What are you reading the week of April 23, 2016?
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1fredbacon
Mary Margaret Kaye (21 August 1908 – 29 January 2004) was a British writer. Her most famous book is The Far Pavilions (1978).
M. M. Kaye was born in Simla, India, the elder daughter and one of three children born to Sir Cecil Kaye and his wife Margaret Sarah Bryson. Cecil Kaye was an intelligence officer in the Indian Army; and M. M. Kaye's grandfather, brother and husband all served the British Raj: her grandfather's cousin, Sir John Kaye, wrote the standard accounts of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the First Afghan War. At age ten Mollie Kaye - as M. M. Kaye was known - was sent to England to attend boarding school, subsequently studying children's book illustration earning money by designing Christmas cards. In 1926 she briefly returned to live with her family in India but after her father's death Kaye, displeased by her mother's pressure to find a junior officer to marry, returned to England living in London on a small pension based on her late father's army career augmented first by earnings from illustrating children's books, and from 1937 from the publication of children's books written by Kaye herself. Kaye's first adult novel: Six Bars at Seven, was published in 1940, being a thriller which Kaye was moved to write due to regularly reading books of that ilk from the Fourpenny Library: "Most of the stuff I was reading was total rubbish, and I used to think I couldn't write worse. So I sat down and wrote one."
The £64 she received for Six Bars at Seven enabled Kaye to return to Simla where she resided with her married sister Dorothy Elizabeth Pardey. In June 1941 Kaye met her future husband: British Indian Army officer Godfrey John Hamilton, four years her junior, who reportedly proposed to Kaye on five days acquaintance. Kaye was pregnant with the couple's second child when she and Hamilton were able to marry on Armistice Day 1945, Hamilton's first marriage having by then been dissolved, and following her second child's 1946 birth Kaye returned to writing. (Hamilton's first wife Mary Penelope Colthurst resided in Ireland with the couple's daughter. Kaye would later state of her affair with Hamilton: "We just couldn't wait. Had it been peacetime, I wouldn't have done it because of the way I had been brought up. But these were the pressures of war.") Subsequent to the 1947 dissolution of the British India Army attendant on India's achieving home rule, Hamilton had transferred to the British army where his career necessitated he and his family relocate twenty-seven times over the next nineteen years, with Kaye utilizing several of these locales in a series of crime novels which inaugurated the utilization of the pen name M. M. Kaye, the writer's previous published works having been credited to Mollie Kaye. Kaye's literary agent was Paul Scott who had been an army officer in India and who would find fame as author of the Raj Quartet. It was with Scott's encouragement that Kaye wrote her first historical epic of India Shadow of the Moon published in 1957. The focal background of Shadow of the Moon is the Sepoy Mutiny with which Kaye had been familiarized via stories heard as a child from her family's native servants, this early interest being reinforced in the mid-1950s when Kaye on a visit to friends in India chanced on some transcripts of trials attendant on the Sepoy Mutiny in a shed on her friends' property. Kaye would later state her displeasure over the original published version of Shadow of the Moon being edited without her knowledge, with sections focused on action rather than romance being largely deleted.
Kaye's second historical novel Trade Wind was published in 1963 which year Kaye, inspired by a visit to India, planned to commence work on an epic novel with the Second Anglo-Afghan War as its background: however she was diagnosed with lung cancer - a prognosis later changed to lymphosarcoma - and enervated by chemotherapy was unable to write until back in good health, with a resultant delay in the commencement of Kaye's writing her masterwork: The Far Pavilions, until 1967, which year Kaye and the newly-retired Hamilton became longtime residents of the Sussex hamlet of Boreham Street. Published in 1978, The Far Pavilions became a worldwide best-seller on publication in 1978 causing successful republication of Shadow of the Moon (with the previously deleted sections restored) and Trade Wind, and also Kaye's crime novels. Kaye also wrote and illustrated The Ordinary Princess, a children's book (called "refreshingly unsentimental" by an article in Horn Book Magazine) which she originally wrote as a short story, and wrote a half a dozen detective novels, including Death in Kashmir and Death in Zanzibar. Her autobiography has been published in three volumes, collectively entitled Share of Summer: The Sun in the Morning, Golden Afternoon, and Enchanted Evening. In March 2003, M. M. Kaye was awarded the Colonel James Tod International Award by the Maharana Mewar Foundation of Udaipur, Rajasthan, for her "contribution of permanent value reflecting the spirit and values of Mewar".
The Far Pavilions is an epic novel of British-Indian history by M. M. Kaye, published in 1978, which tells the story of an English officer during the British Raj. There are many parallels between this novel and Rudyard Kipling's Kim that was published in 1900: the settings, the young English boy raised as a native by an Indian surrogate mother, "the Great Game" as it was played by England and Russia. The novel, rooted deeply in the romantic epics of the 19th century, has been hailed as a masterpiece of storytelling. It is based partly on biographical writings of the author's grandfather as well as her knowledge of and childhood experiences in India. It has sold millions of copies, caused travel agents to create tours that visited the locations in the book, and inspired a television adaptation and a musical play.
Widowed in 1985, Kaye resided with her sister in a wing of Kaye's older daughter's house in Hampshire from 1987: Kaye relocated to Suffolk in 2001 and was residing in Lavenham at the time of her 29 January 2004 death at age 95. At sunset on 4 March 2006 Kaye's ashes were scattered over the waters from a boat in the middle of Lake Pichola, a duty performed by Michael Ward, producer of the West End musical version of The Far Pavilions, and his wife Elaine.
M. M. Kaye was born in Simla, India, the elder daughter and one of three children born to Sir Cecil Kaye and his wife Margaret Sarah Bryson. Cecil Kaye was an intelligence officer in the Indian Army; and M. M. Kaye's grandfather, brother and husband all served the British Raj: her grandfather's cousin, Sir John Kaye, wrote the standard accounts of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the First Afghan War. At age ten Mollie Kaye - as M. M. Kaye was known - was sent to England to attend boarding school, subsequently studying children's book illustration earning money by designing Christmas cards. In 1926 she briefly returned to live with her family in India but after her father's death Kaye, displeased by her mother's pressure to find a junior officer to marry, returned to England living in London on a small pension based on her late father's army career augmented first by earnings from illustrating children's books, and from 1937 from the publication of children's books written by Kaye herself. Kaye's first adult novel: Six Bars at Seven, was published in 1940, being a thriller which Kaye was moved to write due to regularly reading books of that ilk from the Fourpenny Library: "Most of the stuff I was reading was total rubbish, and I used to think I couldn't write worse. So I sat down and wrote one."
The £64 she received for Six Bars at Seven enabled Kaye to return to Simla where she resided with her married sister Dorothy Elizabeth Pardey. In June 1941 Kaye met her future husband: British Indian Army officer Godfrey John Hamilton, four years her junior, who reportedly proposed to Kaye on five days acquaintance. Kaye was pregnant with the couple's second child when she and Hamilton were able to marry on Armistice Day 1945, Hamilton's first marriage having by then been dissolved, and following her second child's 1946 birth Kaye returned to writing. (Hamilton's first wife Mary Penelope Colthurst resided in Ireland with the couple's daughter. Kaye would later state of her affair with Hamilton: "We just couldn't wait. Had it been peacetime, I wouldn't have done it because of the way I had been brought up. But these were the pressures of war.") Subsequent to the 1947 dissolution of the British India Army attendant on India's achieving home rule, Hamilton had transferred to the British army where his career necessitated he and his family relocate twenty-seven times over the next nineteen years, with Kaye utilizing several of these locales in a series of crime novels which inaugurated the utilization of the pen name M. M. Kaye, the writer's previous published works having been credited to Mollie Kaye. Kaye's literary agent was Paul Scott who had been an army officer in India and who would find fame as author of the Raj Quartet. It was with Scott's encouragement that Kaye wrote her first historical epic of India Shadow of the Moon published in 1957. The focal background of Shadow of the Moon is the Sepoy Mutiny with which Kaye had been familiarized via stories heard as a child from her family's native servants, this early interest being reinforced in the mid-1950s when Kaye on a visit to friends in India chanced on some transcripts of trials attendant on the Sepoy Mutiny in a shed on her friends' property. Kaye would later state her displeasure over the original published version of Shadow of the Moon being edited without her knowledge, with sections focused on action rather than romance being largely deleted.
Kaye's second historical novel Trade Wind was published in 1963 which year Kaye, inspired by a visit to India, planned to commence work on an epic novel with the Second Anglo-Afghan War as its background: however she was diagnosed with lung cancer - a prognosis later changed to lymphosarcoma - and enervated by chemotherapy was unable to write until back in good health, with a resultant delay in the commencement of Kaye's writing her masterwork: The Far Pavilions, until 1967, which year Kaye and the newly-retired Hamilton became longtime residents of the Sussex hamlet of Boreham Street. Published in 1978, The Far Pavilions became a worldwide best-seller on publication in 1978 causing successful republication of Shadow of the Moon (with the previously deleted sections restored) and Trade Wind, and also Kaye's crime novels. Kaye also wrote and illustrated The Ordinary Princess, a children's book (called "refreshingly unsentimental" by an article in Horn Book Magazine) which she originally wrote as a short story, and wrote a half a dozen detective novels, including Death in Kashmir and Death in Zanzibar. Her autobiography has been published in three volumes, collectively entitled Share of Summer: The Sun in the Morning, Golden Afternoon, and Enchanted Evening. In March 2003, M. M. Kaye was awarded the Colonel James Tod International Award by the Maharana Mewar Foundation of Udaipur, Rajasthan, for her "contribution of permanent value reflecting the spirit and values of Mewar".
The Far Pavilions is an epic novel of British-Indian history by M. M. Kaye, published in 1978, which tells the story of an English officer during the British Raj. There are many parallels between this novel and Rudyard Kipling's Kim that was published in 1900: the settings, the young English boy raised as a native by an Indian surrogate mother, "the Great Game" as it was played by England and Russia. The novel, rooted deeply in the romantic epics of the 19th century, has been hailed as a masterpiece of storytelling. It is based partly on biographical writings of the author's grandfather as well as her knowledge of and childhood experiences in India. It has sold millions of copies, caused travel agents to create tours that visited the locations in the book, and inspired a television adaptation and a musical play.
Widowed in 1985, Kaye resided with her sister in a wing of Kaye's older daughter's house in Hampshire from 1987: Kaye relocated to Suffolk in 2001 and was residing in Lavenham at the time of her 29 January 2004 death at age 95. At sunset on 4 March 2006 Kaye's ashes were scattered over the waters from a boat in the middle of Lake Pichola, a duty performed by Michael Ward, producer of the West End musical version of The Far Pavilions, and his wife Elaine.
2fredbacon
I finished up Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution by Stephen F. Cohen this week. It's one of the best academic histories I've ever read. It leaves you wondering about one of the biggest what ifs in the 20th century. If Bukharin had realized earlier just exactly who/what Stalin was, could he have prevented his rise? And what would the long term effects have been? There wouldn't have been the terrible famine in the Ukraine in the early 30's. There would not have been the great purge of the mid to late thirties which killed millions. But there wouldn't have been the aggressive industrialization and militarization which allowed the Soviet Union to barely hold out against the onslaught of the German Wehrmacht in 1941. I gave the book a five star rating because I couldn't add in anymore.
I've started reading At the Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell this week. It's been getting a lot of undeserved praise and attention in my opinion. I'm only about 100 pages in, but Bakewell should learn the old writer's dictum, "show don't tell." I'm a little frustrated by her constant references to the brilliant and revolutionary insights into philosophy of people such as Husserl and Heidegger without ever really enumerating what was so great about their ideas.
I read a lot of existentialist philosophers in my early twenties, so perhaps I'm expecting too much. Bakewell provides just enough detail to allow readers to hold forth on existentialism at a party without actually knowing anything.
I've started reading At the Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell this week. It's been getting a lot of undeserved praise and attention in my opinion. I'm only about 100 pages in, but Bakewell should learn the old writer's dictum, "show don't tell." I'm a little frustrated by her constant references to the brilliant and revolutionary insights into philosophy of people such as Husserl and Heidegger without ever really enumerating what was so great about their ideas.
I read a lot of existentialist philosophers in my early twenties, so perhaps I'm expecting too much. Bakewell provides just enough detail to allow readers to hold forth on existentialism at a party without actually knowing anything.
3whymaggiemay
According to "On this Day" on my Home page, William Shakespeare was both born and died on this day. Wishing him a happy birthday because he's given me many happy hours of reading.
I'm about 2/3s finished with The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar. This is the second book I've read by her and thoroughly enjoyed both. They've been very different, but both incredibly rich and beautifully written.
I've just begun The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell and while I'm enjoying it, it is definitely not my normal kind of novel. A bit of black comedy going on here.
I began The Three Roosevelts a couple of weeks ago and have stalled a bit with it. It begins with Teddy Roosevelt, and since I've read a bit about him by others, I'm finding this book incomplete and, frankly, unworthy of TR. That said, the intention of the book is apparently to show how these patrician leaders changed America. I'll certainly need to read a great deal more to see if MacGregor proves his point, but I'm not sure I have the patience to do so.
I'm about 2/3s finished with The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar. This is the second book I've read by her and thoroughly enjoyed both. They've been very different, but both incredibly rich and beautifully written.
I've just begun The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell and while I'm enjoying it, it is definitely not my normal kind of novel. A bit of black comedy going on here.
I began The Three Roosevelts a couple of weeks ago and have stalled a bit with it. It begins with Teddy Roosevelt, and since I've read a bit about him by others, I'm finding this book incomplete and, frankly, unworthy of TR. That said, the intention of the book is apparently to show how these patrician leaders changed America. I'll certainly need to read a great deal more to see if MacGregor proves his point, but I'm not sure I have the patience to do so.
4princessgarnet
Finished: The King without a Kingdom by Maurice Druon
The #7 and final novel in the "Accursed Kings" series--English translation by Andrew Simpkin
The story is primarily told in flashback by the Cardinal to one of his nephews while on the road. Avignon was one of the places in the novel that I've visited.
Now: Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima
Returning to the Seven Realms world, the book opens years later with new characters as well as some old ones.
The #7 and final novel in the "Accursed Kings" series--English translation by Andrew Simpkin
The story is primarily told in flashback by the Cardinal to one of his nephews while on the road. Avignon was one of the places in the novel that I've visited.
Now: Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima
Returning to the Seven Realms world, the book opens years later with new characters as well as some old ones.
5snash
On a trip to the used book store I noticed and bought a book primarily because it was set in Philadelphia. I note it hasn't gotten a lot of attention here but I quite enjoyed it. The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter is the story set in South Philly of two brothers who promised their mother on her death bed that they'd take care of each other. Raised by an abusive father and his next three wives, their ties were strong. The book focuses on that moment when those ties were sorely tested.
6seitherin
Still reading The Crimson Campaign and Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death.
7ahef1963
>1 fredbacon: Thank you for the great M.M. Kaye intro. The Far Pavilions is one of my favourite books of all time.
I'm reading The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams after enjoying Cat on a Hot Tin Roof so much last week. I'd forgotten how much I love his writing - it's been about 30 years since I picked up one of his plays.
The Glass Menagerie is a quick read, being very short, and afterwards I am planning to read Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo.
I'm reading The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams after enjoying Cat on a Hot Tin Roof so much last week. I'd forgotten how much I love his writing - it's been about 30 years since I picked up one of his plays.
The Glass Menagerie is a quick read, being very short, and afterwards I am planning to read Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo.
8framboise
Today I started My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh. It has gotten heaps of praise from many well-known writers and judging from the first 30 pages, I predict I will highly enjoy this one.
9cappybear
Finished Wuthering Heights: it had its moments, but I didn't really like the book. Am now reading Still Alice for the reading group, but it's rather upsetting.
10fredbacon
>7 ahef1963: The Far Pavilions had an amazing ability to transport you to a different place and time. But it was uneven. I still remember the scene where the primary male and female characters (Ash and Anjuli) come together after seeking shelter from a sandstorm in a cave. It was the worst, most cliched "romance" writing ever. But I'm talking about 10 to 20 pages in a roughly 1000 page novel. I mostly remember it as a being an absolute page turner. The effect was heightened by the coincidence that on the day I reach the British invasion of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in real life.*
A couple of years ago, I purchased a new copy (having discarded my original copy), but I've been reluctant to reread it. I'm too nervous about ruining a treasured memory of a book. After 35 years, I'm worried that I'm likely to find a racist, paternalistic subtext that eluded me in my late teens.
*In an odd coincidence, later that year (or maybe the next), I was reading Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum. A day or two after I reached the segment on the defense of the Polish post office in Danzig, the Polish military cracked down on Lech Walesa and the Solidarity labor movement in Gdansk (Danzig), Poland. It was Christmas Eve. I remember it distinctly because Bill Murray was guest hosting Saturday Night Live. At the end of the show he announced that the news was reporting that tanks had been seen in the streets of Gdansk. The audience laughed, and a flustered Bill Murray responded, "No. It's true!"
A couple of years ago, I purchased a new copy (having discarded my original copy), but I've been reluctant to reread it. I'm too nervous about ruining a treasured memory of a book. After 35 years, I'm worried that I'm likely to find a racist, paternalistic subtext that eluded me in my late teens.
*In an odd coincidence, later that year (or maybe the next), I was reading Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum. A day or two after I reached the segment on the defense of the Polish post office in Danzig, the Polish military cracked down on Lech Walesa and the Solidarity labor movement in Gdansk (Danzig), Poland. It was Christmas Eve. I remember it distinctly because Bill Murray was guest hosting Saturday Night Live. At the end of the show he announced that the news was reporting that tanks had been seen in the streets of Gdansk. The audience laughed, and a flustered Bill Murray responded, "No. It's true!"
11alphaorder
Just finished - and quite enjoyed! - The Atomic Weight of Love. Am excited to read Lab Girl, but need to break up the woman scientist theme, so am going to start Tuesday Nights in 1980.
12TooBusyReading
>1 fredbacon:, thank you for the start. The Far Pavillions is one of those books I've been meaning to get to, but never do. Thanks for the romance warning - I can skim over that part.
I just finished listening to The Light Between Oceans, and enjoyed it but am not as enamored as some other readers are. I'm reading The Nightingale, and am feeling the same about it, so far.
My next audio book is Notorious RBG, which should be a refreshing change of pace.
I just finished listening to The Light Between Oceans, and enjoyed it but am not as enamored as some other readers are. I'm reading The Nightingale, and am feeling the same about it, so far.
My next audio book is Notorious RBG, which should be a refreshing change of pace.
13rocketjk
Today I start A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam.
14seitherin
Finished both The Crimson Campaign and Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death. Started The Autumn Republic by Brian McClellan and Mind's Eye by Hakan Nesser.
15cdyankeefan
Finished Tuesday Nights in 1980 which was good and started The Madwoman Upstairs which I'm quite enjoying. Still working on The Bone Season which I'm struggling with and Silver Linings Playbook
16jnwelch
Enjoying The Summer Before the War and The Siege of Krishnapur.
17mollygrace
I finished On Tangled Paths (also known as Trials and Tribulations) by 19th Century German novelist Theodor Fontane (who did not begin writing novels until he was almost 60). I was enchanted by this story, which is set in Berlin -- in fact, the author uses the city so well it might be considered a third main character. I've never been to Berlin but I kept wishing I knew the city so I could more deeply enjoy the way the author used so many aspects of its history and spirit. All the human characters are finely drawn, and the two main characters, a young man and woman who are in love, are complex and real. The book is about so many things: love, class, society, integrity, family, change, time, loss, acceptance. It seems a simple story (less than 200 pages) but the paths the characters travel are indeed "tangled", and there's a poignancy and truth to the story that left me wanting more stories by this author. The Afterward, written by the translator, Peter James Bowman, enriched my appreciation of the book. His occasional footnotes are brief and illuminating.
Next up: The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker
Next up: The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker
19cappybear
Finished Still Alice which I'm glad I stuck with, in spite of a few harrowing moments. Still reading Goodbye to All That.
20PaperbackPirate
I'm telling you all for the last time that I'm reading Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs. My book club meets Friday to discuss it so it's time to wrap it up!
21jnwelch
Added The Island of Blue Dolphins to what I'm reading. The Summer Before the War was excellent.
22cappybear
Read, rated and reviewed Mr Wrong by Elizabeth Jane Howard.
23AmyGraves
I finished up The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society a little bit ago. I'm trying to get myself into Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I have not seen the movie since I prefer to read the book first. If the commercials are any indication, I will be in for a ride.
24ahef1963
>10 fredbacon: Oh, yes, I agree that The Far Pavilions had its uneven parts, but there were also sections that were sublime. My fondest memory of the book is when Wally is out for a morning gallop, singing "For All The Saints"; that was a beautiful scene. I, too, have a new copy on my bookshelf and fear the same thing. I was so swept up by the romance in my late teens/early 20s, and didn't really understand the effects of colonialism. I don't want to mess up my memories of the book with the dire political overtones I'm sure to encounter on a re-read.
Those are a couple of very odd coincidences! My own book coincidence (although non-political): I woke up one morning with a thin but deep cut on my right thumb, so deep I thought it might need stitches, but I balked at the idea of ER waiting times. I had fallen asleep reading Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife. The knife was certainly subtle, the source mysterious, and I bear a scar to this day.
Just finished reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo. I highly recommend it. It is not for the faint of heart, but excellent reading and reporting. Planning to read Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell next.
Those are a couple of very odd coincidences! My own book coincidence (although non-political): I woke up one morning with a thin but deep cut on my right thumb, so deep I thought it might need stitches, but I balked at the idea of ER waiting times. I had fallen asleep reading Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife. The knife was certainly subtle, the source mysterious, and I bear a scar to this day.
Just finished reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo. I highly recommend it. It is not for the faint of heart, but excellent reading and reporting. Planning to read Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell next.
25mollygrace
I finished Daniel Mendelsohn's Waiting for the Barbarians, a collection of his reviews (theater, books, film, television). I've learned so much from this book, and have added several of the books he reviews to my wish list. I was pleased to read his thoughts on David Malouf's Ransom, a book I read several years ago and admired very much. Mendelsohn is a wonderful writer -- his reviews add to your understanding and appreciation of the subject.
I should finish Gerbrand Bakker's The Twin this weekend.
I should finish Gerbrand Bakker's The Twin this weekend.
26Zumbanista
Am just a little ways into Alias Grace my first attempt at reading Margaret Atwood and confess to feeling exhausted already by the writing style.
As an antidote, I'll be delving into Episode 4 of Julian Fellowes's Belgravia tomorrow. Am enjoying it so far.
As an antidote, I'll be delving into Episode 4 of Julian Fellowes's Belgravia tomorrow. Am enjoying it so far.
27fredbacon
24> I would definitely agree that on the whole The Far Pavilions was a wonderful read. I would desperately love to recapture the magic that I felt when I read it 35 or so years ago. I'm just not sure that would happen.
I have a more amusing coincidence between real life and book life. About 20 years ago, I decided to reread Stephen King's The Stand. As I read the first section, Captain Trips, where the super flu starts spreading, I started coming down with a cold. Developing the symptoms of the characters in the book was a little unnerving. For the first day or two, I didn't know if it psychosomatic or real. I read the remainder of the book in bed.
I have a more amusing coincidence between real life and book life. About 20 years ago, I decided to reread Stephen King's The Stand. As I read the first section, Captain Trips, where the super flu starts spreading, I started coming down with a cold. Developing the symptoms of the characters in the book was a little unnerving. For the first day or two, I didn't know if it psychosomatic or real. I read the remainder of the book in bed.
