Review dump ahead, apologies!
19. Clara Dupont-Monod, The Revolt (trans. Ruth Diver)
Slim but intense, almost claustrophobically focused on the relationship between Richard I (the Lionheart) and his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who are the main voices. Some lovely passages e.g.
“My mother wanted only one thing from her poets, that they should offer her an alternative. All of them praised her beauty, her courage, and ambition. She knew that the first withers, the second must be paid for, and the third, when it rots on the vine, is called wisdom. How many times, during long evenings, did I hear her encourage the troubadours by saying: “Sing to me of what does not exist”? For only literature can overcome fate, for the time of a poem.”
The problem for me was that the whole book was on this one (albeit graceful) note, which made it feel too bloodless for a bold, especially in light of all the wars, crusades, backstabbings, kidnappings and imprisonments going on at the same time. Possibly those of more lofty tastes who consumed less Plantagenet pulp in your teens will like this better.
20. Anna Beer, Eve Bites Back
Loosely linked, heavily biographical essays on eight female writers ripe for reclamation from both traditional canonical neglect and revisionist feminist neo-canonisation. I’m fully behind Beer’s project to celebrate the complexity and unpalatability of the past, while violently disagreeing with some of her readings, which I often found (ironically) quite smugly sneery about previous generations of (often female) scholars.
Having already read or studied 7/8 of the writers discussed, I was probably not the intended audience for this, and found it disappointing after enjoying her earlier book on female composers, Sounds and Sweet Airs. Still, it inspired me to revisit Mary Wortley Montagu, and add several unread Aphra Behn plays and Mary Elizabeth Braddon novels to the TBR.
21. Jason Shreier, Blood, Sweat and Pixels
More loosely linked essays, this time on the making of nine hit games of the decade 2005-2015 (and one that didn’t make it). I’d played half of the games featured but found all the chapters equally bland. Don’t think anyone else on here games and is likely to read this, and you wouldn’t be missing much. However, it did expand my 'to play' list further, to the detriment of reading 🙈
Which has largely been spent on easy, plotty books:
22. Caroline O’Donoghue, All Our Hidden Gifts Surprised to enjoy O’Donoghue’s New Adult novel The Rachel Incident so thought I’d give this a go. Although I was charmed by Maeve’s snarky narration (though tbf it was basically indistinguishable from Rachel’s voice) and share the author’s cultural touchstones in this (having also grown up on The Craft), this YA was just too preachy and politically box-ticky for me to bother with the sequels. Spoiler: the squad acquire superpowers. They are oddly mundane. How will they use them? I care not.
23. T. Kingfisher, Minor Mage As recommended by @FuzzyCaoraDhubh Utterly delightful, with properly creepy body horror and a solid core of Pratchettian decency and wisdom about humans (and humans in crowds). Definite bold.
24. Vaseem Khan, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra Cosy mystery, right on the border of too-twee for my tastes (the unexpected inheritance is a depressed baby elephant with a taste for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk...) and the inspector’s wife’s characterisation and subplot were soapy and ultimately went nowhere, but I enjoyed the droll writing and evocation of 00s Mumbai enough to give the rest of the series a go.
25. Chris Hammer, Opal Country Decidedly uncosy mystery but with equally excellent sense of place (outback noir). Principled Sydney cop with a secret gambling addiction joins forces with plucky local detective on her first murder case to investigate the crucifixion of an opal miner in an isolated, left-behind Queensland town during a heatwave. The prose could be clunky but the many plot threads (including but not limited to rare-earth geopolitics, small town enmities, financial shenenigans, corruption at all levels of society, a sex cult) were handled expertly, and it was a proper page-turner.