[books 2009] fiction & non-fiction
Jun. 25th, 2009 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro34.Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher
I've been meaning to try reading The Dresden Files books ever since I saw and loved the TV series. This is one of the later books. It's a little too long for what it is (not a criticism I often make) but otherwise I loved it. Will definitely be looking out for the rest of the series.
35. The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple
A really gripping account of the Indian Mutiny in Delhi in 1857 and its role in the downfall of the last Mughal emperor, and a really good portrait of Delhi at the time. Heavy going with lots of primary source quotes, but still reads like an adventure story. He gets a lot of points for using a lot of Persian and Urdu-language sources previously not used in English-language accounts of the events.
I have a soft spot for Dalrymple because his real interest, like mine, is the early period of the Europeans in India, when they were really interested in the people & culture and "went native" in droves, and he shares my view of the later colonial period. But this is a really good book anyway.
In breaking news, I'm NOT FINISHING A BOOK!!! I know. When I was in Canada I bought a cheap history of the suffragette movement & didn't notice till I started to read it last night that the author is the same Melanie Phillips who writes for the Daily Hate and doesn't believe in evolution but does believe that MMR causes autism. And is really anti-feminist. I feel all dirty now.
I've been meaning to try reading The Dresden Files books ever since I saw and loved the TV series. This is one of the later books. It's a little too long for what it is (not a criticism I often make) but otherwise I loved it. Will definitely be looking out for the rest of the series.
35. The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple
A really gripping account of the Indian Mutiny in Delhi in 1857 and its role in the downfall of the last Mughal emperor, and a really good portrait of Delhi at the time. Heavy going with lots of primary source quotes, but still reads like an adventure story. He gets a lot of points for using a lot of Persian and Urdu-language sources previously not used in English-language accounts of the events.
I have a soft spot for Dalrymple because his real interest, like mine, is the early period of the Europeans in India, when they were really interested in the people & culture and "went native" in droves, and he shares my view of the later colonial period. But this is a really good book anyway.
In breaking news, I'm NOT FINISHING A BOOK!!! I know. When I was in Canada I bought a cheap history of the suffragette movement & didn't notice till I started to read it last night that the author is the same Melanie Phillips who writes for the Daily Hate and doesn't believe in evolution but does believe that MMR causes autism. And is really anti-feminist. I feel all dirty now.
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Date: 2009-06-25 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 07:46 am (UTC)I'm pretty sure my Thomas went native,given that his daughter was by a local woman, but as he was born in Anjengo in 1737, he may well have also been half-native himself... records from the early 1700s are nigh-impossible to track down, sadly, and most of what I've been able to get to do with him and his father are official letters, which contain no personal details. (I keep thinking I should write a book on Eliza.)