Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
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| Author: | Irving Stone |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Fiction, biography |
| Year of publication: | 1961 |
Reading this novelized biography of Michelangelo just now, after so recently reading the non-fictionalized Dancing To the Precipice was probably a mistake.
I did read The Agony and the Ecstasy to the end and found it mostly interesting, but -- so many unexplained wars, duplicate names, minor characters, changes of venue. Seems to me if you are going to fictionalize, you might want to streamline. If there are three characters named Ludovico, maybe rename one to be Vico?
I did learn a lot of facts, or at least I think they were facts, about Michelangelo's life and the history of the Papacy and the Italian city states. What I did not learn, and missed, was a bit more of an explanation about why this talented, obsessed artist allowed himself to be so taken advantage of? And why did the patrons who claimed to admire him so much abuse his gifts rather than help nurture them? I understand that they might need to use their enormous wealth to pay their armies, but -- Why the law suits? Why did so many popes ask the impossible when they clearly wanted Michelangelo to do great work for them?
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The story felt to me like a history text, but because the text was labeled "fictionalized", I was never sure which parts were factual.
Seems like Irving Stone's message to us about Michelangelo is that his obsession with working marble led him to make foolish business decisions. But if he had not been so totally obsessed with working marble, would he have had the fortitude to keep on struggling given the financial strain he was under his entire life? On the other hand, maybe if he had refused to take on some projects until they were funded, he would have found himself under less financial strain?
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| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Agony and the Ecstasy, The: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo |
Tags:art, european history, Gifted, History, history of art, italian history, michaelangelo, papacy
Posted in Biography, Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Friday, August 28th, 2009
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| Author: | Caroline Moorehead |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | non-fiction, history |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
Lucie de la Tour du Pin was born into an aristocratic family, served as lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette in her early adulthood, then went on to marry for love (not common in those days), birth and lose many children, and survive the treacherous political turmoils that began with the French Revolution.
After reading this book, I was not certain I understood much more than I did before about the French Revolution, but I did empathize a great deal more than I had before with the French aristocracy of that time. For example, Moorehead continually implies that Talleyrand was evil (and was he so terrible compared to the many other participants of the Terror??!!!) but never quite tells us what awful things he did.
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Starting in mid-life, Lucie began a memoir, not published until long after she died, and I assume that Moorehead used this document as the basis for much of her narrative.
Which probably explains why the author flits between levels of detail; there are weeks of Lucie's life described down to the taste of the food she ate but then whole years pass without much information. I came away convinced not that history is written by the victors (a quote attributed, but not definitively assigned to Winston Churchill), but instead that history is written by those who write things down.
Not a book for the sensitive reader, but a fascinating description of an "ordinary", if upperclass, women who played a small part in history and lived to tell us about it. |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era |
Tags:American Revolution, consequences of war, French Revolution, suffering in war, Terror, war, women in history
Posted in Biography, Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Gifted, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
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Recommended for ages 12 and up
Released in 1934, this was the first in the series of Thin Man movies.
We watched this as a family. Perhaps it is less confusing on the big screen. I am not terribly good at mysteries and I am also not a very keen observer of film, but for the first hour of this film, neither my cinematically literate husband nor daughter could differentiate between the women in the movie nor could they follow the action or dialog. I ended up having to explain everything to them and since I guessed most of the plot within the first 10 minutes, I accidentally ended up telling them what happened early on too.
So, anyway, your standard oblivious, not-kind-to-others genius disappears, and a couple of rich dilettantes who are much smarter than the bungling detective assigned to the case help find out what happened, even though they drink pretty much constantly, and what’s in those glasses is not water.
The women’s dresses/gowns are astonishing (think all-Bjork-all-the-time). The dog is adorable. The bad guys are ugly. There’s no food at any party, just liquids (not water). The dialog is fast-paced, delivered in varying degrees of New-York-ese, and old-fashioned.
Challenging to follow, maybe not a bad thing in a film. But really — a mystery that I solved within minutes? I who never predict plot twists in film unless they are blasted out to me? Maybe I saw this film before in a previous life….
Get The Thin Man
Tags:movie review, mystery
Posted in Conceptual: 8 and up, Culture, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
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| Author: | Mario Livio |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Non-fiction, biography |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
I never thought I'd get my fill of non-fiction books about mathematicians. And this is not really a bad one. Maybe it was the silly title and the author's transition from that religious question to the more chicken-and-egg question: Do humans invent mathematics or do they discover mathematical principles? |
Guess my question is, "Why do I care?"
Anyway, I found Livio's discussion of the achievements and ideas of the Greeks, including Pythagoras, very interesting.
-- Emily |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Is God a Mathematician? |
Tags:academia, Biography, book review, Gifted, History, history of math, history of philosophy, mathematics, philosophy
Posted in Biography, Conceptual level, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Gifted, History, Math, Reading level, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science | Comments Closed
Saturday, August 1st, 2009
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Recommended for ages 12 and up
Cerebral — not action-packed; one short scene hints at the delights of the marriage bed, but these are not shown in any way.
Touching working class (reverse) fairy tale in which the OLDest daughter identifies and helps her “prince charming” (in this case a talented shoemaker) to notice and marry her and create his own kingdom (a shoe shop).
Hobson, played by Charles Laughton, is a widower, drunkard, and the owner of a shoe store whose success is pretty much entirely owing to the talents of his eldest daughter, Maggie, and one of his shoemakers (Willie). Hobson prevents his daughters from marrying, and thereby escaping from his household, by refusing to grant them dowries.
Beautifully filmed in black and white, directed by David Lean. As we watched Maggie, and then Willie, slowly manipulate Hobson into giving them exactly what they need (and, in the process, getting him to give up the alcohol that is killing him), my daughter would start by saying, “WHY are they telling him that?” And then, each time they had progressed in positive direction, she’d say “Ohhh, I get it.”
A great period piece. Nice to feel as if we were seeing how people lived in the late 19th century in a fairly small British town.
Get Hobson’s Choice
Tags:19th century, dowry, movie review
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Reading level: age 8 and up | Comments Closed
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
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| Author: | Joe Meno |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | Fiction, parenting |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
This novel is a deeply Confucian, metaphorical attempt to explain the outcome of the US Presidential Election of 2004. And the explanation is that many societies and ecological niches require a bully to be in charge of them in order to function well enough to survive. The bully may well shed some blood, and may often be wrong, but at least he (and it would always, pretty much, be a he), causes stuff to happen.
The metaphors here come fast and heavy-handed. The husband, Jonathan Casper, is a nerdy scientist who forgets his promises to his family as he quests after a "prehistoric" giant squid. In her off-hours, the wife, Madeline, chases a giant man-shaped cloud. At work, Madeline investigates the pecking order of pigeons by disrupting their power structures and witnessing the devastating results. (Perhaps like many academics, Madeline neglected, before she started her experiment, to understand what a pecking order is. How lucky she is to have an adviser to explicitly explain that pigeons NEED to be dominated by moderately violent males in order to avoid rampant rape and murder by the underclasses in their society.)
One of the two Casper daughters copes with her problems with excessive piety. The other responds to the chaos at home by building a bomb and ignorantly attempting to apply the Communist Manifesto to the running of her school. |
Luckily, in the end, each of these characters acquires a male mentor who explicitly tells him or her what to do to solve all the problems. Just like the US got four more years of George W. Bush. Difficult problems; easy answers.
Neat. Overly neat. Well written. Psychotic.
Not for young readers, which is a shame. The book would be great for a beginner's game of "spot the metaphor".
-- Emily |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Great Perhaps, The |
Tags:book about raising gifted daughters, book review, election 2004, George W. Bush, internment camps
Posted in Animals, Child-raising, Conceptual: for grown ups, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Grown up | Comments Closed
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
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| Author: | Rick Riordan |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
A great ending to a great series, which is about a kid named Percy who discovers he's the son of Poseidon (the ancient Greek sea god) and that all of the "mythology" he learned in school is real.
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In this book, Percy must fulfill a prophecy and save the world... no big deal. Anyway, very fun. Definitely a stay up to finish the last page book (I actually stayed up late to start it, then stayed up even later to finish it.)
I like how in the end, the world goes on: it's not just "and they all lived happily ..."
--Fizzy, age 14
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Last Olympian, The (Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Book 5) |
Tags:book review, Greek mythology, Percy Jackson
Posted in Conceptual: 8 and up, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Fiction, Gifted, History, Reading level: age 8 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
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| Author: | Steven Johnson |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | Non-fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2008 |
A lovely biography of Joseph Priestley, a scientist, theologian, and political thinker.
In these days when we are trying, finally, to get the politics out of science, this book argues that the reverse, having scientists care about politics is deeply ingrained in the fabric of the United States and Britain. Not that kings and princes always wish it so.
Note to sensitive readers: Priestley's experiments often involved the use of live animals and plants, some of which died in the absence of oxygen.
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One of Priestley's great strengths was in his ability to create experiments and to note details that signaled where his results might be followed up by further experiments. Priestley was less adept at giving up on assumptions that he brought into the experiments to begin with.
Another great strength was his ability, in fact, his obsession, with exchanging information with other scientists.
This biography serves as a tribute to the scientific method (which Priestley did not really follow), Joseph Priestley, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and, in an interesting way, John Adams.
Highly recommended.
-- Emily |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Invention of Air, The |
Tags:American Revolution, Ben Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, book review, deism, experiments, Franklin, Jefferson, Joseph Priestley, Priestley, scientific experiments, scientific method, Thomas Jefferson, unitarianism
Posted in Biography, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Gifted, History, Reading level: age 8 and up, Science | Comments Closed
Monday, May 25th, 2009
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| Author: | Daniel Tammet |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | Non-fiction: Science |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
Daniel Tammet is autistic, intellectually gifted, and synesthesic. This book, a follow-on to his autobiography, is billed as a "...book about the mind -- its nature and abilities. It combines ... the latest neuroscientific research with [Tammet's] personal reflections and detailed descriptions of [his] abilities and experiences. [Tammet's] ... intention is to show that differently functioning brains ... are not so strange ... and that anyone can learn from them ... [and to] clear up many misconceptions about the nature of savant abilities and what it means to be intelligent or gifted."
Great intentions; I agree they are worthwhile. But, I fear, a disappointing execution. Or, perhaps, I am not gifted enough to understand the arguments. But, really, to use the outcome of the US Presidential Election of 2000 to "prove" that the Electoral College works? Without mentioning that this election was decided by the Supreme Court and not really by the Electoral College? Seems to me that using the ideas of one person, even one admittedly highly gifted person, as a model for the prototypical smart person from whom we can all learn to think is -- misguided? |
Well, anyway, I certainly admire and even envy many of Mr. Tammet's abilities and accomplishments. And, again, I sympathize deeply with his goal of helping others less gifted than he is learn to observe the world around them more intently and reason out their opinions rather than blindly accept "common wisdom", which is often not correct.
On the other hand, and this is something that both of my gifted daughters had figured out by the time they were 11, if not before, Just because someone is gifted, that doesn't mean they know all the answers.
Judging from the stated premise of this book and its execution, I am not sure that Tammet is actually as smart as my high school student. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind |
Tags:autism, book review, Gifted, synesthesia
Posted in Biography, Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science | Comments Closed
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
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| Author: | Mark Twain |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1884 |
When i started this book i had to get used to the language and it went along rather slowly, but as i continued to read it, I sped up and by the end i was very satisfied.
Huck Finn describes a historical period (it's set during times of slavery) and i found it very interesting to be in the mind of a boy struggling with the moral problems of setting a slave free.
--Fizzy, age 14
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Note from Emily:
It took Fizzy nearly a year to read Huckleberry Finn. It was not an easy read, and so, when something more flashy came along, say, Twilight, Fizzy would put Huck down.
And then the transition back was challenging. But every time she started reading Huck Finn again, she would say, "NOW I remember why I like this book." It is not just the dialog that makes reading difficult here. It is also about the concepts.
What is the difference between "owning a person" and taking responsibility for a person? What are the rights of parents and society over children, who do sometimes know right and wrong better than their elders? This is a deep, dangerous book, and not only for its time, but still, now, more than a hundred years later. Amazing.
In many ways it was like when she read Kim a few years back. (Except then I did help with the reading, this time, she read the entire book to herself.) LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Kim. Didn't really want to read more "grown-up" Kipling for a while afterward. Although, Jungle Book and "Just So Stories", which are not all that easy to read either, are still often in our minds. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The |
Tags:book review, slavery
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Dickensian, Fiction, Gifted, History, Homeschool, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
