Top Ten Books That Scare Me The Most

So, I'm about a third of the way through one of the biggest, fattest books on my TBR Challenge List, The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek.  Quite frankly, I'm pretty pleased with myself for tackling it, because it's long, and it's about war, and it's in translation from a former Communist country.  And the coolest thing is that I'm actually enjoying it.  Earlier this year, I made a list of 20 books for a Classics Spin, and one of the categories was "Five Books That Scare Me."  So far this summer, I've read three of the five on the list, and I've actually enjoyed all of them!  (The other two were Lady Chatterley's Lover and Giants in the Earth.)

So it got me thinking that hey, maybe I could work up the nerve to read something that really scares me.  Not books that are scary, necessarily, like horror.  Really, what I mean are books that intimidate me, that I'm afraid to tackle, because they're really long, or sound really depressing, or, quite frankly, I'm afraid I'm not smart enough to understand or appreciate.  Basically, pushing myself.  I'm not a total idiot -- I read Dickens and Zola and Edith Wharton, though I have no desire to ever tackle Ulysses.

So here is a list of books, mostly from my own shelves, which I have not read and which I've been putting off.  Am I right to be scared, or should I put them in the library donation box?

1.  Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.  It's 600 pages of men chasing a whale. Rumor has it the whale doesn't show up for 100 chapters, and it's full of allegory which is not my strong point.  But I have a beautiful Penguin Deluxe Classics copy which was free, so I feel that I should try it sometime.  Plus I like books about sailing, since I live miles from any ocean.

2.  The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.  Another Penguin Deluxe Classic that I own.  The cover of this particular edition gives me nightmares.  I'm told by a good friend that it isn't any more gruesome than Germinal, which I loved.

3.  Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.  It's 1,232 pages, and there are entire chapters about the Paris sewer system.  I know many people love this book but I find the length daunting.  I bought the Penguin clothbound classic edition because the cover was really pretty.

4.  Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo.  I have a Wordsworth Classic edition which I actually bought at the Notre Dame gift shop. (It still has the price tag on it, in Euros which I find really cool).  Bought after I walked halfway up the 20 gazillion steps and desperately needed a break, because there are no elevators.  The people who work there must have awesome thigh muscles.

5.  To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.  Bought at a library sale for $1, so if I never read it, I won't feel the loss too badly.  Stream-of-consciousness is not my thing, so I don't know if I'll ever actually read it.

6.  The Invention of Curried Sausage by Uwe Timm.  A very short book, a novella really, but I started reading it and it's set in Germany after WWII, which sounds really depressing.  I bought it at Half-Price Books because it was on that 1000 Books to Read Before You Die list.  I'd never heard of it before that and the title really intrigued me.

7.  The Canterbury Tales by Peter Ackroyd (retold).  Another Penguin Deluxe Classic.  They've been retold into modern English, but anything written before 1800 makes me nervous.

8.  The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.  A guy wakes up and he's turned into a giant bug.  I know it's an allegory, but I really hate bugs.

9.  Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  (Also The Brothers Karamazov). A long Russian novel about crime.  And punishment.  Seriously, Russian novels scare me.  My last was Doctor Zhivago, not a great experience.

10.  Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.   It's long, it's picaresque, which means it has sort of a meandering plot, and it was published in 1605.  That's enough to scare anybody.

So -- those are the books that scare me the most, at the moment -- this list could change.  Are my fears well founded?  Are these actually awesome books that I will grow to love, and kick myself for waiting so long?  Or should I run screaming in the other direction before I read them?

Inquiring minds want to know.

The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola

Slowly, but surely, I am working my way through the entire Rougon-Macquart cycle of novels by Emile Zola.  My eighth effort was The Ladies' Paradise, the eleventh novel in the series.  Loosely based on the famous Bon Marche department store in Paris, this is the story of Denise Baudu, a poor shopgirl of twenty who has come to Paris from the provinces, hoping for a job.  Her parents have both died, and she has two younger brothers to support -- Jean, 16, who's a bit of a ne'er-do-well and already a womanizer; and little Pepe, who is only five.

After her parents passed away, Denise was promised a job by her uncle, who owns a draper's shop in Paris.  Unfortunately, by the time Denise arrives unannounced, business is very bad, mostly because of the expansion of the nearby department store complex, Au Bonheur Des Dames (aka The Ladies' Paradise) which is swallowing up nearby small businessmen, then undercutting them and putting them out of business.  (Sound familiar?)  It's owned by Octave Mouret, the playboy from the previous novel, Pot-Bouille.  He's now a widower who inherited pots of money from his late wife, and has invested all the money into the store, creating a store like no other, at which you can get absolutely everything you need.

Jean has an apprenticeship and goes off on his own (and repeatedly gets into romantic entanglements); Pepe is boarded with some neighbors, but Denise is forced out of desperation to take a job at the evil incarnate, Au Bonheur des Dames.  Her uncle is furious but what can she do?  Mouret has also gone back to his playboy ways, and has his eye on Denise, who blooms as she becomes a skilled shop worker.

Like the train in La Bete Humaine, the main character in this book is the department store itself -- it's basically a satirical look on consumerism and the rise of the very first big-box stores.  I could not help thinking of Wal-Mart as I read this, and how it has squeezed on so many independent retailers.  Zola uses the novel to satirize consumerism, greed, and the rising power of women in the retail market.   I was also struck, over and over, how history is repeating itself with big box stores like Wal-Mart, though I'm pretty sure the employees at Au Bonheur Des Dames are treated better than Wal-Mart employees!

However, the characters themselves aren't that well developed, and I found Denise in particular to be a little too good to believe, too forgiving and long-suffering.  I've seen a lot of this type in Trollope novels lately and it's beginning to get on my nerves.  I suppose it's a Victorian trope, though at least the young women in Trollope and Zola aren't nearly as bad as the ones in Dickens' novels.

The Paradise series on BBC.  

The Ladies' Paradise (#11 in the series, and the eighth I have completed) is fairly popular for a Zola novel, though nowhere near Germinal or Therese Raquin.  You'd think the subject, shopping and commercialism, would make it more popular.  I was inspired to pick this up by my recent binge-watch of Mr. Selfridge -- the entire series had been taking up space on my DVR for several months.  I've also heard that The Ladies' Paradise was adapted into a BBC series called The Paradise, and I've just discovered it will begin airing on PBS here in the States on October 6!!  The folks at BBC know how we Yanks love those British period dramas!

Anyway, it was interesting and entertaining, but not nearly as good as Germinal or La Bete Humaine, which are my favorites by Zola so far -- I'd rank it as a second-tier Zola novel, closer to The Belly of Paris or Pot-Bouille.  Still, worth reading, especially if you like shopping and fashion, or if you're in withdrawal from Mr. Selfridge.  I have a feeling I'll see more blog postings about it in the fall after the TV show starts to air.

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

I wish I had the discipline (and the time) to review each and every book I read, as soon as I finish it.  I finished My Name is Asher Lev, back in June.  Other things, other books, other reviews just got in the way.  It is a bad idea to wait an entire month to review a book, but I'll give it a shot.  To the best of my recollection.

Anway -- Asher Lev was a gift from my good friend Amanda, who used to blog about books but now mostly blogs about other things.  I put this on my TBR 2013 Challenge list because I didn't want the entire list to be books by authors that had been dead for years and years (Potok did pass away in 2002, but he's pretty contemporary compared to the rest of this list).

So, Asher Lev is an artist, and he begins his story by telling the reader that he is most famous for creating a painting of a crucifixion, a blasphemy for an observant Jew.  He's not just an observant Jew -- Asher was raised an orthodox Jew, a Hasidic, very traditional and conservative.  Asher lives in New York and was born shortly after WWII, and it is the life's work of his father to help other Jews in Europe, so that they can practice their faith safely.  His mother is studying Russian to be able to help persecuted Jews in Russia.

However, young Asher has different ideas.  As long as he can remember, he's been obsessed with drawing and painting.  It's part of him, he can't stop doing it, much to the chagrin of his father, who believes that he's just wasting his time on frivolity -- Asher's father wants him to do something to glorify God and help other Jews.  Every day, Asher struggles with his need to create art against his family's wishes -- he wants to please his father, and win his love, but his art is a part of him.  This is the story of his coming of age, as a young man and an artist, and how he tries to reconcile the two.

I wasn't sure I wanted to read another book about an artist after my disappointment with The Masterpiece by Emile Zola, which I finished a couple of months ago.  In that book, the main character was so obsessed by his art he lets it ruin his life and the lives of the people around him.  This book is quite different.  Asher is really struggling to satisfy his need to create art and his need to please his family.  It's a really interesting character study.  I'd never read anything by Chaim Potok, but the writing was excellent and the characters interesting and well-developed.  I took a few art history classes in college but I really don't know much about modern art.  I don't think Asher is necessarily based on a particular artist, but I tried to imagine what his art might have looked like.  I was also quite pleased that I recognized most of the real artists and works of art mentioned in the book, like Chagall and Modigliani, and Picasso's Guernica.

La Mariee by Marc Chagall.  

I've also been very amused this summer as many high school students came to the reference desk at my library looking for this book!  Apparently it was on the summer reading list for a local high school -- the choice was My Name is Asher Lev or The Count of Monte Cristo!  I still haven't read Monte Cristo but now I can definitely recommend Asher Lev.

Giants in the Earth by O. E. Rolvaag

Back in 2000, we moved to Nebraska, a state about which I knew absolutely nothing, except that it was surrounded by six other states which I'd not yet visited, and that they grew a lot of corn.  I did not know that it was full of kind and charming people, that the weather was lovely eight months of the year (I won't lie: winters were long and often harsh) and that it was within driving distance of several major cities, including Kansas City and St. Louis.  It turned out to be one of the nicest places in which I would ever live.

Anyhow, not long after our arrival, an old college friend came for a visit, bringing a hostess gift of two books about life on the prairies:  My Antonia and Giants in the Earth.  I did finally read My Antonia with a book group while living right there in the heartland (and I've accumulated another stack of books by Willa Cather) but somehow, Giants in the Earth kept getting packed and unpacked for the next three moves (it did not even cross the ocean for our assignment in Japan; it was relegated to storage for three years).  When I made this year's TBR Pile Challenge List, I buckled down and committed to reading it after schlepping it unread for thirteen years.

So, finally, I finished this book last week, while on vacation in Michigan -- not so much corn in suburban Detroit, but the weather was pretty nice and I had lots of spare time to read.  And I was pleased to discover that after all these years of waiting around and moving this book from house to house, I did enjoy this book.  It's the story of a Norwegian pioneer family after the Civil War:  Per Hansa; his long-suffering wife Beret; and their three (soon to become four) children.  

First published in Norwegian back in 1927, Giants in the Earth starts out as the family is alone on the prairie, trying to catch up with some other Norwegian families who have left Minnesota and are going to start a new settlement in the Dakota territories (not Nebraska, but relatively close to where I eventually lived in Omaha).  Per Hansa et al have become separated from the group and are lost on the prairie; Beret is pregnant and terrified of what will happen if they don't get their bearings and meet up with the rest.  Everything they own is stuffed into the wagon drawn by their two oxen, and it's like a giant sea of grass.  

Eventually, they catch up with the rest and all seems well.  The rest of the story is several years in the life of the family; basically, it's like Little House on the Prairie, but from the point of the view of the adults.  Seriously, what was it really like for Ma out there, all alone in the Dakota territory, living in a sod house?  They were miles from anyone else -- can you imagine giving birth all alone like that?  And living in a house made of dirt?  And the winters -- well, winters in Nebraska are long and hard.  I love the change of seasons, but I really enjoy the Texas winters -- it's rare if it drops below the thirties, much less snow.  Winter in Omaha can last about five months, and the wind whips over the plains, and boy, it is cold.  I loved living in Omaha but I don't know how people did it 150 years ago, miles from anyone else for days or weeks at a time.  And don't get me started on outhouses in the winter -- I haven't been camping for years, and it was in the summer.  I like my modern conveniences!

I've been a military spouse for 18 years, and since 1995 we've had six major moves, including one overseas.  They're always incredibly stressful, even in modern times with real beds, real toilets, and professional packers and movers.  I don't know how pioneer women did it back then.  These women had to deal with the cold and the dirt and they were lucky to see a midwife, much less a doctor.  And the stress of worrying about crops -- these people are dealing with plagues of locusts just like the Ingalls family in LHotP.  We've got some giant bugs in Texas but nothing like what they had to deal with.

Anyway, it's a really interesting book if you're at all curious about pioneer life.  It's an easy read (though many of the characters are named Per or Ole or Hansa) and my biggest quibble is how abruptly the book ended.  Afterward I realized that it's the first of a trilogy, so you find out what happens to the family in subsequent books, though they're harder to find.  I don't know that I enjoyed it enough rush out and track down the next two books right away but you never know, I might look for them after I've made some more progress on the TBR piles. 

This book counts for my 2013 TBR Pile Challenge; my 2013 Chunkster Challenge; and it's book #29 in my Classics Club Challenge.  

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

Finally, I have finished this book, which has been on my TBR shelf since 2011 when I received a Big Box of Penguin Deluxe Classics.  Which was awesome, but the box contained a few that I feared I would never read, including Moby-Dick, The Jungle, and this one.  (Plus Gravity's Rainbow and White Noise, but I've given those away to someone who will truly appreciate them).  I put it both the list for the Classics Club Challenge and the TBR Pile Challenge 2013.  And last month, it came up as my Classics Spin selection.  There was no escape. 

I was a little afraid, but I'd read Sons and Lovers a few years ago (with similar trepidation) and really enjoyed it.  I was actually pleasantly surprised. Chatterley wasn't bad at all -- in fact, I rather liked it -- except for the cover of the book, which is the one I own:

If you don't know the setup, here it is in a nutshell:  Constance Chattereley is a twentysomething woman, from the upper-middle class intelligensia.  Shortly before WWI, she married her husband Clifford.  After a month's honeymoon, he goes off to war and is gravely injured, paralyzed from the waist down.  His older brother died in the war, and he's now the heir to a title and to the family estate, Wragby Hall, somewhere in the English Midlands (sound familiar?  It's a bit like the second season of Downton Abbey, or what might have happened to Mary and Matthew).  

Anyhow, Constance is bored to death at Wragby.  She's shut up there in a dreary estate, the weather is terrible, and it's somewhere in the coal-mining district, so they're surrounded by factories and coal pits, which are on their last legs. (Besides Wragby, her husband also owns some interest in the mine or the factory or something like that.)  It all sounds very depressing.  Also, Clifford doesn't seem particularly interested in Constance at all.   He's got something of a writing career going, so occasionally intelligent, creative people come to the house and she's the perfect hostess, but inside she's dying.  She hates Wragby, Clifford is very distant and cold, and she's terribly lonely.  Plus, she knows she can never have a baby due to Clifford's injury.  She's not even thirty and it seems like her life is completely over.

Clifford is desperate for an heir and tells her he wouldn't mind if she had a child, even if it wasn't his.  Meanwhile, Constance has spent a lot of time tramping around the grounds and meets the gamekeeper, who's rather dishy.  He's lower-class but has some education.  One thing leads to another and they start an affair. 

The beautiful Penguin clothbound edition, which I do not own, but am tempted to buy.

I thought this book was going to be awful and dreary, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.  I thought the writing was mostly very good and I felt really sorry for Constance.  I don't think she was necessarily craving sexual contact so much as intimacy -- her husband was so distant and self-centered.  Yes, he was disabled, but she was really unhappy and all he could think about was whether or not she'd take care of him.  He was really quite selfish.

Lady Chatterley's Lover was very scandalous when it was first published in 1928 -- a full version wasn't widely published in England until 1962 -- and there is a fair amount of sex in it, as you'd suppose from all the fuss made about it; however,  it really wasn't that shocking in this day and age (I'm sure it pales in comparison to Fifty Shades of Gray, which I have not read.  And you would not believe how many little old ladies at my library have read it!!  Seriously!!) 

I can see how it would have been scandalous back in the day.  But if you can get past the sex, it's really about relationships and was truly insightful about attitudes of the time, both between Constance and Clifford, and the snobbery between the classes.  The fate of the miners, though a small part of the story, was also very sad.  It reminded me of the strikes that were to come later, like in Billy Elliot.  I wonder if they ever recovered or if Clifford made tons of money when the war started ten years later. 

My one real complaint about the book was about the ending, which I found somewhat unresolved.  But overall, I'm really glad I finally got around to reading it.  Between Chatterley and Sons and Lovers, I'm over my fear of Lawrence, and now I'm thinking about tackling his other famous works, The Rainbow and Women in Love.  Anyone read either of them?  Did anyone else like Lady Chatterley's Lover, or did you all run screaming from the room?   And who else completed their Classics Spin selection?

The Children Who Lived in a Barn by Eleanor Graham

I've been hard at work on my Back to the Classics Challenge!  Recently I needed a fun, light read after some fairly heavy books.  This was a children's classic, a Persephone, and a book on my TBR shelf.  Plus it was nice and short, with some cute illustrations.

Though it's a British children's classic, I'd never heard of The Children Who Lived in a Barn until I started collecting Persephone books.  It's very much in the same vein as the American series The Boxcar Children, one of my childhood favorites. 

Anyway, here's the setup:  sometime in the 1930s, the Dunnet family of seven are living in rural England, though they've just moved into a small village and hardly know anyone.  The parents get a telegram that the grandmother, who's off somewhere in Switzerland, has taken ill.  Without much thought, the parents drop everything and literally fly away, leaving the kids to manage by themselves.  Then the parents mysteriously disappear, possibly in a plane crash over the Alps, and Susan, 13, and Robert, 11, must take charge of themselves and their younger siblings, twin brothers who are 9 and a little 7-year-old sister.  Their unscrupulous landlord evicts them, but a kind farmer offers to let them stay in the barn in exchange for helping out.

At first it seems like a childhood dream to be on their own, but it quickly becomes obvious how hard it is to keep a household running, especially with a limited budget.  Susan and Robert try to make do with odd jobs and a small amount of money allocated by the bank, but things are tight, especially after school starts.  Some local busybodies have decided they'll keep an eye on the children and are none too sympathetic, mostly more judgmental than helpful.  It's the local village folk who are kinder, especially when they see how hard the older children are trying.

The beautiful endpapers from the Persephone edition

The children even rig up something called a "hay box" to keep their food warm during the day, kind of a makeshift slow-cooker.  Here's an illustration of something similar:

The hay-box probably looked something like this.

Eventually, the situation becomes dire but all turns right in the end, as this is a children's book.  I really enjoyed this -- some of my favorite childhood books are those in which the adults are out of the picture and the children are forced to take charge, like the Narnia books and the Boxcar children.

I thought the only weak point is the explanation of what happened to the parents, which seemed extremely unlikely and tacked-on.  Their characters aren't terribly well-developed and they were more immature than Susan and Robert!  However, it was a delight to read and I really enjoyed it.  I have two other classic children's books published by Persephone, The Runaway by Anna Elizabeth Hart and The Young Pretenders by Edith Henrietta Fowler.  I haven't read either of them yet but I hope I'll like them as much as this one.  Has anyone else read this book?  What about other children's classics -- which are your favorites?

Paris in July 2013

Well, once again I have signed up for the Paris in July blogging event -- I think this is the third year in a row!!  Naturally, I have a long list of books I'd like to read, but this year, I'm going to try and be completely realistic.  I'm going to try and read only books from my own shelves, and I've narrowed it down to just three:

Marie Antoinette:  The Journey by Antonia Fraser

This has been on my TBR shelves for awhile, and I've really been excited about nonfiction lately.  After reading Catherine the Great, I'm even more intrigued by royal biographies.  Plus the library has an audiobook copy, so I can get ahead while driving to and from work.

The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier

This was a birthday (or was it Christmas?) gift a few years ago -- I put a bunch of du Mauriers on a wishlist and my husband bought this for me.  This one is about a man who meets his doppelganger at a train station.  He's English and his double is French.  The other guy takes over his life and so the Englishman has no choice but to step into the Frenchman's shoes.

One of these books by Emile Zola -- this will be third July in a row that I've included Zola!  Last year it was L'Assommoir and in 2011 I read Germinal.  Here are my choices for this year:

The Ladies' Paradise -- about the rise of a Paris department store and commercialism among the French population.  It includes some of the same characters from Pot-Bouille, which I really enjoyed.  And I still have the entire series of Mr. Selfridge saved on the DVR, which might behoove me to choose this one.

Nana -- the story of a Paris courtesan.  The title character is the daughter of the ill-fated Gervaise, the laundress from L'Assommoir, and the sister of Claude Lantier from The Masterpiece and Etienne Lantier from Germinal.  It's considered one of Zola's best in the Rougon-Macquart series.

La Terre (The Earth) -- I've read that this one was Zola's favorite among his works.  It's about a rural family and is reminiscent of King Lear.

La Debacle -- a war novel about the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune of 1870-1871.  I've heard this has some of the most realistic descriptions of war in literature.

Le Reve (The Dream) -- a gift from my good friend Amanda, who is the one responsible for my love for Zola.  She says this is unlike any of his other books.  And it's short, a little more than 200 pages.

I have several other books by French writers or set in France, but I'm going to try and be completely realistic and stick to three books off this list -- one (or more!) by Zola; a nonfiction book; and a more contemporary mystery/thriller.   I think it's a good mix and hopefully I'll be able to finish all of them!

What do you think, bloggers?  Good selections?  Which Zola should I read?  Has anyone else signed up for Paris in July?  What are you reading?

An Annoying Book-Buying Experience

Well, I meant to post about the upcoming Paris in July event, but something bookish happened today that really steamed me, and I need to vent.

I will begin at the beginning.  A few weeks ago, I started reading Barbara Pym novels for the wonderful Barbara Pym Reading Week celebration hosted by Thomas at My Porch and Amanda at Fig and Thistle.  So, I started reading some of the Pym novels on my shelves.  Some of them are beautiful Moyer Bell editions that look like this:

They're out of print now, and some of them are rather pricey.  I was lucky enough to get a couple at good prices, and a few months ago, I even got one from Paperback Swap.  Anyway, I was all into Barbara Pym and ordered some more.  Some of them were in the $20 range, which is a little spendy but I was feeling flush (I'd just had a birthday and had a little extra cash).  

Anyway, I opened up a package yesterday, but this is what I received: 

Not the same book, at all!!  And I was charged more than $20!!!  At first I thought I'd accidentally ordered the wrong book, but no, I checked the Amazon order, I definitely ordered the Moyer Bell copy.    This particular copy is a Harper Perennial, they list for much less.

So, I contacted the bookseller, and they can't see what the problem is!!!  Their response was basically, well, those books are really expensive, they're out of print, so we "upgraded you."  Really!!!  How is it an upgrade if it's not the book I ordered????  This book's cover is in good condition, but the pages are all browned and it is not a Moyer Bell.  Here's the latest response:

We are baffled by what you say, as all editions here are of the same price and quality, but if you do not want the book, please simply file a return request and send it back. 

Really and truly, we did definitely deliberately upgrade you. You ordered a lightly used book and we upgraded you to one which is un-used. About a $5 value.  We did that to try and make you happy. We are sorry it did not work. 

Now, I have nothing against Harper Perennial.  I'm sure it's a fine book and they didn't misspell any words or leave any chapters out.  But that is not the point.  If you order something, it should be as pictured.   And I'm darned if I'm going to pay the return shipping!!  It's their mistake!

The kicker here is that the slip enclosed in the book states that "we are a new company on Amazon, and we strive to be the best."  Really?  How is misleading your customers and arguing with them about the books "the best"????

And the worst part is, I accidentally ordered the same book from them TWICE.  I haven't read all the Pyms yet, and I was putting in an Amazon order the other day and accidentally ordered the same book from this seller.  AGAIN 

Bloggers, do not put yourselves through this.   Please, please, check your past order history when you order from Amazon!!

The one comfort is that I purchased them through Amazon with a credit card.  Amazon is normally very good about items that are not as pictured; if not, I'll call the nice people at Visa.  

It's just so annoying.  Seriously,  am I in the wrong here?  Am I asking too much to expect to receive what was pictured on the Amazon website?  Please let me know.  

The 39 Steps by John Buchan

I had a hard time choosing an adventure classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge.  I thought this was an easy pick --  originally I was planning on reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but I listened to an audio version and it moved so slowly that I finally gave up.  I was searching for something in my library branch the other day and ran across The 39 Steps by John Buchan, and I remembered how much I'd enjoyed the BBC movie adaptation from a few years ago.

This is the story of Richard Hannay, a youngish man, probably in his thirties.  Set in the spring of 1914, Richard has come to London after spending years in South Africa as a mining engineer.  He's made some money and wants to enjoy himself but he's rather lonely and getting bored with London society.  He craves excitement, and one day it literally bumps into him as a fellow tenant in his apartment, a man with whom he has a nodding acquaintance, accosts Richard as he's unlocking his flat and begs to come in and confide in him.  The neighbor, a Mr. Scudder, has an amazing story -- he's a spy and is in possession of some very top-secret information about international intrigue in the Balkans.  Also, he's just faked his own death to elude some very dangerous people who are trying to kill him.  Scudder convinces Richard to hide him for a few days until he can make contact with important people and prevent an international incident.

Well, this is all fascinating for Richard until he comes home one day to find Scudder dead in his apartment.  It all looks very bad, so he escapes with the clothes on his back, some cash and an encoded notebook that Scudder hid in a jar of tobacco.  (Coincidentally, Richard finds this as he is refilling his tobacco pouch.  Of course.).  He makes his way north to Scotland while eluding the police and the bad guys while trying to decode the notebook and make everything right and clear his own name.

The dishy Rupert Penry-Jones as Richard Hannay

As you'd expect, Richard gets into lots of scrapes and near-misses and has lots of brilliant escapes, kind of like an early James Bond, but without all the gadgets and sexy women.   This was a quick, light read, about 150 pages in the Penguin edition pictured above (I love the retro cover!)  I'm not really into spy or adventure stories but once in awhile I like a good thriller.  Overall, it was okay, but I did have some trouble with suspending disbelief -- it's pretty amazing in this book how often Richard manages to get out of situations one after another by amazing coincidences and his brilliant knowledge gleaned from working as a mining engineer.  Also, the book ends really abruptly.  It was published in 1915 not long after the beginning of WWI, and there's lots of foreshadowing about the war, with mentions of the Balkans and the Germans and such.

It was interesting to read a book published just at the start of the war.  Buchan wrote several sequels about Richard Hannay but I'm not sure this was interesting enough for me to go searching for them.  Has anyone else read this book?  What did you think?  What other adventure classics do you recommend?  And does anyone else think Rupert Penry-Jones would make a good James Bond?

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

I think 2013 is going to be The Year of the Great Nonfiction Reads for me.  I keep finding more and more nonfiction I want to read.  Seriously, I'll bet I could read nothing but nonfiction for the rest of the year and never finish all the books on my list.

I was looking for a great biography for my library book group and this kept popping up on the radar, and after narrowing the selection down to three or four books, I took them all out to lunch with me.  After a few pages of this one, I was hooked, and would have kept right on reading it except I try very hard to wait until the month before to start it.  Normally, I allow even less time, since I like to keep the book fresh in my mind for the discussion.  This time I let myself start it a month early because it's about 600 pages long.

I never really knew very much about European history during the 18th century -- I've read War and Peace (though I've forgotten most of it) and I remember some stuff I've read about the French kings and the Revolution, but that's pretty much it.  All the 18th century history I remember is mostly about the American Revolution.  For example, I had no idea that both Catherine AND her husband Peter were actually German -- Catherine (born Sophia) was a minor German princess whose mother's brother had originally been engaged to Empress Elizabeth, though he died while they were still betrothed.  Elizabeth never married and after she seized power years later, she decided to that her heir, her nephew Peter (grandson of Peter the Great) should marry Catherine, his cousin, so they could produce an heir and ensure that Peter's lineage would continue.  Catherine embraced the Russian language and culture though Peter always hated it and wanted to return to Germany.

Basically, Catherine was AWESOME.  This is in the 1700s, when doctors thought it was still an good idea to drain your blood when you were sick, America hadn't even signed the Declaration of Independence, and a huge percentage of the Russian population was poor or even serfs.  Meanwhile, Catherine was educated and enlightened -- she corresponded regularly with Voltaire and Diderot; spent two years trying to create an enlightened system of government, with a document called the Nakaz, (which ultimately failed) -- even before the Americans wrote the Constitution; she even had herself inoculated against smallpox in 1780, to show that it was safe.  By 1800, more than 2 million Russians had been inoculated as well.

If this sounds dry, and boring, well, it wasn't.  I probably should have waited until nearer the discussion because it was an absolute page-turner.  Intrigues, scandals, plotting -- seriously, parts of this book are like an 18th-century version of Game of Thrones, but without the dragons.  Catherine's husband definitely reminded me the vile Prince Joffrey, and Catherine the Great is just as clever as Margaery Tyrell.   Lord Vaerys and some the other King's Landing courtiers would have fit right in the palaces in Moscow and St. Petersburg, if they had warmer costumes.

Margaery and Joffrey aka Catherine the Great and Peter

This book has really spurred my interest in royal biographies -- I still have The Duchess by Amanda Foreman and Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser on the TBR shelf, so I'm ready to tackle those.  And Massie's other books about the Russian royalty are definitely going on my to-read list.  I haven't decided if I should go backward in time and read his biography of Peter the Great, or skip forward and read about the Romanovs.  I'm also thinking about reading some Russian lit this summer, probably Dead Souls by Gogol.

Has anyone else read Robert Massie's books?  Which did you like best?  And what about Russian lit?  I'm a little scared off since I read Anna Karenina, but if Gogol goes well I might even try Dostoevsky!