What’s Your Favorite (Historical) Comfort Read? (and Mystery Object Revealed!)

So...last week’s mystery object! I hope you all had fun guessing what it was, both here and on my Facebook page. And those of you who guessed that it was a butter churn were absolutely correct! I would definitely have preferred one of these to the dash-style churn—at least one could hold a book and read while churning. One does have priorities.

And speaking of reading...let’s talk about comfort reads.

Do you have books that you turn to whenever you’re feeling unhappy or blue, or just need to spend time in the company of a dear old friend who never lets you down? I expect most of us bookworms have such comfort reads. I certainly do...and of course, most of mine are historical. I thought it might be fun to talk a little about some of mine...and for you to share yours so that we can all enlarge our lists.  Are you ready?

The Wolves Chronicles by Joan Aiken

These are the oldest comfort reads on my list, since I discovered them somewhere around age nine or ten. They’re actually historical fantasy, set in an alternate timeline in which the Glorious Revolution never happened and the Stewarts continued to rule England and weren’t replaced by the Hanoverians...but that doesn’t mean the Hanoverians weren’t scheming to seize the throne.  Fortunately a doughty crew of children and teens sees through their machinations and rallies the grownups against their evil plots. The series starts with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and continues with Black Hearts in Battersea and Nightbirds on Nantucket, my personal favorite since it is set right near where I grew up in southeastern Massachusetts. I’ve actually never finished the whole series (there are eleven books in all), and while they’re written for a middle grade reading audience, this adult found them perfectly enjoyable reading.

   

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
I hesitated to add this book onto my “comfort read” list, because I’m not sure it quite qualifies...and besides, it’s not a book you lightly pick up on a whim to pick up your mood—not at just over a thousand pages! But I still reread it every year (usually in November, for some reason) because it’s one of my five favorite books of all time. It’s so...immersive is probably the word: it completely slurps me in and doesn’t let me go. It’s wildly creative, even though it takes place within the outlines of an entirely believable alternate Regency England where magic used to be part of the world (and may be making a comeback.) And it’s so full of sly humor (Clarke’s version of the Battle of Waterloo never fails to make me giggle) even when it’s also being rather melancholy or even occasionally angry. All I can say is read it (and don’t you even think about skipping the footnotes.)

           Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

More historical fantasy (are you seeing a pattern here?), this time set in a Regency England where magic is an accepted part of life and one of the events of the Season, along with dancing at Almack’s and visiting the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, might be attending the investiture of a new wizard at the Royal College of Wizards. Kate Talgarth (yes, the book is littered with Georgette Heyer references) is off to London for her coming out, leaving behind her best friend (and cousin) Cecelia Rushton, but there will be plenty of magical adventure (and handsome suitors) enough for the both of them. Authors Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer wrote this story as a lark in a series of letters one summer; there are books detailing the cousins’ further adventures, but this one is definitely the best.

And of course, the divine Miss Heyer

I don’t think it’s possible to read a Georgette Heyer novel and not find yourself in a better mood when you close the book. Although she did manage to write a few (in my opinion) duds, she wrote many more that were simply brilliant. The Grand Sophy, Cotillion, The Unknown Ajax, Sylvester, and Arabella are more or less guaranteed to put a smile on my face—how about you?

All right, NineteenTeen readers, now it’s your turn—what are your favorite historical comfort reads?

 

The Young Bluestockings Book Club reads Mairelon the Magician

Welcome! I hope you were all able to find a copy of our first selection, Mairelon the Magician by Patricia C. Wrede!

This is our first meeting, so we’re trying to figure out what will work best…this time around, I’m going to post some thoughts and talking points that I hope will spur conversation…please feel free to react to those and/or to post your own thoughts. Because this is a teen history blog, my comments are going to focus mostly on the historical aspects of the story…but you are certainly welcome to discuss any aspect of the book you wish. It’s a snowy day here so I’ll be sticking close to the computer today to help keep the conversation flowing well, but comments can continue all week!

So—here we go!

There’s magic in the streets of London,
there’s sorcery in the village lanes;
there’s a plot that has all of Society talking
in an England that never was,
but should have been….

That’s on the back cover of my copy, and in my opinion gives the perfect introduction to the story in Mairelon the Magician. I obviously love stories that combine magic and history. But what I love even more is when the history part is well done. Regina and I haven’t much discussed the underclasses in 19th century society because our books have featured aristocratic characters. MtM explores the underside of society with Kim, an orphaned street-kid doing her best to pass herself off as a boy in order to escape being forced into prostitution. She’s nearly 17, however, and it’s getting harder to keep up the masquerade. She’s a top-notch lock-pick and an accomplished pick-pocket, but a life of crime isn’t what she wants either…so her life is fast approaching a turning point.

It turns in an entirely unexpected direction when she is taken in by Mairelon, a street magician whose wagon she’s been hired to search for a mysterious silver bowl…and so we are launched into a lively, funny combination of mystery and fantasy, with a strong dollop of Georgette Heyer comedy leavening the whole.

Wrede makes good use of the colorful slang of the London poor, weaving it into Kim’s speech in a way that readers unfamiliar with it can still guess at the meanings (if there are any words you aren’t sure about, ask…and if you want to learn more about the language, check out The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue a portion of which can be viewed for free on Google Books.)

I'm also giving points for Wrede's depiction of travel. There's a lot of it in the story, done both on foot and by carriage--and Wrede makes it clear that getting anywhere takes a while, that horses have to be rested and not abused (note that on their way out of London, Kim and Mairelon and Hutch walk alongside their wagon for most of the trip in order to spare their horses). Yes, this indeed happened--even on stage coaches, where passengers would be asked to get out and walk on steep or deeply muddy roads, to prevent overstraining the horses.

I also deeply enjoy how magic is woven into this Regency setting: magic is an acknowledged, accepted part of the world, there's a Royal College of Wizards, and Mairelon, a.k.a. Richard Merrill, is one of several wizards engaged in spying on the French in the British fight against Napoleon (more recently Susannah Clarke has used a similar theme--magic in the Napoleonic Wars--to hilarious and wonderful effect in one of my favorite books, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.) I think the combination of magic and the 19th century works so well because to us, the 19th century really is another world, and having magic operate there is easier to imagine than, say, magic in the post-world war era. What do you think?

But what I think I love most about this book is the homage it pays to Georgette Heyer's sparkling Regency novels. Lady Granleigh, Marianne, Freddy and his friends could all have stepped out of one of her books; Renee D'Auber sounds delightfully like Leonie in These Old Shades, and the final chaotic (but beautifully orchestrated) showdown in the Sons of the New Dawn's lodge could stand beside the equally chaotic but perfect ending in The Grand Sophy.

So--good historical detail, a finely crafted mystery with enough clues salted in to make it solveable by a careful reader but not too obvious, and plenty of sheer fun. That's what I think. What about you? What worked for you in this story? Did the 19th century world in MtM draw you in? Would you recommend this book to others, and why?

New for the New Year: Announcing the Young Bluestockings Book Club!

Happy 2010 to you all! We hope this new year will be a happy, healthy, and historical one for all of you!

In keeping with new beginnings, Regina and I thought this would be a great time to kick off a new venture we've been contemplating for a while now (galvanized by a suggestion from ChaChaneen back in September): a book club! So today we would like to introduce the Young Bluestockings Book Club!

HOW: Because we're new at this, we're going to stick to holding it here on the blog, posting our thoughts on the chosen book to open the discussion; however, if we find there's interest, we may add on or switch to a chat format.

WHEN: We're contemplating doing this bi-monthly, unless you decide you want to do it more often...we'll see how it goes after the first meeting or two. Since we're announcing today, we've decided the first meeting will happen on Tuesday, February 16, which will give you plenty of time to find and read our assigned book.

WHAT: In keeping with NineteenTeen's theme, we will try to focus on books related to 19th century teens and teen life. That actually gives us a reasonably broad field from which to choose: expect to see everything from Jane Austen to Georgette Heyer to recent YA fiction...and perhaps even some non-fiction as well. We'd like to compile a list to work with, so please send us your suggestions for possible book club books: anyone who sends us a title we decide to add to the list will get one of our NineteenTeen fans as a thank-you.

To start with, we're going for pure fun with Patricia C. Wrede's delightful YA historical fantasy, Mairelon the Magician, which is set in an alternate Regency England where magic is an accepted fact of life. It seems to recently have gone out of print, but is still widely available on the internet at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, half.com, abebooks, or alibris, or at your local library.

So please join us on February 16 to discuss Mairelon the Magician, and don't forget to send in your suggestions for other books we could discuss!