July 2017 - Viva La Revolución!

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My theme for July is pretty simple - read a work set during or about a revolutionary period. Glorious, American, French, Russian, Chinese Cultural, Iranian, etc. There are loads I'm not familiar with, I'm sure... It can be a political revolution, a socio-cultural one, whatever you want.

Some random suggestions/examples using a tag search....

I love this theme! I shouldn't have any trouble finding something to fit.

There must be lots of books on my shelves that fit this theme. Now what to choose?

I'll be frozen in front of the shelves unable to make up my mind...

Great theme, Katie! I'm spoiled for choices. :)

I've got Edmund Wilson's To the Finland Station in TBR.

ETA: And I'm also planning a good thorough read/reread of things Miltonic for the second quarter (17th century) time period. I suspect I'll have some Miltonic leftover or another that I can also read in July.

>7 CurrerBell: I read that one college, did not understand it then! I think I'll probably read Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution which was a SantaThing in 2016. Great topic!

I've decided on The Scent of Death by Andrew Taylor

kitchen boy was awful - read Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovsby Robert Massie instead!

Loved Place of greater safety tho have to admit it was a challenge to read. But boy did I ever learn about the history of the time and place, and as usual, Mantel knows how to tell a story that is captivating and moving.

Wild Swans is really interesting - author went through the Cultural Revolution, her mother was a member of the Communist Party, and her grandmother was a concubine to a warlord just before the Boxer Rebellion

Oldest LIving Confederate Widow Tells All

I haven't yet chosen what I'll read for the challenge... I am thinking something during the American Revolution - I'll be spending the 4th of July in the UK :)

Might be interesting to read that Hamilton bio, the one that the broadway musical was based on.

I just completed a very good book called Telex From Cuba by Rachel Kushner. It is set during the last days of Colonialism in Cuba and showed many sides to the 1950's revolution.

For those who enjoy revolutions, I'm currently reading Golden Son, second in the Red Rising trilogy. It is science fiction, so doesn't really fit here, but it is based on the Irish uprisings and quite well done, I think.

I re-read The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I had read in the 60's and again in the 70's. Always good!

Continuing on with my Milton marathon (for the 350th anniversary of PL), Anna Beers Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot, which I read on Kindle while spending the past six day in the hospital with a severe attack of gastroparesis. I've had the book for quite a while in treeware so it will also qualify for ROOTing, but Kindle was a little easier reading when I was stuck in a hospital bed.

>16 CurrerBell: Hope you are much better now! Good on you tackling a tome whilst feeling horrible.

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Still continuing with my Milton marathon, Milton's Selected Poetry and Prose (Norton Critical) 5*****

I finished The Scent of Death, set in New York during the American Revolution.

The revolution I chose was the American. I have finished Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick. Philbrick digs beneath the surface to uncover more about the character and actions of George Washington, the American Commander and Benedict Arnold, hero turned traitor. This book gives a more realistic picture of the two men and of the time and place in which the two of them lived. Quite a good read, but I would have liked to know more about Benedict Arnold after the switch.

Still on my Milton marathon: Gordon Campbell, John Milton: Life, Work, and Thought (English Revolution) 4**** review.

Finished Burr and The Hamilton Affair, both historic fictions about the American revolution. I've always been a world history buff, with little interest in American history until I met my husband. Reading these two at the same time has been a really interesting look at the two men, and at really how close we were to losing!

I finished America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army in July but I am way behind in my posting. It was just the book to read as research into my revolutionary war ancestor as it was a well research treatise about the actual make up of the Continental Army and how the soldiers were treated and looked upon by the upper echelon on the American side.