Geography is Destiny: Britain and the World: A 10,000-Year History (Ian Morris)

From isolation from continental Europe to integration with it, whether it be by brute force, religious ties, or economic support, the British Isles have had a long, conflicted relationship with Europe. For those of us in America who watched Brexit take place from 3,000 miles away, the context of this struggle between England and Europe was new. However, as Ian Morris points out in his book Geography Is Destiny: Britain and the World: A 10,000-Year History, Britain’s relationship to Europe has been a continual ebb and flow between close ties and distance.

Morris’s book tackles England’s history to the broader world context, but the heaviest focus is on its European relationships. The author talks about the changing worldview and England’s relationship to it - from one where England was the literal edge of the known world (to Europeans), to one where they were the metaphorical center of it, to a geography where they are one of the outsized players on the world’s financial stage (albeit not *the* principal player like it once was). Morris, with brilliance and humor, explains how England evolved and its relationship to the world changed over the centuries.

In about 500 pages, Morris does a wonderful job explaining the major points of British history and its context to modern times. In many respects, what’s past is repetitive prologue in the sense that history has set the stage for the present and that it has, in some ways, repeated itself. Examples of this include England’s relationship to Scotland and Ireland or its relationship to Europe. For us in America, Geography Is Destiny is a great tool in helping us understand English history…and, as a bonus, how one historian perceives our independence in 1776.

MY RATING - 4.5

Year of Wonders (Geraldine Brooks)

Geraldine Brooks’s Year of Wonders has an interesting premise that’s based on a true story.  The plague is sweeping through a tiny English village in the mid-17 ^th Century, carried from London by a visiting tailor.  While some of this novel is suspenseful, heartbreaking and downright scary, I found that much of the writing was dry and therefore, I had a difficult time getting through it.

The account is effectively told through the eyes of Anna, a villager who is seeing her family and neighbors die one by one.  The villagers themselves, led by their rector, decide to forego their first impulse of fleeing and thereby infecting other towns.  Instead, they isolate themselves to try to contain the terrible disease; panic, superstition, and suspicion of witchcraft follow, which one would think would lead to a can’t-put-it-down read.  However, that didn’t happen — at least for me.

Unfortunately, Year of Wonders suffers from being approximately thirty pages too long.  In addition, many of the events at the end are implausible and maybe even downright ridiculous.  I was hoping for much more from this novel, but I didn’t get it.

MY RATING - 2

The Forgotten Garden (Kate Morton)

In my last post, I stated how rare it is for me to review two books in a row by the same author. I have never, since this blog has been existence, reviewed three in a row...until today. This is Morton's last book, so after this, it is on to other authors. It is with all anticipation that I wait for her next masterpiece.

The Forgotten Garden begins with an old woman on her deathbed. Nell dies with a family mystery she has never been able to solve. On her eighteenth birthday, the man who she knew as her father tells her a shocking secret. He found her abandoned when she was a four year old child on a dock in Australia. How did she end up alone there? The mystery, of course, is solved in the end, as is Morton's way, but it astonishes me, in all of her books, how she gets there. Morton changes chapter by chapter from the early 1900s to the 1970s to 2005, and never misses a beat. We hear the story told through the eyes of all different characters, including Nell's granddaughter, her mother, and a mysterious woman known as the Authoress. Just when you think that a question you had at the beginning will not be answered, it does at a different point of time. I can only imagine that Morton has a giant flowchart for all of her books, as she is the most talented author I have ever read at being able to bring everything back full circle.

The Forgotten Garden would have gotten a 5 if I had read it first. While not my favorite of her three, she is, by far, one of the most talented literary forces we have today.

MY RATING - 4

My favorite month of the year is coming up! Why?? March is the month when Jodi Picoult releases her books. I will have a review soon.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher (Kate Summerscale)

Who is Mr. Whicher and what does he have suspicions about? How many out there have ever heard of him? No one? Now how many have heard of Sherlock Holmes? Everyone? Well, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would not have been inspired to write about old Sherlock if not for Mr. Whicher.

Mr. Whicher was a real person living in England in the mid-1800s. In fact, every word of Summerscale's thick book is true. The main thrust of the book is about a horrible crime that occured in an English country house. In 1860, a boy of toddler age was found murdered on the grounds. To make matters worse for the grieving family, suspicion fell on some of the inhabitants of the house, including the nursemaid and the owner's daughter.

To help local law enforcement, Scotland Yard sends its best detective, Mr. Whicher. After just a few weeks, he was sure of who had committed the murder, but could not attain the evidence needed to put the person in jail. In fact, he outraged people in the surrounding land with his, what they deemed, invasion of privacy.

First, I want to say that Summerscale should be applauded for her, obviously, very thorough research of this horrifying murder. The book reads like a novel, which is very hard to do when one is writing a work of nonfiction. When she sticks with the murder investigation, her book is riveting. However, she tries to take on too much when she ventures off into discussing other cases Whicher is investigating and stories about other members of the Kent family. I do not really want to read five pages about William Kent's obsession with coral at 1:30 AM.

I wanted to like this book....I really, really did. In fact, I read late into the night until my eyes closed. Then I realized that my eyes were not closing because I was tired. They were closing because I was bored.

MY RATING - 3 (for effort) and 2 (for keeping interest)