2017 Reading Log

1. The Brilliant History of Color in Art by Victoria Finlay

2. The Boston Raphael* by Belinda Rathbone

A few things were happening in my life that kept my nose out of books during this time, I was working about 60 hours a week and we’d moved cross country from Indiana to Boston for my husband’s career. Another factor is that I developed a severe case of tinnitus (ringing in my ears) due to a medication side effect. Never having true silence impacts my ability to concentrate, and I prefer having background noise to mask the screeching tinnitus which also distracts when reading.

The Brilliant History of Color in Art is brilliant. I picked it up on a whim at the library and didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. It’s one part travelog and one part natural history of pigments. I have recommended it to quite a few people when I see it in the books section of museum gift shops. I need to pick up another book on a similar subject by the same author, but I haven’t yet.

The Boston Raphael* by Belinda Rathbone is the story of how the Boston Museum of Fine Arts acquired a Raphael painting, but it’s written by the then-curator’s daughter and the first part is a bit of family history and navel-gazing about museum politics and Boston high society, so I never got through all of that chaff to get to the good parts where they talk about the Raphael.

2016 Reading Log

1. The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

2. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson

3. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two by John Tiffany, JK Rowling

4. Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between by Lauren Graham

5. Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham

I immediately read another Sherlock book after finishing the first. I think I’d intended to make a run straight through them, but I got sidetracked at some point. I should return to this project.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson was memorable for being set at the World’s Fair and the “ripped from the headlines” nature of the story. It’s a period of history that doesn’t get a lot of study, but it’s fascinating because it’s right when we were becoming a modern society.

I had to read Cursed Child right when it came out so I didn’t have the surprises spoiled for me, but it’s only an okay extension of the Harry Potter story. I was fortunate to see the play in NYC a couple of years after reading it, and it was only okay live as well. I did like seeing the familiar characters dealing with adult problems, but the shift in medium from “unreliable narrator in a novel” to “dialog-driven stage play” creates too much of a disconnect.

I had to read Lauren Graham’s autobiography for work, but I picked up her slightly autobiographical novel as well because she was such a competent writer. Her autobiography was memorable for the writing advice she gives in it. And the cover, if I’m being honest. I purposely went out and bought the hardback instead of downloading an ebook so I could take this picture. And while I was reading, I was stuck in a row on a full flight with two of the most awful people I’d ever encountered. They were a doctor and a nurse co-workers on their way to a convention. They popped some pills and drank about three screwdrivers apiece, talked trash about their estranged spouses and went into graphic detail about the sexual exploits they were going to get into in the hotel room during the conference. Their plan was to make their first stop a weed dispensary, then have a sex marathon…and I guess attend some of the conference sessions? Anyway, it was harrowing and I almost had them arrested for trying to engage in sex acts on the plane right beside me.

Easy read. Clear writing, engaging style. The characters are all fully realized, but not a lot happens for long stretches. The pace seems to lag in places, and the major developments are all fairly predictable. Still enjoyable despite that.

—From my Goodreads review of Someday, Someday, Maybe, ⭐️⭐️⭐️

2015 Reading Log

1. Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

2. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

3. So You Want to Be a P.I. by Pamela Beason

4. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

5. Ross Poldark by Winston Graham

6. Demelza by Winston Graham

7. The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr

8. The Face of Britain: The Nation through its Portraits by Simon Schama

9. A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Clara and Mr. Tiffany and Loving Frank were alike in that they were novels that dealt with the lives of prominent artists. I feel like Clara and Mr. Tiffany relied far less on historical fact and more on the imagination of the artist, which made it a more effective work of fiction. I very much enjoyed both, though, and this is an example of algorithms suggesting things that will appeal.

I read Les Misérables by Victor Hugo as one of my classic self assignments. I didn’t intend to love it as deeply as I do. The thing you don’t get very much of in the musical and movie adaptations is the sheer goodness of Jean Valjean. I had such sympathy for him. It’s a gorgeous piece of writing, as well. I had a good translation, but I believe the excellence will convey even in inferior translations.

I started reading the Poldark series by Winston Graham because I’d like the first season of the mini series starring Aiden Turner so well, but the character of Ross makes me so damned angry, I not only stopped reading the books, I stopped watching the show as well. The final series is set to air soon, so I really should catch up, but Ross makes my blood boil.

The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece was a book I picked up when I started researching for my current novel-in-progress. It’s very engaging, for a work of non-fiction, and I owe a lot of inspiration to this book.

The Face of Britain: The Nation through its Portraits was a bit of a disappointment because I expected the audiobook to be fully narrated by Simon Schama and it is not. Only the foreword and certain chapters are narrated by him, which is a shame, because I could listen to him talk about art for hours on end and never get bored.

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a classic self-assignment. I’d never read any of the Sherlock Holmes novels before, so I thought it was high time I dig into them. I found it a surprisingly easy read and it was interesting to read the source material to the many adaptations I’d seen, some more faithful than others. I’ve always adored the character of Sherlock in his many, many iterations.