(no subject)
Aug. 18th, 2008 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI forgot to log Ellis Peters' St. Peters' Fair, the fourth Cadfael book, but that's not a huge loss really; I'm enjoying my (slow, slow) re-readthrough of the Cadfael series but I have nothing in specific to say about this one. I do continue to really appreciate the way the plots of the books grow naturally out of the history of the period - the civil war between Maud and Stephen is woven through and inextricable from the mysteries, rather than being just a background setting against which Things Happen.
I have slightly more to say about Brenda Maddox's Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA. Rosalind Franklin is mostly known as the woman who didn't win a Nobel Prize for her contributions towards discovering the structure of DNA. A friend of mine (who majored in biology) lent this to me after I told her that I was trying to read more nonfiction, and despite knowing absolutely nothing about biology, and in fact not having taken a proper science class since high school, I enjoyed it a lot. Although it occasionally gets heavy on the 'what-ifs' and 'was she robbed', what makes the book interesting is the author's struggle to reconcile Rosalind as a character. You know, when you think about it, writing a biography is sort of like RPing a fictional character - no, really, hear me out! You have various bits of canonical evidence - facts about their life, documents, their own letters, sometimes witness testimony (but those come from unreliable narrators), and you try to reconcile them to each other to write about what happened in between. When a biographer says, 'it seems likely that George Washington did not feel conflicted about not saving the British children,' he might just as easily say 'it wouldn't be IC for George Washington to care about saving the British children.' A good biography is often basically a character study, and that's why they're interesting.
I have slightly more to say about Brenda Maddox's Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA. Rosalind Franklin is mostly known as the woman who didn't win a Nobel Prize for her contributions towards discovering the structure of DNA. A friend of mine (who majored in biology) lent this to me after I told her that I was trying to read more nonfiction, and despite knowing absolutely nothing about biology, and in fact not having taken a proper science class since high school, I enjoyed it a lot. Although it occasionally gets heavy on the 'what-ifs' and 'was she robbed', what makes the book interesting is the author's struggle to reconcile Rosalind as a character. You know, when you think about it, writing a biography is sort of like RPing a fictional character - no, really, hear me out! You have various bits of canonical evidence - facts about their life, documents, their own letters, sometimes witness testimony (but those come from unreliable narrators), and you try to reconcile them to each other to write about what happened in between. When a biographer says, 'it seems likely that George Washington did not feel conflicted about not saving the British children,' he might just as easily say 'it wouldn't be IC for George Washington to care about saving the British children.' A good biography is often basically a character study, and that's why they're interesting.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 02:27 pm (UTC)The non fiction book sounds interesting, I've read some I really enjoy though I don't always pick them up. One of my favorites is the history of one of the ships of Nelson's navy called the Bellerophon but the book is called Billy Ruffian since that's what the sailor's nicknamed it.
This ship was at all the major battles and transported Napoleon before ending as a prison hulk, the author just goes into everything about it and its a character study of the ship but also the age.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 02:31 pm (UTC)Yeah, I remember you reccing me that book! I've been meaning to pick it up, it sounds really interesting (yay Age of Sail!)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 04:10 pm (UTC)I think at some point in crazy old house clean up, I might have given my copy away or else I'd lend it to you. Though even if I still have it, its somewhere packed up in South Jersey in my brother's garage.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 04:15 pm (UTC)(TWO HUGE LIBRARY SYSTEMS. ALL MINE. I am so gleeful about this.)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 03:12 pm (UTC)(*CRACKING UP*)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 03:58 pm (UTC)(In the sequel, he goes on to fail to save her children EVEN THOUGH they aren't British?)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-18 04:14 pm (UTC)