#Genre: Historical Fiction

[haveyoureadthispoll]

In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying, but before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace—and will touch lives in a ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.  Full of Ozeki's signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.

[bluejaysandblackbats]

Quick Question

[agameofbooksblog]

New reads! I didn’t realize I picked two vampire books until I started listening to The Historian. What are your thoughts about these books?

[thatstudyblrontea]

The Charterhouse of Parma | ★★★★★/5

I've read this for the Set in Italy entry of the Tackle Your Classics reading challenge, and the Historical Fiction entry of the 2023 Genre Bingo. Tagging @lizziestudieshistory because we talked about Stendhal a while back – here are my thoughts on the book, it took me less than expected to finish it!!

Few books still prove to be as entertaining for the contemporary public as they (supposedly) were for their 19th century audience – The Charterhouse of Parma is one of these books for me. I enjoyed every page, it was a fun ride. Were the protagonists all perfect examples of moral conduct? Absolutely not, especially not to modern standards. But that's not why you'd read 1830s historical fiction. Yet, I loved the incredibly strong and complex female protagonists, whose actions lured me in deeper and deeper into the story, even in scenes where the "hero", Fabrizio, was being so egotistical it was getting ridiculous. The Duchess was an especially intriguing figure, showing all the strength and willpower it took to navigate the court of an absolute monarch as a woman, and to live as a widow, before that. Clelia showed a different kind strength, made of grace and perseverance, in sheer contrast to the passionate fury of the Duchess, but equally pleasing to read. Another thing that fascinated me was, to borrow Balzac's analysis, how Stendhal "surpasses the limits of the framework of the petty court intrigues of a small principality, [and] presents the typical basic structure of modern despotism. It shows us the constant types, which are necessarily produced by that society, in their most characteristic form" (adapted from György Lukács' essay at the end of my edition); in short, I loved the subtle irony and precise considerations with which he described the complex mechanisms typical of the absolute monarchies of his time. Representing all of their intrinsic contradictions necessarily called for morally ambiguous characters. And besides, I found many of the author's remarks really funny.

[darkwithasharpenededge]

Mistakes were made: A review of The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Rating: 30/100, DNF at pg. 300 (31%).

Summary: My very first DNF (did not finish) of the year. I regret buying this book. I paid a dollar and that was too much. I will be removing this book from my life as soon as possible. I wanted to finish this book for the prestige of saying I did it, which really wouldn't even be hard since I'm known for reading very long books very fast, but I just couldn't do it. Review contains spoilers, and also quotes from slightly rancid scenes.

Let me treat you to a few choice quotes to start off today's review of this horrid horrid book.

"What would happen if they crept up on her at night and tried to rape her? he wondered, and his loins stirred at the thought, although he had never taken a woman against his will, not even his own wife." This is on page 39, and from the main character, Tom, who we're supposed to sympathize with.

I'm not going to quote the whole thing, because it's too long to type out, but then on page 67 there is an explicit birth scene, complete with descriptions such as: "The opening stretched wider- impossibly wide-and then the head began to come through" and "Agnes's opening immediately started to close around the pulsing blue cord that came from the baby's navel." Was an explicit birth scene necessary? Was it? WHY DID THIS BOOK CONTAIN AN EXPLICIT BIRTH SCENE?

On page 81, the woman that Tom thinks about raping professes her love for him, not even a day after his wife died (during the previously referenced graphic birth scene).

On page 178, well, let me just show you the picture I took of the full page.

Because I am a madwoman, this scene wasn't the final straw.

This scene was.

Plot: There are actually some relatively decent plot elements contained within the first 300 pages. I will state that it's extremely slow (there's a lot of Tom's family walking around in the woods near starvation that isn't super necessary) but there actually is something worth having: Phillip, the monk main character, does some monk politics stuff that was pretty fun and saved me from DNFing at page 100 from sheer boredom.

Characters: The writer is extremely heavy-handed in his characterization of his main antagonist. His main method of making it clear that he's a Real Bad Dude is by having him fantasize about raping just about every woman he sees. It's extremely uncreative. There are ways to tell the reader "hey this guy is a bad guy" without having him fantasize about raping someone in every single one of his point of view sections.

Additionally, the writer insists that Tom, the main character, is a good honest man, but there are several scenes where Tom doesn't act like one at all. One of them is quoted above, but he also lets his son get away with constant bullying to his new woman's son and his own daughter. He also dragged his wife and kids all across the country putting them at risk of starvation and the dangers of travel all because he refused to take a stable job because he wanted to chase his dreams of working on a cathedral.

Prose Quality: Not good at all. The writing is not great quality. The architectural segments (because yes this book contains long sections full of architectural details about cathedrals) were slightly better than the vast majority of the prose, but still not great. It was very simply written, and I went into reading it expecting it to be pretentious, so I was SORELY disappointed.

Worldbuilding/Historical Accuracy: I have no idea how historically accurate this book is, but the medieval vibes are kind of fun and worth a couple of points... except for the fact that the story often refers to women as having "hot bodies" which is almost certainly anachronistic as fuck.

Action Sequences: The scene where Jack decides to burn the cathedral and then carries the plan out should have been a fun action scene, but it was just boring to me. I'd have to reread it to figure out why it didn't work for me, but I'm not going to do that to myself.

Romance: ""I love you," she said fiercely. "I loved you from the moment I saw you. I always wanted a man who would be strong and gentle, and I thought there was no such thing. Then I saw you. I wanted you. But I could see you loved your wife. My God, how I envied her. I'm sorry she died, truly sorry, because I can see the grief in your eyes, and all the tears waiting to be shed, and it breaks my heart to see you so sad. But now that she's gone, I want you for myself."" (pg. 81). Awful no good very bad evil hatred and loathing forever.

Female Characters: Please God let my next book contain just one good female character. Just one. I don't ask for much.

Gay?: A side character is referred to several times as effeminate, if that counts. (It doesn't)

Was It Worth It?: I paid too much for this book. Yes, I only paid a dollar.

Final Verdict: I should have left it at Goodwill.

Review Word Count: 870

[ravenwood77]

I was commissioned by my school library to do genre label designs! These are the three I have done so far. I’ve still got Classics, Mystery, Drama, and Fantasy.

[the-thistle-king]

As fascinating as the posts sometimes are, I'm getting fed up with the kind of rants people make saying: "I won't read a story unless you can explain how the faults of the planet work and where you got your potatoes from and *exactly* how the currency works, alongside the stock market of the world, it's soooo immersion breaking without every little detail being spoon fed to me! Also, why does everyone speak English? You should write the dialog in perfect [fantasy language] cuz it's rEaLiStiC."

Like. Damn. Way to kill my drive to make anything.

[devoutjunk]

some thoughts on story & history & the fault lines running through both (bolded emphasis mine)

[fandom-geek]

so i just finished blue eye samurai and, first off, that was utterly excellent

but also, with that ending. fowler's age makes it clear that this is probably set in the 1640s-1650s, which is a very specific period in english history.

as in, it's during the civil war and long parliament. the restoration of the monarchy happened in 1660, although things eased up after cromwell's death in 1658.

so either fowler and mizu arrive in 1640, during the lead-up to the civil war, or between 1641 and 1649, during an active civil war, or between 1649 and 1660, when you've got the notoriously repressive puritans in power. the puritans, as led by cromwell, also slaughtered their way through ireland, which would make me very curious to see fowler's reaction if they're going to touch on that

like. they're probably not going to use real historical figures given that they created a fictional character for the shogun, but it's a uniquely tense period of english history and given the four men's entire deal is warfare, drugs, and prostitution/slavery, it seems like the perfect period to explore.

[femmesandhoney]

hitting up the book store soon send recommendations

[hussyknee]

If you aren't reading KJ Charles's books I sincerely do not know what you're doing with your life.

[haveyoureadthispoll]

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times).

[tavina-writes]

do y'all know the what the agonies of 'sounds like a historical cdrama character' in real life is like bc.

Okay my problem is that whilst I come from a very normal diaspora family where my parents speak normal (mildly dialect heavy) Chinese--

I live by myself in an English Speaking Country so I don't really use the Chinese all THAT often except when like, phoning my parents. And notably. Watching historical cdramas.

You can see where this is going.

One of the major things about being Chinese-American here at the university where I'm at is that people will not automatically assume you're Chinese-American if you look Chinese. No. They're going to assume you're an international student here for your PhD.

Even though I dress like pretty much any mid-twenties American who lives in this area in terms of brands etc people are more likely to assume that I've been in the country so long that I've gone native lmao lolsob.

This culminated today when I was talking to a very nice professor about [redacted science PhD related thing] and he stared at me for a very long time and went "You said your parents are from Wuhan?" as though he'd met a cdrama actor cosplaying a space alien.

Me: 😭I'm sorry I uh, don't exactly use Chinese very often in my daily life.

Him: But your Chinese is very good! Do you do watch tv? Have you seen Zhenhuan Zhuan?

guys I was slain. killed. lying here deceased. DONT LOOK AT ME IM IN THE AGONIES.

[trans-cuchulainn]

the trouble with learning a minority language is that once you've hit the upper-intermediate stage of actually reading books in the language and so on, it doesn't take very long to exhaust the books at your level that you have any interest in whatsoever, and then there aren't any more. so you read the ones you're not really interested in, but that feels like Work, because you're not really interested in them. but it doesn't exactly get better as you get more advanced because even the more difficult books tend not to correspond too closely to your preferred genres

[kurokoros]

aaaand done???

[joannerenaud]

Sylvia Baumgarten (aka Sylvia Halliday, Louisa Rawlings and Ena Halliday), 1933-2024

My friend Sylvia Baumgarten died on the morning of February 1rst. Our friendship began in the 1990s, when I wrote her a fan letter about one of her early Harlequin historicals, Wicked Stranger, and she wrote back a long type-written letter about her influences and research and sent me a copy of Stranger in My Arms as well. I interviewed her for my old blog in 2011-- sadly, that interview has been lost. But we also met in 2016 for dinner, and she sent me her collection of books about the French Revolution. She was a great talent, as well as witty, opinionated and immensely generous. I will miss her very much.

She graduated from Brown University in 1955, and from 1982 to 2015 wrote for a variety of publishers, including Pocket Books, Kensington Publishing Corp., Harlequin, and Diversion Books. She was also a President of the Romance Writers of America/ New York City Chapter, and her books were nominated for multiple awards. Forever Wild was a finalist for the RWA/Golden Medallion award, Best Historical Romance (1986). Stolen Spring (which I reviewed for Dear Author) received a Romantic Times nomination as Best French Historical (1988), while Promise of Summer [archive.org link] received the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award as the Best Historical Romance set in France (1989). Wicked Stranger had also been nominated for a Rita Award by the Romance Writers of America.

Baumgarten's papers are available in the Manuscripts Division of Brown University, and include press kits, book reviews, news clippings, public relations material (including photographs), interviews, correspondence about her books, and the manuscripts of Stolen Spring and Dreams So Fleeting.

She also blogged extensively about her observations and experiences selling wedding dresses at Macy's in New York.