My Heart Belongs to Non-Fiction
I read more non-fiction than ever before in 2019. Some of this stems from being a habitual listener of NPR news radio, but not being able to stomach listening to current political discussions without becoming too anxious. But some of my non-fiction intake this year was research for my current fiction projects.
Sotheby's: Bidding for Class by Robert Lacey
The Auctioneer: Adventures in the Art Trade by Simon de Pury
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo
The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World by Anthony M. Amore
The Bilionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace
In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire by Peter Hellman and Charles Constant
The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick
Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist by Stephen Kurkjian
I found Provenance and The Billionaire’s Vinegar to be particularly eye-opening as they gave me a window into worlds I hadn’t previously known existed. The heist books weren’t strictly research, more like falling down an artworld non-fic rabbit hole. And the two books I read about the rival auction houses were strikingly opposite in terms of quality. The Robert Lacey book on Sotheby’s is fantastic and I really need to buy a hard copy so I can reference it quickly. But the Simon de Pury? Well…
The Auctioneer: Adventures in the Art Trade by Simon de Pury
Some fascinating details of the auction houses at work, but mostly just self-indulgent (and self-important) tosh and tattle. ⭐️⭐️
A good portion of the non-fiction I read this year was born out of my insatiable curiosity about the world. I particularly enjoy history and science non-fiction, so you’ll see a lot of science titles in the mix, but pretty much anything that I saw come across the Audible picks of the month that featured a subject I found fascination was worth a listen. There’s a broad spectrum of reads here:
No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators by Steve Jackson
It Burns: The Scandal-Plagued Race to Breed the World’s Hottest Chili by Marc Fennell
The Man Who Knew The Way to the Moon by Todd Zwillich
A Grown-Up Guide to Dinosaurs by Ben Garrod
Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch by Ruth Cowen
Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell
Climbing with Mollie by William Finnegan
The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind's Gravest Dangers by Ali Khan, William Patrick
The Art of Looking Up by Catherine McCormack
The book Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man by Lynn Vincent & Sara Vladic holds a special place in my heart. My pepaw, Bill Fouts, served aboard the USS Ringness in WWII, one of the ships who recovered sailors during the rescue operations after the USS Indianapolis disaster. 321 men survived of the 880 who were aboard when the ship went down. My Pepaw’s ship saved 39 of the 321 survivors, including the ship’s captain. He was a gunner’s mate and was on deck during the rescue operation. I took him to the 70th reunion of Indianapolis survivors in 2014 where we met up with decedents of those who were rescued by the Ringness, men and women who wouldn’t be alive if not for the efforts of the rescuers. While we were at the reunion, we were introduced to the author Sara Vladic who was working on a documentary film collecting first-hand accounts from the veterans on hand. Because of this, he was featured briefly in the film and is also in this book, sharing his account of watching the Indy captain come aboard the rescue vessel.
A very well-researched and readable account of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis with coverage of the aftermath and trial of its captain. Also, my pepaw is in it.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
No Stone Unturned should be required reading for every author who is trying to make sure their bodies stay buried or who likes to write about cold cases. I also found The Next Pandemic to be really useful in terms of giving a much better view of the actual science of epidemiology and not the bastardized and sensationalized version that is seen in movies, television, and novels.
Medieval Bodies was brilliant. It actually made me laugh out loud in a couple of places. And since one of my best friends is a medievalist, I had a great time chatting with him about it. The different sections were a bit uneven, as in the writing/research was superior in some chapters and others felt a little more flat, but this may have been a byproduct of my wandering attention or just not being as interested in some topics over others. The book covers a breadth of different aspects of medieval life.
Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell
This is excellently researched and well written. No qualms in recommending it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Historical Fiction
I used to read a lot in the HistFic genre, but I find I don’t read as much of it anymore. I think, mostly, I got tired of reading the actual history and finding the holes in the HistFic research, or the license taken with the fictionalization and getting kind of steamed about that, so I just switched to reading non-fiction history books. I did read two of Kate Quinn’s recent novels and enjoyed them quite a bit.
The Huntress by Kate Quinn
Read on recommendation of the A Mighty Girl social media presence. Based on the subject matter, I thought I was in for a more serious story, but it was quite a bit lighter than I thought it would be. The woven narratives are deftly handled, even if there is enough of a clear trajectory to the story to prevent there being any true mystery about how things will end up. The romance subplot is a bit frothy, but not unpleasantly so. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I liked The Huntress enough to pick up Quinn's other novel set in the same time period, The Alice Network, which I thought was superior in terms of how lyrical and beautiful the writing is, which is odd since The Alice Network was a debut. I would have thought that the writing would have become better over time.
To marry Histfic with my research in the art world, I read The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro. it was good, but not terribly memorable. I enjoyed the process descriptions of the main character painting, but the subplot tying in with a shady gallery owner and the Gardner Museum heist of the 90s was a bit overcooked for my taste.
Surprises
David Ignatius is a familiar name to me as he often appears on NPR discussions of current events in his capacity as a Washington Post reporter. I was so surprised by the quality of what I thought was going to be a forgettable spy thriller. I thoroughly enjoyed the portrayal of CIA agents who weren’t constantly shooting and blowing things up, who were just making deals and filing the paperwork and looking after their departmental budgets. I’m a sucker for realism these days, and this book had it. And I think Ignatius might have pulled off the best female characters I’ve yet seen a man write…aside from perhaps James S.A. Corey.
The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius
Hats off to David Ignatius for The Quantum Spy. It neatly sidesteps all the idiotic Hollywood tropes that make spy thrillers obnoxious. The science is right. The portrayal of actual intelligence work is (as far as I know) right, and his portrayal of female characters is spot on. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I am a huge fan of James S.A. Corey (actually a team of writers named Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham) and The Expanse books are some of the best hard sci fi around these days. The show based on the books is the best sci fi show, hands down, and I could go on for a long time about what I love about the series in both forms, but I only read one of them this year and I had a very hard time getting into it. For one thing, the previous book in the series Nemesis Games blew my socks off with how good it was, but where the plot picks up in Babylon’s Ashes is a really dark place, and I just wasn’t up for inhabiting that headspace this year. Also, one thing that James S.A. Corey does particularly well is alternating point of views. There are frequently four POV characters in each of the Expanse novels. But one of the POV characters in Babylon’s Ashes has been newly introduced and I had a hard time connecting with her for some reason. I’ll have to give it a second read to see if I was just in a period of burnout when I tried to pick it up, because I fully expected to be in love with it and I just wasn’t. My husband is peeved at me for not being caught up with the latest book, so I should really move this to the top of my TBR list.
I’d say the most memorable author I “discovered” recently was JoJo Moyes. Yes, I know, she’s BEEN hot for years, but I hadn’t ever read anything by her until last year and she wrecked me in the best possible way. I had seen the Me Before You movie, of course. I watched it a few times because it was good for a nice cry, but the as much as the movie is a tear-jerker, the book ripped my heart out of my chest and pureed it. When I found out there were sequels I couldn’t believe they would be half as good as the original. So when After You wrecked me just as thoroughly as the first book in the series, I knew I’d be reading a lot more JoJo Moyes in the future. She’s the perfect example of an author whose voice I adore but cannot in a million years imitate in my own writing. She makes writing about grief seem effortless and balances on the comedy-tragedy knife edge. I’ll definitely be finishing the series sometime soon, but it’s the type of thing that I have to be in the mood for and a few days in my calendar that I can just clear completely.
17 years of Book Log
Soon, I’ll have kept a book log for 20 years. I have had such fun looking back into the past and sharing my reading life through this Reading Log series of posts. I’ve exercised my memory and relived some times I don’t often think back on. 2019 certainly has been one of the best reading years of my life, though.
