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I mostly took December off from booklogging, so there's a longer than usual list of "also reads" at the bottom of the page. I read quite a few French novels and histories in preparation for a trip to Paris, and I do have some short comments on those.

December 2006

• Madame de Staël, Corinne: I really liked parts of this, especially the portrayal of the intelligent, witty, multi-talented heroine, but oh, I really bogged down in the descriptive passages, and I loathed the priggish, irresolute hero. It did make me want to read more about de Staël, if perhaps not more by her (at least not fiction).
• Colin Jones, Paris: The Biography of a City: Writing a book about a place with as storied a history and culture as Paris can't be easy, but I found this an absorbing read. From Paris's prehistoric origins through to modern times, Jones examines how the city has developed over the centuries in great detail, looking at politics, society, culture, and geography. It's organized generally in chronological order, but each chapter also includes several "feature boxes", which are essentially sidebars covering in more detail specific topics, such as the Louvre, the Marais, or Madame de Sévigné.
• Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary: I can't say that I cared for the neurotic heroine much, but I loved the writing: elegant, precise observations, carefully controlled narrative, and attention to detail.
• Deborah Davis, Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X: This was a potentially fascinating subject, but the book was just barely interesting enough to get me to finish it. The story of the exhibition and reception of the painting was reasonably well done, but Davis didn't manage to strike the right balance of biographical detail on either Sargent or his subject, socialite Amelie Gautreau: there's too much detail for a book which isn't actually a biography, and not enough to make the book into a good biography. Most of it simply feels flat, like a really long magazine article (and not a very good one). I did get a decent sense of the Parisian art world of the period, which was largely what I was reading it for, so I guess that's something.
• Vita Sackville-West, Saint Joan of Arc: This is a sympathetic and well-written account, though occasionally more opinionated than I'd like. However, I've read several reviews which point out misrepresentations and mistakes in Sackville-West's citing of the evidence. I think I'd like to read Marina Warner's book on Joan of Arc, which seems generally better reviewed.
• Victor Hugo, Les Misérables: technically a reread, but as I read it probably fifteen years ago, I didn't remember a lot of the details. I was a little surprised by how much I liked it (though I don't know why I should be surprised, since I also really liked Notre-Dame of Paris). I found the characters utterly compelling (with the notable exceptions of Marius and Cosette) and the epic sweep of the narrative often very exciting; when I reached the barricades, I stayed up hours too late to finish that section. Hugo is renowned for his frequent and long digressions from the main plot; I must admit to skimming the Waterloo section, but I did read the other digressions with interest, particularly the one about the (fictitious) Petit-Picpus convent.

Books read: 6

Also read this month:

• Fiction
  • Helen Dore Boylston, Carol Goes Backstage, Carol Plays Summer Stock, Carol on Broadway, Carol on Tour
  • Jennifer Crusie, Santa, Baby (actually a novella collected with two others by other authors, but I bounced off those and only read the Crusie)
  • Sarah Dessen, Someone Like You, That Summer
  • Debra Doyle and James D. MacDonald, Land of Mist and Snow
  • Kate Elliott, Spirit Gate
  • Adele Geras, Ithaka
  • Edward Gorey, The Unstrung Harp
  • Ann Halam, Dr. Franklin's Island
  • Eloisa James, Pleasure for Pleasure
  • Tamora Pierce, the Circle of Magic series
  : rereads
  • Tamora Pierce, Terrier
  • Arthur Ransome, We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Secret Water, The Big Six, Missee Lee, The Picts and the Martyrs, Great Northern?
  • Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale
• Non-fiction
  • Monica Dickens, One Pair of Feet, My Turn to Make the Tea
  • The Disney Imagineers, The Imagineering Field Guide to Epcot at Walt Disney World
  • Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong
  • Simon and Susan Veness, A Brit's Guide to Disneyland Resort Paris
  • Edmund White, Our Paris

Total books read this month: 37
Total books read this year: 451

Last updated 27 March 2007. All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless otherwise noted Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.