Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh, 1945, revised 1960)

Charles Ryder becomes close college friend of Sebastian Flyte - then develops relationships with Sebastian's family (wealthy English Catholics with their core estate named "Brideshead", where Ryder often visits).

The book starts with Ryder - in the British army in preparation for WWII - unexpectedly ending up at Brideshead, which had been taken for army use - this about 10 years after his last visit.  (The book also ends with him there.)

Not sure what to make of the "Catholic" angle here - clearly very important for the author, who had converted to Catholicism (interesting that he wasn't the only English author with this facet).  But it's hard to say that Catholicism was very uplifting as experienced or applied by the characters here - hmm.

Sebastian's sisters:  Julia and Cordelia.  His mother - who seemed to be hard to deal with.  His father - in Italy until end of the story.  His brother - an odd character.  Anthony Blanche.  Julia's husband - Rex.  Ryder's wife Celia - his career as an architectural artist.

I did like it well enough;kept pulling me along.

SPQR - A History of Ancient Rome (Mary Beard, 2015)

Author (also a decent Twitter follow) has spent a good chunk of her lifetime researching and writing about ancient Rome.  I like that she seems pretty modest about drawing conclusions for the many portions of the story line where information, or evidence, is scanty; and that she questions many of the stock story lines that have developed based on so many centuries of historians seeking to explain Rome.  I also think her way of dividing up the story line is helpful.

Easy to see why empires, or dominant states, that have risen up after Rome tend to see their own trajectories in terms of Rome's.

As the US now seems to be waking up, belatedly, to the fact that most news is "fake" - and I'm not referring here to the deliberately false clickbait world, but instead the world of reporters-with-agendas - it's pretty fascinating to be reminded of how expert the Romans were at making up narratives that sold the preferred story line.  A sophisticated version of victors writing history.

I hadn't really pieced together how pivotal Augustus (the first one, that is) was to the development of the role of emperors.

Romans were unique in so many ways - very effective at letting their concept of citizenship evolve to meet the needs of the expanding empire.

I definitely will tour through this one from time to time.

Gilead (Marilynne Robinson, 2004)

Book club selection (via NOC; session held December 18, 2016).

Minister based in western Iowa gets married late in life; impending heart trouble prompts him to write letters to his 7-year-old son - stuff the kid will read as an adult.  Great reviews; Pulitzer prize winner; but our group didn't seem to connect all that well to the book.  Including me - and I should have been the perfect audience for this.

The letter-writer's father and grandfather also were ministers; the grandfather was an ardent abolitionist, associated with John Brown and "bloody Kansas".  His brother came back from college professing atheism.

There are elegant passages; some of the story line around young Jack Boughton took some form; but too much meandering.  There were some interesting parallels across the generations - and between the letter-writer and Jack Boughton - not enough to drive my interest.

Fortunes of War - The Balkan Trilogy (Olivia Manning, 1960-1965)

Manning wrote a total of six novels in the collection known as "Fortunes of War" - this book ("The Balkan Trilogy" includes the first three:  The Great Fortune (1960), The Spoilt City (1962) and Friends And Heroes (1965).

Another 900+ page work; another effort to get better acquainted with the Balkans.

Story centers around newlyweds Guy and Harriet Pringle - married after a short courtship while Guy visits London in summer 1939; they settle in Bucharest, where he is involved in teaching.  The story line revolves around two main themes:  (1) developments in the war (German advances create big changes in Romania and eventually force the Pringles (and most of the Brit community in Romania) to Athens (which is as far as the Pringles venture in this trilogy), Cairo, etc.; (2) the Pringles get to know each other better, which isn't always uplifting.  Based on the author's own experiences.

Sometimes this felt a bit like a mere page-turner, but I do think there's quite a bit going on.  Very interesting to read about the experiences of British citizens residing in these places in the run-up to the war - the best perspective I've gotten on what that might have been like.  Also interesting to read about late 1930s Romania.  And the story line about the relationship of the newlyweds was handled well.  So I liked this . . . but not sure it was worth 900 pages of effort . . . except it was ideal gym-reading.

Prince Yakimov; Lord Pinkrose; Sasha; many, many other characters are introduced - primarily Brits with various positions, but also Romanian and Greek characters.

The Evolution of Everything (Matt Ridley, 2015)

Ridley consistently expresses ideas with which I already agree (as for example in this book), so I was a little worried that this latest book of his might not have much value.  The good news:  he knows a lot more than me, can express it far better, and can pull threads together in ways I'd never see - so yes, it was well worthwhile.

Started a bit slowly - the theme is explaining how everything evolves on a bottoms-up basis - yet so much talk at the opening about how a "great man" - in this case, Lucretius - figured out so much and influenced so many.  But then the author found his way.

The core idea:  when reasonably free, humans are creative, innovative, collaborative - and will work out generally effective decentralized solutions based on local needs.  Freedom is limited by forces such as government and religion and incumbents in any field.  This certainly is not a new idea - and history seems to bear out its accuracy repeatedly - yet we live in an era when the intelligentsia (aka the "clerisy" in Deirdre McCloskey's terminology) clamors for centralized control and planning.  Politicians of course feed this relentlessly - their power depends on getting voters to believe that the politician has some sort of grand plan to make everything wonderful (or great again, if that's your taste).  And voters, understandably, wish to believe this - despite all the evidence to the contrary.

How much better if the clerisy just backed off - and just stated something like this:  "our ability to manage from the center is limited, we promise to "do less" and that approach will make us all better off in the long run."  This would be honest, and consistent with what history shows.  It also would be a formula for electoral disaster.  And loss of government-funded jobs-for-experts.  Not going to happen; the best we can hope is that somehow Leviathan is slowed a bit from time to time.

All the chapters are worthwhile, even if Ridley jumps around a bit.  Probably my favorites were (1) the chapter on the evolution of technology - how science follows the tinkerers, and grand government-funded scientific initiatives tend to misallocate resources - and (2) the chapter on education - how bizarre that the clerisy that rightly condemns monopoly in any business setting insists on monopolies in education - it didn't, and doesn't, have to be that way.

Recommended by Paul Jr., I'd share the recommendation.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick (1968)

Book club selection (via PJr; session held November 13, 2016).

Author is consistently creative, ahead of his time.  This book - primarily about exploring the line between humans and high-functioning androids - seems quite timely almost 50 years after being written.

Protagonist is a bounty hunter - paid to "retire" renegade androids who are increasingly difficult to distinguish from humans in post-nuclear war San Francisco and environs.  Android manufacturing company based in Seattle (Rachel's company).

Chickenheads - Isadore.  Kipple.  Earth in decline; efforts to move folks to Mars, including offering a high-end android to each re-settler, delivered on arrival.  But Mars apparently no utopia; renegade androids escape from there.

Empathy as a defining human characteristic - efforts to construct empathy-based tests to weed out hidden androids.  Reminds of a Turing test.

Quite a few threads that were hard to follow, at least for me - Mercerism; the obsession with animals (real or "electric"); the Penfield device; Buster Friendly; androids establish an alternative police station (but to what end?)

Rachel and the live goat.

Interesting idea - that these androids are built from a cellular material that lasts no more than four years - perhaps that's for the best if androids are prone to becoming unreliable.

The Valley of the Assassins - Freya Stark (1930-1932)

I very much liked this.  Per the "Introduction" we learn that the author was a most unlikely candidate to come up with a book like this - young, inexperienced, difficult growing-up circumstances.  She somehow took to the notion of spending time in various Islamic countries; in this case (early 1930s), mountainous hinterlands between Iran and Iraq ("Luristan").  These areas had barely seen Europeans (let alone female travelers).  Perhaps sensing some value from map-making etc., British authorities facilitate her travels.

I like that she tells a small-scale story of her travels.  It's the 1930s - but she is in a remote area - generally poor, deeply traditional, conservatively Islamic - her style permits a reader to somewhat imagine how travelers "got by" in remote areas like this not just in the 1930s, but no doubt for centuries and centuries before.  Are there still any areas so remote such that this kind of trip could happen?

And the travel story (and interaction with folks she encounters) is woven into the area's geography and history - in particular the Assassins  - who show up in Crusader and other tales - finally subjugated by Mongol invaders in 14th century.

Banditry everywhere - but travelers encountering groups residing in tents - or in some areas villages - are invariably treated well.  (Though I suspect her English-ness helped in this regard.)  Often the hosts are heartrendingly poor - yet would be deeply offended if their hospitality was refused.  There is an incredibly powerful passage around page 61 of the paperback version - the author is treated to dinner by poor folks - who harvest their entire (and paltry) crop of tomatoes to serve their guests a tiny meal - the host's children (at least the three sons) are so sad to see this long-awaited treat used in such a fashion - the daughter less affected because she knew - as a daughter - she had no hope of getting a bite anyway - an instructive intersection of traditional hospitality, poverty, gender roles, etc.

I hadn't connected that - so close by Tehran - there are jungles and rice-growing areas (and malaria) as one crosses beyond mountainous areas (still unmapped in the 1930s) on the way to the Caspian Sea.

Reminded me somewhat of the Fermor books (in particular this one, and also this one) - he's traveling through Europe in the 1930s - of course an entirely different stage of development, but like Stark, Fermor was describing a world in the midst of rapid change.

Lots to think about here.

The Wandering Jews (Joseph Roth, 1926-27)

Knew nothing of Roth other than the marvelous The Radetzsky March until recently reading this one, which suggested more Roth would be worthwhile.

This work is quite short; non-fiction - an account of the plight of displaced Jews - primarily leaving eastern Europe in the aftermath of WWI.  Roth was from Galicia and understood the challenges and mistreatments of the unassimilated Eastern Jews (not that it was that great for other Jews).  Poverty; odd jobs to scratch out a living; the challenges of being the "other".  Just comes up again and again, century after century.

Very interesting that Roth is writing this in the 1920s - that element is rather unique - he seems to have a realistic view of the problems ahead (even if he couldn't have predicted the awful turn events actually took).

A bit of an apologist for Russia, as so many were in those days (I think understandably); seems to get a little fuller viewpoint as time passes.

Far From the Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy, 1874)

I had overlooked Thomas Hardy until encountering this gem; it left me ready for more.  So I turned next to this novel, which was Hardy's first major success.

Bathsheba inherits a farm; interacts with three suitors.  Fanny and the sergeant.

I read that "Far From the Madding Crowd" was Hardy's first novel set in the somewhat fictional "Wessex" area that he somewhat created in southwest England - complete with a detailed map - a conceit that contributes.

Plot, characters, pace, etc. all are just fine.

Two things I like perhaps best of all in Hardy's work:

--He clearly loves and appreciates the look and feel of the countryside in this part of England - descriptions are vivid - terrain, wildflowers, weather - compelling.  (Seems to understand, or at least has done his homework, on areas like sheep-raising and farming in general.)

--He also sees and appreciates the "common man" characters in about as effective a fashion as I've ever encountered.  Seems to capture behaviors, speech patterns, etc. - never condescending, always respectful - so often these characters are overlooked or caricatured; this is the opposite.

I think Hardy revels in the wonders and the absurdities of human nature - and nature itself - as it is displayed in various types - that's a great way to approach things.  I'll read more of his work.

The Man in the High Castle (Philip K. Dick, 1963)

Clever:  author constructs a story premised on World War II ending in German/Japanese victory.  Mostly set in San Francisco, some in Rocky Mountains.  The year is 1962 - Germany took the lead.  So that part is interesting throughout.

What I didn't like as much:  hard to connect to any character.  Everyone seemed rather unhappy (which I suppose was the point).  And the story just sort of ended without tying up various plot lines that had been developed.

Astoria - John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire (Peter Stark, 2014)

Book club selection (via PJ; session held October 16, 2016).

Everyone seemed to enjoy this book a great deal, and find it useful; I certainly did.  PJ and I are pretty much obsessed with the little town of Astoria, and I wish I had read this backstory prior to our several visits.

The author covers a lot of ground, effectively.  Astor as German immigrant in New York; rising in the years following the Revolutionary War.  Making his way in various businesses, with emphasis on fur-trading and Manhattan real estate.  Lewis and Clark expedition returns; Jefferson (and others) anxious to see U.S. interests established in the Pacific northwest.  Astor conceives a grand scheme involving Astor-controlled ships circling from New York to Hawaii to the Pacific northwest to China to Europe and back to New York.  The Pacific northwest stop would involve picking up furs obtained via a network of Astor-controlled traders and inland posts.

To be established by sending a boat around Cape Horn, and an overland party across the entire U.S. (to pretty much follow the Lewis and Clark route, but Blackfoot animosity encouraged re-routing to an entirely new trail) (which in turn led to development of the Oregon Trail).

Astor's ideas were really ambitious, and came rather close to fruition.

Lots of elements I liked; here are a few -

--Descriptions of life on the sailing ship (the Tonquin) among the best I've seen - author had some personal experience on these boats and communicated well the small size, cramped quarters, inability of crew and passengers to find any space, personality clashes, length of trip, hygiene and diet challenges, etc.

--Descriptions of canoeing and voyageurs - best I've seen - boat size, capacity, rowing speed, amount of time, schedules - all this was better organized than I had imagined.  Portages up to 40 miles; carrying 180 pounds of pelts; etc.

--Missing spots on the map - just 200 years ago, in North America.

--Interactions with Native Americans.  The wealthy Native Americans in the Pacific northwest.  Incredibly helpful guide - in addition to invaluable services, she gives birth along the overland party's route.

--The travails of the overland party - enduring incredible challenges - those stories don't get old.

--Personalities of the various leaders selected by Astor.

--Early attempts to cross the Bar.

--Rivalry with British (and others to some extent).

--Establishing the town.

Ostend - Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, and the Summer Before the Dark (Volker Weidermann, 2014)

Book was well reviewed (and short).  Somewhat interesting items about important authors.

Main focus is on Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth (and their longstanding relationship).  Zweig had been at a resort on the Belgian seaside (then known as Ostend) when World War I broke out - interesting descriptions of the excitement, the sense of national unity in summer 1914 (reminded of the false, or at least ephemeral, feelings around 9-11 in this country back in 2001).  Zweig, Roth and others were back at the same resort during a summer in the 1930s - had been kicked out of Germany and banned from publishing there (their main business and financial lifeline) - because of Jewishness, and/or writings that didn't satisfy Nazi censors.  Spanish Civil War breaks out.

Zweig as cultured, successful, assimilated Viennese-based Jew; Roth as Galicia-based - this distinction seems to come up a lot.

Interesting stories at Ostend - but not all that interesting.  In a way it reminded me of this Hemingway novel - expat types struggling and carousing.

Zweig wrote this really fine novel (started working on it during the time period covered in this book) Roth was famous for this really fine novel; they run into Arthur Koestler (still enamored with Communism, so a bit before he wrote this book).

One of my favorite authors - certainly a famous expat in those days - did not show up at Ostend that summer, but apparently he was a regular topic of conversation, and at least one of his children did.

Parade's End (Ford Madox Ford, 1924-1928)

This is a remarkable book - worthy of the acclaim.  My only exposure had been the recent TV miniseries - which was entertaining enough - but per usual the book works differently, better.

Actually it's four separate novels; 906 pages in my edition:

--Some Do Not . . . (1924)
--No More Parades (1925)
--A Man Could Stand Up -- (1926)
--The Last Post (1928)

Large canvas in hands of skilled writer = fine results.

Something I found effective:  Ford varies his writing styles . . . sometimes it made me think of Joyce as in this, but Ford's method never struck me in the show-off way as it feels with Joyce.  Over a long book, Ford reveals details in unexpected ways that build interest, changes the tempo, creates empathy with lead characters.  You end up really wanting things to go well for them, which makes the ending quite tense.

Sylvia Tietjens - an amazing character - took skill to develop.

Author's ability to give glimpses of "what it felt like" in widely varying venues:

--WWI - especially from the perspective of folks (like Christopher Tietjens) not really designed to be there - death, shelling, bureaucracy
--Brit aristocracy
--Brit aristocracy in a changing time
--intensity and confusion of forming a romantic relationship in such difficult circumstances
--Brit bureaucracy
--the world of a younger son in Brit aristocracy
--even the world of folks working for the Tietjens family

Characters/threads
--Christopher Tietjens
--Valentine Wannop; her writer-mother
--Groby Great Tree
--MacMaster (Scottish non-aristocrat, makes good) and his wife
--Mark Tietjens
--England - London, countryside

The overall theme of course is "change" - many write about WWI this way - not sure any do it more effectively.

A thought on "change" during those years:  Thomas Hardy's striking book was written in 1895, and the relationship as described between Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead created a sensation  - compare to Christopher Tietjens and Valentine Wannop (or Mark Tietjens and Marie Leonie, for that matter).  Just one more area (if an incredibly important one) where things had changed, a lot, and quickly.

The Richest Man Who Ever Lived - The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger (Greg Steinmetz, 2015)

Generally interesting and worthwhile - but where was the editor?  Fugger lived an amazing life during amazing times - all this would have spoken for itself - but the author endlessly wrote in hyperbolic fashion (starting with the overwrought title).  (By comparison - this book discussing very much the same time period was enjoyable - and credible - in significant part because it was so matter-of-fact.  Let a good story tell itself!)

The author also occasionally descends into tropes-about-business - taking shots at "capitalism" here and there, when someone like Fugger generally was involved in pure-play "crony capitalism" - not at all the same thing.  Made most of his money by getting monopolies (often on metals) backed, of course, by state violence - this is not capitalism.  Sometimes he was involved in what I would consider capitalism (or what this author would refer to as "trade tested betterment,")

Great stories of Fugger's interactions or cause/effect relationships with all the big players in the last part of the 15th and first of 16th centuries - several Hapsburgs (his financing could swing Holy Roman Empire elections it seems); several popes; Francis I, Suleiman the Magnificent, Charles V.  Ferdinand and Isabella/Columbus; voyages of exploration; New World gold (and food); Henry VIII; Martin Luther (supposedly the aggressive ramping up of indulgence sales was prompted in significant part by the need to repay Fugger loans).  Finances spice trips with Portuguese (as discussed in this book); Venice still powerful but loss of overland spice trade monopoly was a factor in gradual loss of influence.  Hapsburgs rising from pretty much nothing, then in right place at right time (with right financier) via HRE elections, savvy marriages and New World discoveries.  Later in Fugger's life - peasant revolts in Germany; Luther becomes more conservative.

An early adopter of double-entry bookkeeping (learned from the Italians).

Author considers Fugger to have been a sincere practitioner of his religion notwithstanding tough business practices.  Puts up a housing complex for needy workers - ahead of his time here as well.

The years around 1500 were pretty amazing; endlessly interesting; this was a different perspective.

Curry - A Tale of Cooks & Conquerors (Lizzie Collingham, 2006)

Book club selection (via me; session held September 8, 2016).

I'm trying to form a baseline way of thinking about India; given complexity, will need many perspectives; thought this perspective might help; I think it did.  The author - British - pretty clearly did lots of research on "Indian" food.  She also provides useful historical context around culinary developments.  Did her British origins somehow disqualify her from writing this?  Seems not (and Rose and Dharma didn't think so).

As for the author's descriptions of Indian food - I have had virtually no exposure whatever to this cuisine - couldn't even really say what a "curry" was.  With so little background knowledge, the book's passages about food were interesting to me but rather mysterious - I read through them pretty cursorily.

As to actually eating the stuff - Dharma and Chris ordered and picked up a quite fine array of Indian foods from some restaurant up on Bell Road - I didn't really expect to care for it - wrong again, everything was really good and I'll happily repeat the experience.  There was a ton of food and very little remained at end-of-session, so it seems I wasn't the only one liked it. Also lassi, and Kingfisher beers (plus India pale ale courtesy PJr).

Really interesting and useful discussions about the factors affecting food in the area through the centuries.  Mughals; Persians; food items from the new world via Portugal; wide-ranging influence of British (including a vigorous marketing campaign that convinced Indians across the country to drink tea). Interesting stories about Brits posted to India; how they first used Indian ingredients, then focused on copying British fashion (and foods).  Longstanding tradition of vegetarianism; no beef or no pork depending on religion; castes; clean/unclean - complicated!  Mentioned Gandhi's struggles with food, as recounted in this so-interesting biography; mentioned how food vendors at train stations unwittingly reinforced Hindu/Muslim divisions (one of many factors however).

Good discussions of Indian food as served outside India - variances make their way back to India - items originating outside India become widely thought of as "Indian" food.  Syhletis - from Bangladesh area - operate incredibly high percentage of the "Indian" restaurants outside India (at least in Britain and US).

Very good reminder that one should use the term "authentic" with great humility when describing any of these dishes!  (Probably applies to dishes from other countries as well.)

India - so large geographically, such a large population, such a long history - seems that it tolerates invaders over the centuries - picks up things it finds useful, waits out the invaders, ends up changing them more than vice versa.