I STILL DREAM ABOUT YOU by Fannie Flagg, 2010.
Fannie Flagg is a novelist who really knows how to write good stories. While this one is not as good as some of her previous books, her sense of humor is still present, her characters shine in all their wonderful quirkiness, and the story (part mystery, part drama, part comedy) is involving and appealing. Set mainly in contemporary Birmingham, Alabama, with some flashbacks, Flagg's story concerns former Miss Alabama Margaret Fortenberry--Maggie, lovely and charming and the most successful agent of her realty company, feels she somehow has lost her way in life, and missed out on her dreams. Her dreams of having a wonderful husband and children, living in one of the elegant old houses on the mountain, and having a great life. And since her business partner Hazel died, business has gone from bad to worse and so has Maggie's life in general. To everyone else, Maggie's life seems almost perfect, but Maggie has regrets and secrets and decides to end it all, and she comes up with a great plan how to do it. But each time she tries to carry out her plan, circumstances occur to make her put it off, again and again. Flagg's sense of humor and her wiseness are present in this story and she moves things along at a good pace. Her cast is fun and odd, as is her usual--the overweight Brenda, who is Maggie's best friend and real estate partner, the ancient and funny purple-haired Ethel Clipp, who runs their office, the mysterious Edward Crocker, who owned the fabulous mansion that Maggie has always dreamed of living in, all add color and humor. This is a pure pleasure to read, even if it's not her best work. Fannie Flagg is still one of my favorite Southern authors writing today, and I'd recommend any of her books to someone who enjoys Southern humor and quirkiness.

ANCESTOR by Scott Sigler, 2010.
A hugely entertaining science fiction adventure/horror/thriller, with plenty of humor, violence, gore, nasty villains, heroes, mad scientists, murder, mayhem, and horrifying creatures. A corporation run by brothers Dante and Magnus Paglione (Magnus, by the way, is psychotic with a penchant for torture and mutilation) is funding a venture to create an animal whose organs would be compatible with human organs and could be harvested for transplants, saving thousands of lives and making the brothers and their investors immensely rich. By reverse-engineering, their top-notch scientific team creates an animal they call the "ancestor", based on the genes of an ancient mammal that existed eons ago and was a common ancestor of all present day mammals. P.J. Colding, the story's hero and the team leader, and his team are endangered due to ethical and biohazard issues and there governments are out to find the lab and put a stop to their experiments.With success very close, the movable lab is transported by Sara Puriname and her crew by aircraft and placed on a lonely island in Lake Superior. Dr. Rhumkorff, the head geneticist, Tim Feely, and others place viable embryos of their creation into cows, and the embryos grow quickly, too quickly, gaining weight up to a hundred pounds in several days. Meanwhile, time is running out: blizzards hit, agents from the United States are closing in, and the evil Magnus Paglione has his own bizarre agenda concerning the experiments and its participants.Too late, when the cows begin birthing the babies (who actually eat and claw their way out of the cows' bellies), the group realizes they have unleashed powerful, evil, and hungry monsters that live to hunt, kill, and literally devour their victims completely, and from that point, the whole story becomes one of survival. Fast paced, page turning, nail-biting terror and suspense, this one practically kept me up all night. Yes, at times it read like a movie screenplay, but I didn't care. Anyone who has enjoyed the novels of Michael Crichton and/or Robin Cook would probably like this.

THE FAR REACHES by Homer Hickam, 2007.
I picked this up, drawn by the cover, read the flap and was intrigued. I'd certainly heard of Hickam before, but had never read any of his books, and World War II is not a period I'm that fond of. I'm glad I picked it up. Turns out that this title is actually the third book in the "Josh Thurlow Series", but the fact that I hadn't read the previous books did not make any difference in my enjoyment of this story. Hickam opens this entry with the horrific battle at Tarawa in 1943, and introduces the reader to the heroic Captain Josh Thurlow of Killakeet, North Carolina, his buddy Ready O'Neal, and the young Irish nun Sister Mary Kathleen Ryan, and others, amid scenes of blood and gore, horrendous violence and death, bodies floating or piled high on the beaches, blood in the water, men jumping out of barges only to be killed instantly by unending hails of bullets and so on. Reading this definitely gives a sense of war being total hell. Josh, predicting the outcome of the battle, joins in, and becomes involved with the Sister's attempt to escape. Afterward, Josh's nemesis, Colonel Montague Burr, lets Sister and her native "fella boys" take the unconscious Josh, Ready, and several other marines to the Forridge Islands ( the Far Reaches). The Sister, who has painful and horrible secrets of her own, wants help to carry out her own nearly impossible plan for getting the Japanese out of the islands. Colorful, action packed, some romance thrown in, full of adventure and lively characters and dialogue, it was a grand read. Entertaining, educational, and at times thrilling. Great storytelling and a good change-of-pace read for me.

CATHERINE OF ARAGON: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII by Giles Tremlett, 2010.
Tremlett, the Madrid correspondent for the Guardian, has written an excellent biography of Henry VIII's first wife. Utilizing rich, and in some instances, previously unavailable sources in the Spanish Archives, he presents his findings in a well written narrative that even readers familiar with her story will enjoy and learn from. He devotes a good amount of space to Catherine's childhood and education; as the daughter of the great Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon who were essentially trying to unite their kingdoms and drive out the Moors, Catherine and her siblings continually moved along with the court as it constantly traversed the kingdoms, never staying in one place for long. Even so, Catherine evidently had a peaceful and happy childhood for the most part. Betrothed to Prince Arthur of England at a very young age, she was raised as a future Queen of England. He describes her somewhat harrowing journey to England to marry and follows events in a logical fashion: the death of Arthur, her limbo between widowhood and her marriage to Henry, the miscarriages, the birth of Mary, the advent of Anne Boleyn and the King's Great Matter, the beginnings of the Reformation, etc. etc., all told in a straightforward, readable narrative. Sympathetic to Catherine, he also points out that she was not a flawless character, but had her faults, mostly in her stubbornness and inflexibility. Although Garrett Mattingly's biography, Catherine of Aragon, is still considered the definitive work on Catherine, this nicely done biography should stand next to it on the shelf.

KATHERINE THE QUEEN: the Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII by Linda Porter, 2010.
Well researched and literately written, enjoyable bio of Henry's sixth and last wife. Porter has taken available sources and put Katherine's life into context of the times in a very readable narrative. Beginning with what is known of her childhood and moving through her first two marriages, the bulk of the book concerns her life with Henry VIII, and the last part concerns her brief time as Henry's widow and then wife to Thomas Seymour before her death in 1548. Porter really did a great job with explaining Katherine's Reformist leanings, her relationships with Gardiner and Wriothesley, with the Duchesses of Somerset and Suffolk, with Elizabeth and Mary, with Prince Edward, and most of all her "walking the tightrope" of a marriage with Henry VIII, who in old age was so irascible and changeable in his attitudes, a monstrous tyrant one minute, a caring husband and father the next. It is quite remarkable that Katherine survived Henry, as he was prone to boredom in his wives and was so dangerous concerning anyone who questioned his policies, particularly as concerned religion. Yet he trusted Katherine enough to make her his Regent while he went to war in France. The author also takes great pains to show how tirelessly she worked to bring Henry's children closer to their father and create a semblance of family life for the fractious Tudors, for which Henry seems to have been genuinely grateful. Porter's description of the power intrigues after the King's death is interestingly done: I never had any idea before that Katherine was such a politically astute woman who wanted to serve as Regent for Prince Edward during his minority but was in fact shut out--even by her friends at Court. The fact that she found some brief happiness before her death with Tom Seymour seems very little reward for this kind and generous woman.This long overdue bio as a whole suited my tastes very well: readable, educational, and informative. For all Tudor history fans.

Compelling drama

We finished watching the 2010 miniseries "Pillars of the Earth" on DVD this past week, and quite enjoyed it. Based on Ken Follett's huge novel, the eight hour miniseries of course had to compress or leave out certain parts of the book for television, but according to my daughter who had recently read the book (which I have not), the scriptwriters changed things quite a bit, including several characters and adding new events and changing others. The overarching story, of course, is the building of a cathedral in a small English town after a purposely set fire destroys the old church, set against the backdrop of the England of Maud and Stephen during the 1100's with its endless conflict between them for the throne after the death of Henry I. Historically, King Henry I's son Prince William's drowning in the "White Ship" was an accident (not a planned murder), and Maud and Stephen ended their horrendous battles over the throne after Lincoln, when an uneasy peace was made between the two. Maud's son Henry II did not later have to invade England and fight to claim the throne (and kill his cousin Eustace in battle), as depicted in this series. However, setting those things aside, the storytelling was still interesting, the characters compelling to watch, and the whole depiction of the era was done quite well. It had the hand of Ridley Scott all over it (he's one of the producers)--had the same feel to it as Scott's most recently directed film "Robin Hood" -- that gritty, dirty, blood and guts, smelly, brutal sense of what it must have been to live during that chaotic period. It was such a despairing, confusing, and troublous time that it was said that "Christ and all his saints slept" during this era of English history. Rufus Sewell as Tom the Builder was very watchable, and Ian McShane as the wicked and utterly nasty Waleran was a stupendous villain. Matthew Macfadyen as Prior Philip, with his excellent voice, provided a believable character with great intentions in his service to the church and his almost heroic determination to get the cathedral built. The other actors were all well cast and gave fine performancesin their roles. The different plotlines of the story were interwoven pretty well, although at times it was hard to follow who was doublecrossing who and why, and it was satisfying to see all the characters, good and bad, get their just rewards at the end. An excellent drama, despite the historical inaccuracies and lack of depth with some of the characters; I'd recommend it to those who enjoy this type of miniseries.

CAESARS' WIVES: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Roman Empire by Annelise Freisenbruch, 2010.

Finished this last night, a competent, compelling, and totally absorbing history of the women who helped make (or break) the Roman Empire. Starting with the well known Livia and Octavia, the author relates the stories of such diverse characters as the various Julias, Fausta, the Agrippinas, Antonia, Galla Placidia, Pulcheria, Helena, Serena, and others, covering some 500 years of Roman history. Using available scholarship and excellent storytelling, the author presents their lives as more than just schemers, poisoners and murderesses, but as flesh and blood women who assisted in government and politics and who set examples for other women to follow. Excellent descriptions of Roman life and customs, religious issues, architecture, class distinctions, internal warfare, family feuds, and political rivalries help to set these women firmly in context of their times, and make for interesting reading, although sometimes all the family inter-connectedness could be overwhelming and confusing (thank goodness family charts are included!). The author clearly enjoys her subjects and her narrative shows it. One little thing--she seems to have a bit of pick against Robert Graves and his novel I, Claudius, for helping to create the prevailing perception of several of these women, most notably Livia and Agrippina the Younger. Graves used many of the same historical sources as this author, but as a novelist he chose to focus on his characters in his own way. As an historian, Freisenbruch used those sources and others to create more honest and well rounded portraits of these women. As a reader of historical fiction, I love I, Claudius, but I enjoyed this book because the author dug deeper and managed to make these powerful and flawed women real and provided the reader with documented proof of their places in history. Should appeal to any Roman history fan.