April was the month of non-fiction. With COVID-19 stay-at-home directives, a full month of working from home (now in week 8), the inability to go anywhere and do anything outside except walk my dog and weed the garden, you'd think I would have wanted to read cheesy mysteries that would allow me to escape. But no, I had a hankering for non-fiction, with a smidgen of mystery thrown in, and got to travel to Egypt and the upper and lower Nile, and popped all over the world to see what everyne was doing in the year 1000.
Death at the Mariner's Hotel by Betty Rowlands Sukey Reynolds is a brand new police constable in this entry in the series, and she's teamed with someone who consistently treats her as just any other brand new constable (which Sukey doesn't say but her actions and thoughts clearly reveal how much she dislikes this treatment). And she makes some rookie mistakes you'd think a former scene of the crime officer would not. Some of these she gets called out for, but others slip by and for me, anyway, colored my reading of the story--for instance, Sukey allowed the nurse to collect the syringe from Gasspar's hospital room instead of collecting the evidence herself. Naturally my suspicious mind thought "What if the nurse is in cahoots with the killer? Will she turn over the real syringe or substitute another one?" Sukey didn't even go in with her to observe the nurse collecting the evidence for an assault or attempted murder. Very amateur hour for both Sukey and the author. I like this series despite blunders like this. Sukey is usually relatable, her life story and the secondary characters who surround her are believable, and the writing is general is good. If you're looking for a new police procedural (bear above amateurish mistakes in mind) or a series with a fairly strong feminine lead, or just a modern English almost-cozy series, you will like Sukey. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see Sukey show up as an ITV series someday. Recommended
The Year 1000 by Valerie Hansen Although publication of this book in 2000 would have made more sense, The Year 1000 is an ambitious attempt to demonstrate that the 21st century globalized society we are living in today has very real antecedents in prehistory. Hansen seems surprised by the extent of long-distance interaction in some areas of the globe in the past. She begins with the exploration of North America by the Vikings and proceeds on to long distance trade networks in Central America, the Silk Road, Asia, Africa, and everywhere else where archaeologists have demonstrated extensive trade networks existed. And that's probably why I didn't enjoy this book as much as I expected to: archaeologists have known for decades that prehistoric peoples traded extensively. Would Hansen be surprised to learn that Paleoindians moved obsidian around North America across hundreds and hundreds of miles? Perhaps not globalization in the more capitalistic definition she clearly uses as her basis, but ancient peoples were very much aware of other ancient peoples and societies, even at quite a remove in some cases. This is not new information to students of prehistory, although perhaps to the general public it is. I can't speak to the veracity of her sources, but I do have some particular concerns. I knew one of her sources, the late Mike Coe, personally, and read quite of bit of Mary Miller's published work (I even used one of her books as a supplemental text in a class I taught years ago), and I can assure you that most archaeologists who have worked at or visited Chichen Itza or studied the Maya do not think that the blonde, light-skinned people in the mural in the Temple of the Warriors might be Viking warriors. And she makes similar mistakes in other areas I know very well; for example, she mistakenly calls southwest kivas 'storage rooms.' They are ritual architecture which yes, may have also stored some seed used each year to start the annual planting rituals, but to call them storage rooms misses their main purpose by a mile. She refers to a prolonged period of drought in the Maya area but doesn't tell us what evidence suggests such a drought occurred (I know there are some pollen cores from Lake Peten Itza that suggest that, but there are hundreds of km between the lake and Chichen Itza, the site she's discussing at this point in the book). I don't know enough about the archaeology and prehistory of the rest of the world to feel comfortable voicing some of my issues with her reconstructions, but I found myself scribbling lots of questions marks in the margins. While I really wanted to like the book, because I liked the idea behind it, I hesitate to recommend it. There were just too many question marks in the margins.
The Explorers of the Nile by Tim Jeal Excellent, thorough, and riveting account of the history of European explorations for the source of the Nile, beginning in the mid nineteenth century. This exhaustive history not only delves into the back stories of the famous explorers (Stanley, Livingstone, Burton) but others, not famous, who should be (Speke), but deftly and thoroughly traces their connections to colonialism, the rise of independent states, and modern-day problems and triumphs in 21st-century Africa. I listened to the book, and it was excellently read and produced, but I sorely missed tracing journeys on maps and seeing the faces of the explorers themselves. Strong kudos to Jeal for exhaustively researching his material, including the original sources, many of them unpublished diaries and accounts, that put light to the myths that surround some of the players. In particular, I was amazed to listen to the biographies he was able to piece together about the Africans who served as guides and porters, who carried the expeditions literally on their shoulders, many of whom died for what must have been to them a crazy undertaking. Highly recommended.
The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin Four years ago I started working in a field where the Meyers-Briggs, Strengthfinders, and other personality trait tests are well known and frequently discussed. When I saw this book, I thought, "Well, tendencies are perhaps not as immutable as personality traits, so let's see how this schema arranges people." And was floored when I recognized almost every single tendency that defines the upholder in myself. The other tendencies are questioners, obligers, and rebels, and while I saw some of me in the questioner and obliger, I have no rebel tendencies at all. Not a surprise to me at all. It was interesting to think of family and friends in light of this framework, but I'm pretty sure I will not actualize her recommendations on dealing with the other tendencies. They should just do it because. Recommended
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