The Empress Cixi by Jung Chang
I will admit I devour books, but this book took time to read, weeks, not hours or indeed days. My only knowledge of the Empress was the movie 55 Days at Peking, a truly bad movie extolling the brave Europeans, defending their presence in China against the Boxers, with the evil Empress pulling the strings.
The daughter of a minor Manchu family she became a concubine, a very lowly concubine, but this intelligent child, as she was, was soon number 2 wife/concubine , with the sudden death of the Emperor, joint Dowager Empress with her lifelong friend the number one wife. This was possible because she, Cixi was very smart and more importantly the mother of the Emperor's only son.
She ruled discreetly at first, but then with more confidence, acutely aware of the gathering forces of European countries all demanding a piece of China disguised as access for trade opportunities and the ever present Japanese, waiting to take what ever it could.
Cixi sent out envoys all over the world to bring back knowledge to modernise the Army, Navy, transport and industry. One of the frustrating things about this book is that is how the whole modernisation of China is described, no detail. The envoys went out, returned. and somehow it was done, very annoying I wanted details.
Such an enormous task and China achieved it in a remarkable time period.
Though there is a lack of details, there is an abundance of gossip, actually gossip was the life blood of the Forbidden Palace. The Empress is an interesting woman in fact I admired her, you have to accept the unpleasantness of her reign, I'm talking about the murders, she ordered the murder of her adopted son, the Emperor, had his favourite concubine thrown down a well, mass executions, torture, and general violence. She was remarkable, that is obvious, but she is still a distant figure, the reader never really gets any real sense of her, everything is gossip, innuendo, and based on biased foreign reporting.
Perhaps I'm being harsh, it is a good book, made difficult by the sheer complexity of China, The Empress herself and the times she lived in, the difficulty in getting information from China, the author's books are banned in China. Perhaps it could have been two books, The Empress the reformer, and The Empress the woman. the book doesn't address either of these satisfactorily.
So I rate this book 5/10.
I could waffle on about this book but I wont, it's a sequel to A Time to Kill. It's very similar to other early John Grisham books and there is nothing wrong with that, as in my opinion they are better books. I dislike intensely The Testament, and the Painted House so this is the first book of his since The Racketeer that I've read. Jake Brigance the lawyer from A Time to Kill, is the main character, he is making sure a controversial Will his enacted exactly as his client wished. It didn't take any great mind, (mine), to guess the plot, and I think the best thing about this book is everyone is more interesting than Jake. His disbarred former boss, the smart, ex military, wanna be lawyer, daughter of the major beneficiary of the Will and the lost brother of the dead man. Jake was a very thin man, with no substance to him, perhaps A Time to Kill, exhausted his personality, drive and character. On the plus side there are enough stories in the other characters to produce more books and that could be very interesting. The book's ending was very satisfying, in that the judgement was fair, and so indeed was the book.
The Barkeeper by William Lashner
This book has on the cover the words A Thriller.
And it is, but when I see that on a book, I always expect something more than a thriller and this book is a thriller with humour. Humour, well I laughed, the fact the main character uses the book, Tibetan Book of the Dead as his bible is very funny.
The plot is simple, since the murder of his mother, Justin Chase, tends bars, and lives his life simply, without alcohol, meat, and possessions, no television even which seems to concern many who come inside his plain house.
His father is in prison for the murder, the prosecution aided by Justin's admission his father was having an affair.
Into the bar where Justin is working enters the truly horrible, Birdie Grackle, who claims he killed Justin's mother. Game on, Justin then is drawn into a search for the truth.
That's all I'll say about the plot, I really loved this book, especially the words of wisdom from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, I laughed out loud reading one at lunchtime at work, I tried to explain, but really it's a read it yourself thing.The fact that Tim Leary advocated this book as a manual for life, says it all.
Four and a half stars.
This is my booklist for 2014.
Here I will record books I have read in 2014.
Some will have book reviews, some not.
Shall we start : The Lost Ones by Ace Atkins.
I read about this author's book The Ranger, and thought I would order it through the library, I also ordered this one which is the second in the series. I usually don't like to read books out of order, yes I'm a bit anal like that but I've read this one first.
I was at disadvantage in not reading The Ranger first but mainly because the list of characters have been established, but it didn't detract from the book.
Quinn Colson has left the US army, returned to his home town to be elected Sheriff. A role his uncle had before him, there is, as is usual in these books, a corrupt powerful local bigwig who doesn't like Quinn taking over as Sheriff. A feisty deputy, who may have or not have feelings for our self contained hero, various old characters that knew Quinn when he was a boy, his own dysfunctional family and a lot of crime.
All the people in this book are well written with faults, strengths and history which which ties them together, nobody is a saint, many are sinners, (religion) is integral to the community and the book.
I'm not going to tell you the plot, other to say it involves guns for sale, babies for sale, and people with unusual names.....Boom for instance.
The very thin sub plot concerning Quinn's pre-army girlfriend now married and heavily pregnant to another man didn't convince. There was no real spark between them, except long glances and sorry about this, long pregnant pauses.
I give it a 3.5, out of 5, I shall read the first, and wait to see of there's a third.
Feel free to comment, recommend or not something your reading at the moment.
