Reading catch-up

After The Count of Monte Cristo, I've been having a hard time getting back into fiction. I just really enjoyed the sweep of Dumas' narrative and didn't want to sully it with anything else for a bit. So I decided on some non-fiction for a few reads:

Shakespeare – Bill Bryson
A fast, entertaining read. I love the humour Bryson brings to his subjects. He’s never condescending and brings a wry, fresh outlook even to something as tired as the subject of Shakespeare’s life. The only thing I didn’t really like was the endless dissection of why other people couldn’t have written his plays. I know, I believe he wrote them, Bill! Can we have more fun trivia, please?

Armageddon in Retrospect – Kurt Vonnegut
A collection of essays from Vonnegut, on the theme of warfare. As usual, the writing is self-deprecating, making its point through sad, gentle humour. The chapter on Dresden and why we should care about the destruction of such a city brought tears to my eyes.

I loved the introduction by Vonnegut’s son, too – there’s an amusing story whereby Kurt applied for a job at Sports Illustrated. For a preliminary assignment, he was told to write a story about a racehorse that leapt over a fence at the aqueduct and ran away from its owners. He stared at his desk for what seemed like hours before finally getting up and leaving the building, without a word. Inside his deserted typewriter was a piece of paper which read: The horse jumped over the fucking fence.

Vonnegut, you were awesome.

The Sun King – Nancy Mitford
What a horrible, horrible man Louis XIV was! When he wasn’t imprisoning people for daring to build nice houses or having grieving mothers whipped, he was persecuting his nephew because he mildly irritated him and threatening to punish anyone who dared mention that the poor were starving. He didn’t like to know. Oh, deedums.

Louis XIV is often painted as a great king, but apart from saving France from bowing to the Allies and annexing half of the country, I think he was a terrible, selfish, tyrannical ruler. It makes me even sadder that the rage of the starving peasantry had to be visited upon gentle, bumbling Louis XVI rather than this clown.

But that’s exactly it; the book is very well-written, with excellent, amusing and shocking anecdotes. Mitford paints an evocative scene of Versailles and its people. I really enjoyed this book.

Currently reading: Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I'm trying to get my brain back into French mode with this gentle, lovely little story.

Coming up:
The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Bucan
Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf (I never finished reading this for my Modernism class and have felt guilty ever since).
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

I'm off to France for a few days with Hannah, so we're packing some nice reading. :D