Category: Non-Fiction

The Agatha Christie Cure by Cathy Rentzenbrink

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If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you’ll have noticed that I read a lot of Agatha Christie books! In fact, I’ve now read most of her work and only have a few more novels and some short story collections left to read. It’s taken me many years to get this far, though, and I’ve been reading the books in a very haphazard way, picking them up in no particular order as I come across them or to fit the monthly themes for the Read Christie challenge. In The Agatha Christie Cure, Cathy Rentzenbrink describes her own journey through Christie’s work, which is much more structured than mine!

Rentzenbrink’s project begins at Christmas. She’s feeling tired and miserable – she and her husband, Erwyn, are considering separating; their son Matt is unhappy at school; and because of the Christmas holidays, Cathy has none of her usual work activities to keep herself occupied. Reading all of Agatha Christie’s books in the order they were published seems like the perfect distraction – a way to escape from real life for a while and also a fascinating opportunity to watch the 20th century unfold through Christie’s eyes. Deciding to start immediately, she gets into a warm bath, picks up The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and begins.

The Agatha Christie Cure incorporates a lot. There are discussions of Christie’s novels (usually quite brief but sometimes a whole chapter devoted to one book); other sections take the form of a memoir, with Rentzenbrink talking about her personal life, her family and her relationship with Christie; and we also learn a lot about Christie herself, drawing on her own autobiography, with a focus on her sudden disappearance for several days in December 1926. There’s a good balance between these three different elements of the book, with some crossover between them, for example when Cathy looks for parallels between her own life and Christie’s. I particularly enjoyed Rentzenbrink’s interactions with her son, Matt, discussing Christie’s books with him and sometimes reading or listening to them together. Despite his problems at school, Matt is an intelligent, observant boy and often picks up on details in the books that his mother has missed.

You may be wondering about spoilers. Unfortunately, I thought they were handled quite inconsistently throughout the book. In the chapter on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, for example, Rentzenbrink provides a spoiler warning before going on to discuss the solution to the mystery, but later in the book she casually names the culprit from Roger Ackroyd again without repeating the spoiler warning. Because I’ve already read so much of Christie’s work, I mostly felt safe (although I skipped over the sections on the few books I still haven’t read, such as Elephants Can Remember and Curtain) but this could be more of a problem for readers who’ve read less Christie than I have.

I’ve often wished that I had tried to read Christie’s novels in order from the beginning as it sounds like such an interesting, rewarding approach to an author’s work. Not only can you watch the author grow and develop with each book, but when their work spans several decades, as Christie’s does, you can also look out for hints of social and cultural change and technological advancement. Of course, there can also be some disadvantages to reading in order – as Rentzenbrink discovers, most of Christie’s better books were written earlier in her career and the later ones tend to be weaker. Maybe my random approach is better after all, as it provides more variety and keeps things fresh.

I found The Agatha Christie Cure very enjoyable, but if you’re just beginning your own Christie journey (or haven’t started yet) then it would probably be wise to wait until you’ve read more of her books. Definitely read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd first!

Thanks to Canongate Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

The Story of Tudor Art by Christina J. Faraday

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In this interesting and ambitious book, Christina J. Faraday explores the history of Tudor England through its art and objects. The artwork of a particular period can tell us a lot about key historical events, how important figures chose to be portrayed and how people lived, worked and worshipped. Faraday looks at all of these things, moving chronologically forward through time, beginning with art associated with Margaret Beaufort, mother of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, and ending with the reign of Elizabeth I.

Paintings and portraits are naturally given a lot of attention, but Faraday also includes many other types of art from sculptures, tapestries and clothing to jewels, embroideries and furnishings. To show the range of items discussed, some examples include the Dacre Beasts, four 6ft tall figures carved from a single oak tree, now on display at the V&A in London; the Great Bed of Ware, a huge, ornate four-poster bed so famous Shakespeare mentioned it in Twelfth Night; and Cope’s Cabinet of Curiosities, a collection of rare antiquities and artefacts from around the world, reflecting the increase in global exploration during Elizabeth I’s reign.

There’s a fascinating chapter on the emerging class of people known in the 16th century as ‘the middling sort’ – similar to today’s middle class. During the Tudor period, these people began to purchase artworks for their own homes to display their growing wealth and culture. Mostly, though, Faraday focuses on works of art produced for the Tudor monarchs and displayed at court or in churches.

The book looks at the work of the various court painters, many of whom came to England from other European countries, bringing different styles and techniques with them. Some, such as Hans Holbein the Younger, are very well known; others, for example, William (or Guillim) Scrots, are less famous. Little is known about Scrots, but he caused a sensation with his 1546 anamorphic portrait of Edward VI, which is distorted so it can only be viewed clearly from one particular angle. As you would expect, most of the artists at that time were men, but the contributions of female artists Susanna Horenbout and Levina Teerlinc are also discussed.

At first this appeared to be quite a long book, but I found that I got through it much more quickly than I’d expected as around half of the book is made up of notes, a bibliography, a list of image credits and an index. The actual text of the book moves quickly from one monarch’s reign to the next, covering a huge amount of art in each chapter, and it ended up feeling too short rather than too long as there’s not time to go into much depth on anything. Still, it’s a good introduction to the subject and succeeds in showing the overall scope of Tudor art and how things changed between the beginning of the period and the end. Lots of photographs are included, but as I was reading the ebook version I don’t think I could fully appreciate some of these and I’m sure a physical version of the book would work better visually. I think it would make a nice gift for someone studying art history, but for the general reader with an interest in art or the Tudors (or preferably both) there’s a lot to enjoy here as well.

Thanks to Head of Zeus for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 16/20 of 20 Books of Summer

No Fair Maidens by Kim Willis

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I’ve read a lot of Greek mythology but very little British mythology, so when I came across No Fair Maidens on NetGalley it seemed like a good opportunity to rectify that. However, I don’t think I read the description of the book properly as it wasn’t quite the exploration of British goddesses that I’d expected but more of a memoir of the author’s own personal journey. Looking at other reviews, it seems a lot of people made the same mistake, but I think as long as you know what kind of book it is before you start, there’s still a lot to enjoy here.

Kim Willis begins by telling us about a time in her life when she began to struggle with mental health issues. She had just been told (wrongly) that she would never be able to have children and was left feeling depressed and empty. It was then that she took a trip to the mouth of the River Severn and drew inspiration from the story of the goddess Sabrina (or Hafren in Welsh), whose name over the centuries became Severn. Sabrina and her two sisters fell to earth in the form of single raindrops and then each chose her own route to the sea, growing and swelling as they went. Willis found it motivating to think of these three women charting a path for themselves with no maps to show the way – and this led her to investigate the stories of other mythical British women.

I had heard of some of the women featured in the book; Morgan le Fay, who appears in the Arthurian legends usually as King Arthur’s half-sister, is probably the most famous, but I was also already familiar with Melusine, the water spirit who turns into a snake for several days each month. The others I knew little to nothing about – Coventina, Arianrhod, Scáthach and my two favourites, Cerridwen and Gwendoline. I won’t say too much about any of the individual women as you may prefer to discover their stories for yourself, but all of them are fascinating and, interestingly, they are all associated with water in some way.

However, relatively little time is spent on the actual myths; most of them are told in just a few pages embedded into each chapter. Much more attention is given to the author’s own reactions to learning about the myths, how she found them inspiring and healing and how they gave her the strength to move forward. Although I appreciate her courage in being so open and honest with the reader about her life and her mental health, I didn’t personally find any of this particularly interesting and struggled to identify with her personality and way of life. I’m sure other readers will like this aspect of the book and find it helpful; it just depends on what you’re looking for, I think.

I did enjoy reading about the author’s travels around England, Scotland and Wales to get to the source of each of the stories and stand on the land where our eight mythological women may once have stood. I’ve been left wanting to know more about these myths – and maybe I’ll actually get round to reading The Mabinogion one of these days!

Thanks to Doubleday for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 13/20 of 20 Books of Summer

This Dark Night by Deborah Lutz

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My favourite of the three Brontë sisters has always been Emily; although I love Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, I love Wuthering Heights more and I also find Emily herself the most interesting and intriguing person of the three. When I came across this new biography by Deborah Lutz, then, I knew I wanted to read it. I’ve read other books about the Brontës – mainly fictional ones such as Dark Quartet by Lynne Reid Banks and The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan (see my Top Ten Tuesday post for a full list) – but I liked the idea of one with a specific focus on Emily.

The book takes us through Emily’s entire life, beginning with her birth in 1818, the fifth of six children. When Emily was three, her mother died, leaving the children to be raised by their aunt and their father, Patrick Brontë, an Irish clergyman. Growing up in a parsonage in Haworth, West Yorkshire, Emily and her younger sister Anne developed their writing skills with a series of poems and stories set in the imaginary world of Gondal. Although most of this material has been lost, some of Emily’s Gondal poems still exist and Lutz uses them to explore what they can tell us about Emily as a person and how they provided the foundation that led to the writing of Wuthering Heights.

Emily’s early life was marked by various tragedies – just a few years after her mother’s death, her two eldest sisters also died of tuberculosis, having fallen ill at Cowan Bridge School (the model for Lowood School in Jane Eyre). As Patrick was reluctant to let his three surviving daughters attend school after this, Charlotte, Emily and Anne were largely educated at home. Rarely mixing with people outside the family, Emily didn’t make friends easily and was seen as a quiet, reclusive, fiercely private person. As an adult, although she briefly worked as a teacher and studied in Brussels with Charlotte, Emily continued to spend most of her time at home, managing the household and caring for her father and brother, Branwell, who was descending into alcoholism, having failed in his attempts to establish a literary career of his own.

Emily died in December 1848 at the age of thirty, just three months after Branwell and five months before Anne, all probably of tuberculosis. Charlotte, the only sibling to marry, died seven years later from complications during a pregnancy. It’s thought that the insanitary conditions in the village of Haworth, including a water supply contaminated by the nearby graveyard may have contributed to the poor health of the Brontë family.

As Emily left so little of her own work and correspondence behind, most of what we know of her comes from letters written by Charlotte and her friend, Ellen Nussey. Because we don’t have much insight into what Emily herself may have been thinking or feeling, a lot of this biography is based on speculation – ‘Emily probably thought’ or ‘it’s possible that Emily felt’ – as well as a general overview of the world in which Emily lived and how things she saw or experienced may have influenced her character and work. It also seems that almost as much attention is given to Charlotte and Anne, although that’s understandable as the lives and careers of the three sisters are so closely connected.

Something that comes across strongly is how exceptionally talented Emily was. Obviously, her writing is discussed in detail: her poems including the Gondal poetry; Wuthering Heights, the difficulty she had in getting it published and the way it was reviewed at the time; and the second novel she was working on at the time of her death, which has sadly never been found. However, Emily was also an accomplished pianist and a gifted artist – some of her artwork is reproduced in the book, including her wonderful drawings of her dogs. Her achievements are particularly impressive when you remember that she spent very little time at school and was mostly self-educated.

Although I can’t say that I learned a lot from this book (maybe because, as I’ve mentioned, there’s simply not that much we can learn due to the limited information available), I did enjoy reading it. It doesn’t feel too academic and is an easy book to read. For those who want to dig deeper, there are notes, references and a bibliography at the end of the book, but otherwise I think this would probably be a good introduction to the lives of Emily and her siblings.

Thanks to Bloomsbury Continuum for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 5/20 of 20 Books of Summer

The Inner Clock by Lynne Peeples

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I’m someone who often has trouble sleeping so when I came across Lynne Peeples’ book, The Inner Clock: Living in Sync with Our Circadian Rhythms, I decided to read it in the hope of getting some tips and advice. It turned out to be more of a science book than a self-help book, but I found it absolutely fascinating.

Lynne Peeples is a writer and journalist based in Seattle and goes to impressive lengths in order to carry out her research for this book. In the first chapter, she describes how she spent ten days in an underground bunker in Arkansas with no access to clocks or any natural light at all as part of an experiment to see if she could guess the time of day based only on her own body’s circadian rhythms. The circadian clock is the part of the brain that controls our sleep-wake cycle, hunger, metabolism, hormone production and other important functions; we also have other local clocks in almost every organ and tissue of the body and sometimes these clocks can get out of sync with each other which causes all sorts of problems. Peeples’ experiment helps her to understand the natural patterns of her own clocks and how they can be affected by light, food and drink, activity and other factors. This forms the basis of the rest of the book.

Peeples gives most attention to the effects of light, both natural and artificial – not just the amount of light we’re exposed to, but the type and quality of the light. The ‘bad’ kind of light, as we all know, is the blue light from phones and laptops, which is one of the reasons we’re told to limit their use before bedtime. However, we can counteract the effects of screens and artificial lights later in the day by making sure we get plenty of natural light throughout the day. Working in an office with windows is good for your circadian clock, but Peeples suggests that your distance from the window and even the angle of your desk can also make a big difference. Of course, sometimes a lack of daylight or exposure to too much artificial light is out of our control and there’s an interesting section where she discusses the inequalities experienced by people living in urban areas compared to rural ones.

If you’re looking for lots of practical advice on managing your circadian rhythms and improving your sleep, I think there are probably better books you could choose than this one. She does give some tips, based on things she herself discovered throughout her research, such as going for a walk in the morning rather than the evening, narrowing the window of time between your first meal of the day and your last, and waiting 90 minutes after waking before drinking tea or coffee. Most of the book, though, is spent exploring the science behind these things. I got bored at times, such as when she goes into a long discussion of photoreceptors in the eyes, but mostly it’s all very readable and often quite gripping. I was particularly fascinated to learn that fruit and vegetables have their own circadian clocks, even after being harvested, and storing them under bright lights can disturb their rhythms, affecting their nutritional value.

The main conclusion Peeples comes to is that not everyone’s circadian rhythm is the same and people’s internal clocks can run slightly differently (some of us are night owls and some are morning larks). We need to find routines and schedules that work for us, but unfortunately the way society is structured can make that difficult, particularly if you’re someone who struggles to wake up early in the morning. Peeples also looks at disruptions to these routines, such as jet lag, and considers evidence of sports teams performing better or worse depending on the direction in which they’ve had to travel through time zones.

The Inner Clock is a long book and contains a lot of information, but I’m sure most readers will find at least some of it useful and interesting, regardless of whether or not you have any problems with your sleep.

The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor

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The Eagle and the Hart is a dual biography of two English kings, Richard II and Henry IV (also known as Bolingbroke). Cousins born just a few months apart, they were both grandsons of Edward III, so their lives were linked from the beginning, although their paths to the throne were very different. In this biography, which was longlisted for last year’s Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, historian Helen Castor explores the stories of the two kings, with the title of the book inspired by their heraldic emblems, Richard’s white hart and Henry’s golden eagle. The book moves forward chronologically, beginning with the childhoods of both kings then continuing through Richard’s reign and deposition by Henry, finally ending just after Henry’s death in 1413.

Richard II is shown very much as he usually is: a weak, unpopular king whose reign was marked by high taxation and accusations of favouritism, his only shining moment being his handling of the Peasants’ Revolt; a man who believed in his divine right to rule, who liked the status and power that came with being king but didn’t have the personal qualities needed to be a good leader. Castor doesn’t challenge any of these ideas and her sympathies are clearly more with Henry, portrayed as having all the abilities Richard lacks but the misfortune to be born to a younger son and not in the direct line of succession. However, when Henry eventually seizes his chance to become king, his own reign is also beset with problems and he spends his time dealing with various plots, assassination attempts and rebellions.

Although I’ve read historical fiction featuring Richard II and Henry IV and both have popped up in some general non-fiction I’ve read about the period (such as The Plantagenets by Dan Jones), this is the first time I’ve read a full biography of either of them. It wasn’t quite what I would have preferred, though. The book is described in the blurb as ‘the story of one of the strangest and most fateful relationships in English history’, so I would have liked more focus on this relationship, more direct comparison of their backgrounds and discussion of how this shaped their different political and leadership styles, some analysis of their meetings and interactions etc. In fairness, as Castor points out in her introduction, it’s difficult to draw a psychological portrait without access to diaries, private letters or memoirs. What we get, then, is a book that feels like two separate biographies unfolding in parallel, with little crossover between the two, and I found the writing style generally quite dry and impersonal.

The Eagle and the Hart is a long book and I took my time reading it as there’s so much information to take in. There’s also some additional material at the front of the book including maps, family trees, a list of illustrations and at the back, taking up the final 25% of the book, a bibliography, directory of the main players in the royal and noble families, notes and an index. I think for anyone wanting to make a serious study of the period, this book could be a very useful resource. For the general reader, there’s maybe a bit more detail than is really necessary, but it obviously depends on the type of book you prefer and are looking for. The other book I’ve read by Castor, She-Wolves, was more enjoyable but I did get a lot out of reading this one as well.

24 Hours in Shogun’s Japan by Mark Hudson

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This is part of a series in which each book explores the history of a different time and place through the lens of one twenty-four-hour day. I haven’t come across any of the previous books, but I was drawn to this one because I know relatively little about Japan’s history and wanted to add to my limited knowledge. Most of what I do know about this period (the Tokugawa shogunate of 1603 to 1868) comes from novels like James Clavell’s Shogun so I thought it would be interesting to read some nonfiction on the subject – although as it turned out, this book is an unusual combination of fiction and nonfiction.

24 Hours in Shogun’s Japan focuses on a day in 1614 and devotes one chapter to each hour of the day, beginning at midnight. The chapters are headed with both the Western time and the equivalent Japanese term, a system introduced from China – for example, Upper Hour of the Rat or Lower Hour of the Dragon – which I thought was a nice touch. We are then given a short fictional story providing a snapshot of one person’s life as they go about their usual daily activities during that hour. As we progress through the day one hour at a time, we meet a range of characters from all walks of life – a doctor, a pilgrim, a merchant, a pirate and many more – and each one has their own story to be told.

The stories are too short to be very satisfying as works of fiction, but they are there to serve a purpose and they do that very well, providing snapshots of all aspects of daily life – the food people ate, the clothes they wore, the housing they lived in and the types of job they did. Some of the characters who stood out for me included a tea master preparing for the elaborate ritual of the tea ceremony, a fisherman trying to persuade everyone to buy a new type of fish they’d never even seen, a Kabuki dancer performing on stage by the river in Kyoto and a man known as a Yamabushi, or mountain ascetic, getting ready to climb Mount Fuji.

Each chapter includes some key historical facts, there are illustrations and at the end of the book there’s an index and a list of sources and suggestions for further reading. If you want something more academic you would need to look elsewhere, but this is an excellent starting point. The book is obviously intended as an introduction to the time period and the style and structure make it very accessible to readers who are new to the subject.

If you like the sound of the format of these books but aren’t interested in Shogun-era Japan, the others in the series cover Ancient China, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Athens, Ancient Rome and the Viking World. They’re not all by the same author but I assume they’re all written in a similar way. I found this one a quick and informative read, so I would probably consider reading another one.

Can you recommend any good books about Japanese history?

Thanks to Michael O’Mara Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.