In Mary Doria Russell's Dreamers of the Day a 40-year-old spinster schoolteacher from Ohio, Agnes Shanklin, who has lived under the thumb of her over-bearing mother, comes into a modest inheritance and decides to take the "trip of a lifetime" to Egypt and the Holy Land. She arrives in Cairo just as the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, which created what we know as the modern Middle East, is about to convene. Here she meets the movers and shakers of that time: Lawrence of Arabia, Winston Churchill and Gertrude Bell. She also attracts the attention of a mysterious German who may or may not be a spy, but definitely gives her the first real romance of her life. Throughout it all, Agnes learns to stand up for her own ideas and desires and truly becomes her own person.

This book, however, is more than just an historical novel. Rather, it seems like Russelll is using the genre of historical fiction to put forward her own political views about the Mid East. Depending on whether of not the reader agrees with her views will probably determine how much any given reader will enjoy this book. ( )

horribly, horribly disappointing. ( )

Awful. She's such a good writer, but this was propaganda disguised as a novel. ( )

Her family's sole survivor of the 1918 influenza epidemic, Agnes Shanklin, a forty-year-old Cleveland schoolteacher, travels to the Middle East. Her arrival in Cairo coincides with the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference; she meets T.E. Lawrence "Lawrence of Arabia" and is drawn into discussions with Gertrude Bell, Winston Churchill and other members of the British delegation who find her opinions on colonialism and nation building insightful and charming. An engaging adventure story with a historical setting skillfully told. ( )

Dreamers of the Day is the second book I have received through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers Program. I was extraordinarily excited to see Mary Doria Russell's newest work being offered by Random House, and was even more excited to be chosen to receive and review an advance reader's edition. Russell is one of my favorite authors; she is also a wonderful person and (at least from my experience) always responds to fan mail. And I'll finally get a chance to meet her in person on this book tour!

Agnes Shanklin is a forty or so school teacher from Cleveland, Ohio in the late 1910s. When her family dies from the Great Influenza, she finds herself an heiress of sorts. After recovering from the illness herself, and with a new-found freedom from her manipulative and overbearing mother (although, not from her memory), she begins life anew--transforming herself from a timid, self-deprecating old maid to a stylish, sophisticated and confident woman. As part of this metamorphosis she plans a trip to the Holy Land and Egypt. There she meets such luminaries as T. E. Lawrence (more commonly known as Lawrence of Arabia), Lady Gertrude Bell, and Winston Churchill when he was serving as the Secretary of State for Air as well as for the Colonies. In addition to being privileged to see the Cairo Conference from behind the scenes, she also discovers more about herself, and a bit of romance, during her travels.

Dreamers of the Day seems to be much lighter reading than her previous work, even when the subjects it is dealing with are quite substantial (the beginnings of the modern Middle East, for example). I did particularly appreciate her acknowledgments where she discusses some of the materials that were particularly useful to her when researching this book. I certainly learned some history while reading the book, and am interested in learning more about certain aspects of the story, although Russell does hit the reader with some pretty heavy-handed (and not at all masked) political opinions, especially at the end. Overall however, Agnes made a delightful narrator. While the novel might not have had as much depth as I had expected, the story-telling and the story itself was still enjoyable to read.

Experiments in Reading ( )