just don't grasp the significance of that (or rather, the fact that it's probably not significant!).
I've also definitely had more engaging pop-science reads lately; Sue Armstrong comes to mind. Sleep can be a fascinating topic, but I found myself nodding off over Nodding Off....more
This is blurbed as The Goblin Emperor meets Howl's Moving Castle... and it's really not like either of those, to my miReceived to review via Netgalley
This is blurbed as The Goblin Emperor meets Howl's Moving Castle... and it's really not like either of those, to my mind, so I really wouldn't recommend it as such. There's a touch of politics, yes, but Thanh isn't much like Maia and nor is her position very similar except in that they're both in a precarious position in a court (though Maia's risks feel quite different to Thanh's)... though now, a few weeks after reading the story, I suppose I do recognise Maia's road to taking control of some of his power echoed in Thanh's story. It might be more alike than it seemed on the surface, now it's settled.
When it comes to its other big comparison point, for me it lacks the humour of Howl's Moving Castle. It is also obviously completely devoid of any Welsh influence, and is not aimed at the same age group. It shares one central plot element, sort of. I'm a little confused about these comparisons, to be honest; I always suck at comparing books to one another, but I still don't see the comparison here.
In any case, it's a queer story set in a Vietnamese-influenced court. Thanh is a princess, but she's most definitely a spare: originally sent away as a hostage, now returned and asked to negotiate with those who previously held her hostage. She has two main memories of her time at the other court: her affair with another princess, and a massive fire that overtook the palace and nearly left her stranded.
Both of these things are, obviously, relevant.
I found the way the plot played out fairly obvious; as a novella, it paints in pretty broad strokes. There are some hints of nuance in Thanh's mother's characterisation and motivations, which helps, but mostly it's fairly straight-forward and works out the way I expected. (I'm very surprised by people who don't recognise the abusive relationship for what it is, though, and think that's intended to be the romance -- so maybe it's more subtle than I thought and I just trust Aliette de Bodard a bit too much!) For a story of this length, I don't usually expect to be surprised, though, and I did very much enjoy the queer relationships and the glimpses of a different kind of court life and attitude to that more familiar to me from history and Western-inspired fantasy.
In the end, it didn't blow me away as much as I'd hoped or expected -- which is partly, I think, due to those comparisons to two books that mean a lot to me. It was enjoyable to read, but not like The Goblin Emperor in the ways I hoped for, and even less like Howl's Moving Castle. We all take different things away from stories, and it's clear that my version of The Goblin Emperor and Howl's Moving Castle don't overlap with the understanding of them taken away by those who made these comparisons. It's worth keeping that caution in mind when comparison titles make something sound like it's going to be completely up your alley, I guess!...more
Honestly, I could've picked this up just for the title, which I thought was clever. But of course, carbon is an intensely important element for life, Honestly, I could've picked this up just for the title, which I thought was clever. But of course, carbon is an intensely important element for life, so it ties in very much with my interest in biology -- no carbon, no us! -- and it didn't seem like it'd be too far off the random path of my current interests. Which proved to be mostly true: I found it harder going than a book about biology, my preferred science, but Hazen's enthusiasm for his subject carried me along to a great extent.
Often enthusiasm gives life to writing, but I did find that there were bits of this I got a bit stuck on just through not getting involved enough... and knowing that e.g. Richard Fortey can get me excited about rocks with the way he writes, that I do put down to a certain dryness in the writing. Oddly enough, it was the parts on biology I yawned through; I don't need the facts to be new to me, but if you're explaining to me about why carbon is the ideal element for life, I need you to make it more exciting than my textbook. (This may not be fair, as I find certain aspects of my textbooks very exciting. The membrane attack complex is a marvel! No, friends who have been subject to me exclaiming about the MAC -- I'm not over it yet! Biology is amazing!)
Anyway, if you're interested in carbon, in the history of how we understand carbon as well as the current state of the field, it's not a bad read. It's lacking in tables and images that can really talk people through the data rather than just explaining like a story, so it's very pop-science in that sense, so I'm not sure how much of it will stick for me. The symphony conceit got old for me/didn't always feel like the right way to balance/organise the material, but I learned some new things and cemented some others in my mind, and really, that's all I ask....more
I really wanted to read this as soon as it came out, but I'm a mood-reader and it kept not being the time. Whoops. Anyway, now I have: it's the story I really wanted to read this as soon as it came out, but I'm a mood-reader and it kept not being the time. Whoops. Anyway, now I have: it's the story of a trans brujo, someone who can summon the souls of the dead and lay them to rest. Yadriel is a part of the brujx community, but somewhat kept apart because they're handling the fact that he's trans quite badly. In his desperation to prove himself, he summons a spirit... and it turns out to be the ghost of Julian, a boy from school who is rather wayward and not at all like Yadriel himself.
I wasn't entirely sure how Yadriel and Julian could work together, knowing that this also featured a romance between them, but even as Julian annoys the heck out of Yadriel... the attraction and connection between them also makes sense. It's somewhat forced on them by circumstance, but Julian's unexpected kindnesses -- and Yadriel's desperateness to prove himself -- speak volumes, and they become quite close. With the help of Yadriel's cousin Maritza, a bruja also somewhat ostracised for her refusal to use blood to channel her healing powers (she's a vegan), they try to figure out why Yadriel's brother is missing, and what the heck is going on.
There was a certain aspect of the plot which I saw coming from a bit too far away, and I really wish it hadn't worked out that way because I liked the character, and I was more in the mood for a different kind of story there. It's not that it doesn't make sense, because it does, but it wasn't how I'd hoped things would turn out.
I adore how fiercely protective of Yadriel Julian becomes; the ending is a smile a minute, honestly. The overall feel of the book is rather young, but that rather suited my need for something that felt easy to read (even as it deals with some difficult topics, like being trans and fitting into your very gendered community properly). Definitely one I'm happy to recommend!...more
This book is a handy survey of women's fashion (mostly of dresses, but occasionally including titbits about other aspects of dress and accessorising, This book is a handy survey of women's fashion (mostly of dresses, but occasionally including titbits about other aspects of dress and accessorising, like necklaces and shoes) from the 16th to the 20th century. It features full-colour photographs, carefully annotated with useful pointers as to what to notice, and introductory essays explaining the trends of each period.
The annotation is very good, but the introductory paragraphs for each section are a bit less organised. It doesn't refer to specific examples of dresses in that chapter, but stays totally general... meaning it's hard for me -- a not especially visual person -- to link the dresses up with the trends they illustrate. Sometimes I'd look through the dresses for a specific feature, but not really see anything that seemed to match. In addition, sometimes the text would mention a specific photograph or illustration, but it wasn't next to the text, and there was no helpful "(figure 3)" or anything; instead it would say something like "this photograph of a gentleman..." Which photograph of a gentleman?
Anyway, I found it really interesting, and useful, with a few flaws. It would probably work better for someone with a visual memory!...more
I went into this book somewhat forewarned about the consent issues, but I was curious enough to give it a try given the amount of Bridgerton allll oveI went into this book somewhat forewarned about the consent issues, but I was curious enough to give it a try given the amount of Bridgerton allll over my Twitter feed, Litsy, etc. People who are normally pretty on the ball have reviewed it as a "nice Regency romance", so hey, how bad can it be?
Reader, it can be pretty bad.
I enjoyed it a lot, initially. The connection formed between Simon and Daphne is funny and sweet, and the love between Daphne and her family is really nice -- especially the differing ways it expresses itself between different members of the clan, each according to their own character.
However, then it gets toward That Scene, and things fall apart. First Simon totally fails at any kind of communication. Then, once she's figured things out, Daphne decides that Simon owes her a child, and retreats to her own bedroom to stay away from him to punish him in turn. He responds to this with violent rage, telling her that he literally owns her. (Such a nice Regency romance!) Finally, when he gets drunk, she realises she can take advantage of this and force him to come inside her, because she knows better than him and knows that the real way to cure his childhood trauma is to have a baby he doesn't want. So she does that, with lots of self-justification, and is shocked and appalled that he's then furious about being raped for his own good (though Daphne admittedly has the self-awareness to realise that it's mostly all about herself and her desire for a child).
After that, it becomes a paean to corrective rape for childhood trauma. Simon is, of course, miraculously healed by having kids with her, and neither his violent anger directed at her nor her rape of him are ever really addressed. Sure, they kiss and make up, but it's pretty much that -- no acknowledgement on either side that they did something destructive and awful.
It's all very sweet at the end, providing of course that you don't mind that one of the main characters raped the other, or that your oh-so-romantic male lead shouted at his wife that he owns her. And yes, I get that a robust discussion of consent might not feel period appropriate to you, or you might feel it's unsexy, or whatever, but on that subject K.J. Charles would like to have a word. Her novels Any Old Diamonds or Band Sinister serve as a riposte in and of themselves, but you can also read her explicit rebuttal.
I expected to really really love this, because I generally enjoy Tom Gauld's humour and style, and most of the Snooty Bookshop postcard collection areI expected to really really love this, because I generally enjoy Tom Gauld's humour and style, and most of the Snooty Bookshop postcard collection are great (if niche, and thus sometimes difficult to place with appropriate recipients on Postcrossing)... but actually, I found that it all got a bit samey after a while, and some of them just weren't that funny or worth noting.
I'm still glad I got it, because there are some great ones, including the one that gives the collection its title. But at the same time, I probably wouldn't recommend it... you can follow Tom Gauld on Twitter to see many of his cartoons there, and that's usually more fun -- you get to see them one at a time, as they come out, and then the less amusing ones fare better because you're not reading a whole book of them.
It's also a matter of taste, of course, and maybe it's best read a little bit at a time anyway!...more
When I mention that I've been reading a history of biscuits, people's usual response is confusion about why that would take a whole book or be particuWhen I mention that I've been reading a history of biscuits, people's usual response is confusion about why that would take a whole book or be particularly interesting. The answer is that Collingham discusses the social, economic and political circumstances surrounding the development of biscuits, and though the subtitle calls it a “British indulgence“, it discusses other countries too and the colonial uses of biscuits (yes, really -- they were thought to be useful in 'civilising' places like India).
This was exactly what I was hoping for: a microhistory on a really narrow topic that used that topic to reflect on larger issues. You might not automatically think of looking at the Industrial Revolution through the role of biscuits, or realise the extent to which naval voyages of exploration relied on ship's biscuit, or appreciate the fact that the original biscuits were twice-baked bread made a couple of times a year in communities that couldn't afford to bake fresh bread every day... but all those different topics can open out when you start digging in.
You don't just get to learn about when they started making Jammie Dodgers, or that the company was notoriously cheapskate and used plums for the "raspberry" jam in them because it was cheaper than raspberries... that's certainly one of the things I learned, but I also learned that the custom of following savoury food with a sweet dessert has come down in a very long tradition from when the stomach was thought to putrefy food, and Arab ideas that sugar was ideal to help seal off the stomach from harmful vapours caused by that process.
In the end, it's a history of biscuits and it comes back to that pretty swiftly when it strays away, but using the biscuit as a home base, it can tell you an awful lot.
In addition, it also contains some recipes between chapters, some of them traditional and others from modern sources. I haven't tried any, since I'm not the baker of the family and I'm also very lazy, but it's a nice touch and we'll probably keep my copy in order to give them a try someday....more
I've read one of Sue Armstrong's books before, on the role of the p53 gene in cancer, so despite aging and the science thereof not really being my thiI've read one of Sue Armstrong's books before, on the role of the p53 gene in cancer, so despite aging and the science thereof not really being my thing, I thought I'd give it a try. And it was, in fact, riveting. I knew a little about some of the experiments -- I read a paper on sirtuins and resveratrol for my final exam of my BSc, so that gave me some extra context -- but much of the detail was new to me, and Armstrong explains things beautifully and keeps things very clear.
The answer to the question of how and why we age is, of course, "lots of ways and lots of reasons", and the science isn't all the way yet on understanding exact mechanisms and unpicking the many small effects that can add up over a lifetime. Armstrong avoids giving any false certainty, but makes it clear how people in the know expect things to go, and what they're cautious about. Unlike some writers, she doesn't intrude a lot into the narrative (we don't have to hear stories about her neighbour's sister's dog's brother, which some science writers lean on a bit too heavily), or when she does it feels relevant and useful to understand where she stands.
For a field with so many different puzzle-pieces, Armstrong really brings it together well, and I actually found myself reading this all in one day, in great big chunks. Now that's good science writing!...more
The End of Everything is about all the potential ways the universe can end. Katie Mack describes the various scenarios and why they're likely or unlikThe End of Everything is about all the potential ways the universe can end. Katie Mack describes the various scenarios and why they're likely or unlikely, the evidence for them, and what looking into these possibilities can teach us about the universe, even if they all turn out to be wrong. She has a fairly breezy style, but some of the actual physics is pretty hard to understand, so it's to her credit that it feels comparatively light while also making what she describes clear enough.
Unfortunately, for me, physics is one of those topics that I don't dislike because it's hard -- though I do find it to be difficult -- as because it leaves me very much wondering what the point of everything is. Even biology will leave me feeling that way once I dig too deep, and this isn't a dig at Mack at all... but it definitely made it harder for me to enjoy this book, because it does deal with those really big topics, and where some people can take joy in all the unknowns and the deep weirdness that we manage to exist at all, it really gets under my skin and makes me feel very small and pointless. I can't really recommend that as an experience, but if entropy doesn't get you down and a cold empty universe doesn't bother you, then this will be much more to your taste!...more
I didn't really expect this book to be so riveting, but it really was. The central idea is a bit shaky, because Lynda Pyne's definition of "genuine faI didn't really expect this book to be so riveting, but it really was. The central idea is a bit shaky, because Lynda Pyne's definition of "genuine fakes" is very, very elastic: one example is lab-created diamonds, another is the Spanish Forger's faked medieval illustrations, another is the faked Archaeoraptor fossil... The things that make each item "genuine" or "fake" are pretty flexible. The reasoning is most solid when it comes to art like the Spanish Forger's work, which has now become desirable in and of itself. The reasoning for the Archaeoraptor fossil is basically "well, it's made up of real fossils!" Yeah, who cares, those fossils have been ripped from their original correct context in a desperate attempt to deceive people and get more money. That's not a genuine fake, that's just a fake.
And then there's a bit about wildlife documentaries and how they're kind of fake (sometimes, depending on how they're filmed) and kind of not, and the point kind of dissipated somewhere in there for a while in favour of just explaining how much money it takes to create a documentary like Blue Planet II.
That all said, though, even if Pyne's examples don't all hang together, I enjoyed her dissection of each item and the things it has to tell us. I didn't know anything about the Spanish Forger before, and that was maybe my favourite thing to learn about. Interesting stuff here, just... not really very organised....more
Again, I read this in the version illustrated by Charles Vess, this time. I noticed fewer corrections/changes in the text for this one, but perhaps I Again, I read this in the version illustrated by Charles Vess, this time. I noticed fewer corrections/changes in the text for this one, but perhaps I know it a little less well — though the opening chapter with the ceremony where Arha is ‘eaten’ has always stuck in my head (the drum beating at heart-pace, the ritual word that has lost all meaning) and the descriptions of the Labyrinth, the treasures of the temple… these have made a really big impression on me. As a kid, I think it was my favourite.
And that impression pretty much stayed with me. I love learning more about this part of Earthsea, seeing a whole other perspective. Though she didn’t know it yet, according to her own discussions of her writing process, so many foundations for the later books were laid here, asking new questions of what was established in the first book.
The only thing disappointing about this reread was reading Ursula Le Guin’s afterword, which feels like such an odd thing to say — but I so often agree with Ursula Le Guin that it really pulls me up short when something strikes such a discordant note for me. Here it is:
When I was writing the story in 1969, I knew of no women heroes of heroic fantasy since those in the works of Ariosto and Tasso in the Renaissance. These days there are plenty, though I wonder about some of them. The women warriors of current fantasy epics — ruthless swordswomen with no domestic or sexual responsibility who gallop about slaughtering baddies — to me they look less like women than boys in women’s bodies in men’s armor.
It sort of depends exactly what heroines Le Guin had in mind with that, but “no domestic or sexual responsibility” rings horribly to me. I enjoy the attention to domestic tasks in Le Guin’s work (Yarrow making the wheat cakes in A Wizard of Earthsea; the endless work of spinning and weaving at the Place in The Tombs of Atuan…) — and I certainly wouldn’t want Tenar to run around in armour with a sword. I think it’s important that Tenar, with those skills and her later trajectory, is a heroine… but she’s not the only kind of heroine there can be. (And a woman who wants to have “no domestic and sexual responsibility” is no less of a woman for it.)
Bit odd to end on that note, given that I dearly love The Tombs of Atuan. Still a great read....more
A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem is a light mystery-romance, where the romance feels like the more important element of the two. Kate Bascomb is A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem is a light mystery-romance, where the romance feels like the more important element of the two. Kate Bascomb is a reporter, the owner of a newspaper she took over after her husband died, and she's determined to champion women and shine a light on things women are kept sheltered from in England of 1865. Andrew Eversham is a detective inspector, and her investigative reporting endangers his career as she quickly finds a witness his team entirely neglected to speak to, with crucial evidence about a string of murders.
Naturally, the two get drawn together personally, particularly after the killings start getting very close to Kate, who discovers a body while on a visit to a friend's country home. The murders were confined to London at first, but suddenly they seem to have followed her... and thus so does Eversham. The sparks of attraction between them are very obvious, and this was the shakiest part of the book for me: they leapt from lust to love in mere pages, with very little provocation. I'd expected a bit more will-they-won't-they, but it was remarkably straightforward. At least they mostly managed to communicate like adults, which can be a big bugbear for me.
I thought it was light and frothy and fairly inconsequential, and for the most part, I was fine with that. Kate and her friend Caro were fun, and I appreciated the friendship between Kate and Val, as well -- I was very relieved when there was no sign of sexual interest or jealousy on either of them's part, and their quasi-sibling relationship was rather fun. Much of the setting and characters are sketched in fairly lightly; historical fiction this is not, if that's what you're hoping for... and the mystery was fairly light too.
When I try to sum it all up, it all seems pretty thin and like I'm damning it with faint prize, but it was a genuinely fun reading experience, and a nice way to spend my day, picking it up here and there to read a chapter whenever I could. It's unlikely to stick in my head, but I'd happily read another Manda Collins book or even another book in this series....more
I loved The Golden Mean maybe a little bit less than the other books, even though the plot definitely advances here. It’s the end of the original trilI loved The Golden Mean maybe a little bit less than the other books, even though the plot definitely advances here. It’s the end of the original trilogy, and there’s just so much that we don’t know because of the frustrating format. It makes sense that we can’t know it, but it’s still infuriating to get to the end and be left with so many questions about the story and what exactly happened. I’m very curious about that last postcard, don’t get me wrong! I’d love to read more!
But… this particular volume felt a little bit thinner, and the fact that the later books are all available second-hand only (and expensive) is really sad.
It’s still absolutely beautiful, with letters each in their own envelopes (though the envelopes are a little less well stuck to the page in this than in my copies of the first two books). It’s a lovely, tactile, multimedia experience, and I thoroughly recommend it even with its frustrations. I’ll continue reading the series when I can, though sadly it won’t be soon, unless I have a Fairy Godmother somewhere!...more
I don't think this book would be of great interest to someone who isn't interested in sewing at all, but you don't have to actually sew to take an intI don't think this book would be of great interest to someone who isn't interested in sewing at all, but you don't have to actually sew to take an interest -- a couple of episodes of the Great British Sewing Bee should set you up with all you need to know for background, if you feel you need to know a little more. Mostly, what you need to know is explained in the text, as the history goes through the development of early patterns from "rock of eye" to printed patterns showing various different sizes.
It seems that paper patterns have a surprising amount to tell fashion history: although paper patterns for home sewers were behind the fashion by a little, they couldn't be that far behind or they'd be pointless, so they did follow fashion and sometimes inform it (for instance, in the length of mini-skirts). Patterns have survived well, despite the flimsy paper, because the paper was acid-free, and often systems of notches and punched holes were used instead of ink. Carefully unfolded, very old patterns are still useable and useful.
It's surprising to me that the companies which established themselves early in the history of providing patterns for home sewers still exist! It was a little odd to meet their names back before printed patterns became possible, for instance.
The book is richly illustrated with images of the fashions and pattern-packets discussed, showing the trends through time very visually as pattern companies started putting the pattern pieces in envelopes, providing more instruction, and expanding their ranges to tempt younger sewers into following fashions. It also comes with some vintage patterns, which make no sense to me, but might interest people with a less academic interest in sewing and actually making garments....more
