Stacy Schiff's biography about Cleopatra has been getting really great reviews and impressing everyone right and left. Everyone except for me, of course. Was there any doubt? :) I don't know why I didn't like it, other than to say I don't care for her writing style, it was just very dull and dry. I admire the research and work that went into the book: she was out to disprove rumors and present facts, and she did an admirable job. It was just boring. How do you make Cleopatra boring?
Adrian Goldsworthy's "Antony and Cleopatra" was better. I enjoyed hearing about Mark Antony's early life, which I don't think I've really read much about until now. I'd recommend this one over the Schiff book.
Finished the "Hunger Games" trilogy with Suzanne Collin's "Mockingjay". I'm still not sure how I feel about it, a week after finishing it. I just felt like Katniss must have felt--used. Used by everyone, whether for good or for evil, is still being used. I enjoyed the journey to get to the end, I just didn't like the end. If that makes sense. I fear it doesn't. Oh well, moving on.
"Mindfulness" by Ellen Langer was about how we walk through life on autopilot and don't really notice much, which is very true. How interesting it is when we actually open our eyes and notice things! It was very intriguing.
"Death and the Virgin Queen" was an excellent account of Amy Dudley's death by historian Chris Skidmore. He found the original coroner's report (which had been misfiled) and discovered that in addition to the broken neck she had two large gashes in her head, which would certainly be consistent with a nasty fall down a set of stone steps. But he also found a contemporary journal that confirms the conspiracy written in the anonymous "Dudley's Commonwealth", accusing the Queen's favorite of having his wife murdered so he would be free to marry Elizabeth. So did Robert Dudley arrange his wife's accident or was it really just an accident? I'm still divided, and like a good historian Skidmore merely repeats the facts without interjecting his own opinions. I really enjoyed this one. Four hundred years later and we still wonder about the truth. Fascinating stuff.
And finally, "Amaryllis in Blueberry" by Christina Meldrum. It's been compared to "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver, which I read many years ago and loved. This book, not so much. I found it pretentious and overly dramatic and just silly. It wasn't even an interesting story badly told, it was a rip off of an interesting story poorly told.
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