We Speak No Treason Review

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(More customer reviews)Fortunately, I didn't buy this book but read it on loan from the library. I thought it would be primarily about Richard III, however, it seems to be more about the historical fictional characters that are supposed to be telling his story. They talk about thier own experiences much more than we hear about Richard's. Very sad, as this could have been an excellent novel about him. The fictional characters POVs touch very little on Richard but when they do they are very insightful and at times touching. The day-to-day living descriptions of England are very realistic and not always rendered as fairy-tale like conditions even for the nobility.
If you want to read excellent historical fiction about Richard III try Sharon Kay Penman's "The Sunne In Splendour", "Treason" by Meredith Whitford, or even "Desire The Kingdom" by Paula Simonds Zabka. Any of those novels far surpasses the content and readability of "We Speak No Treason."

I do have a soul when it comes to reading historical fiction, just much better taste. If you really want to struggle through 576 pages, find it at the library and read it.

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The Peppered Moth Review

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(More customer reviews)At the back of the book Margaret Drabble gives her apologia for writing THE PEPPERED MOTH. She explains that while writing it she thought mostly of her mother and in what ways the character of Bessie is and is not like her. This is interesting in the same way that gossip is interesting: it's unnecessary but somehow vital.
Apart from the apologia, the novel stands on its own. The story concentrates on a Yorkshire community which is presently being traced back to its origins. All kinds of contemporary images are placed against antique ones: DNA samples, a lecture on heredity, environmentalists, journalists, and computer specialists lie in answer to the ash of a turn-of-the-century mining town, Cambridge, poverty, new and inherited wealth and prickly class differences. An environmentalist discovers an ancient corpse believed to be the oldest thread of this community. Through several generations the lives, loves and relations of four women are traced. The story may wander and the reader may be in danger of getting lost in the details but it never flags. Perhaps too many sociological issues are brought into play but the attempt to link the past to the present, and the present to the past, keeps this novel moving.

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Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices Review

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(More customer reviews)A human.

..........A bug.

Quite different,we two

..........Quite different,we two,

but now here we are

..........with a book to review.

"Joyful Noise"

..........as it's called,

is a beautiful book.

..........Whether human or insect, it's sure worth a look.

Two voices, aloud, join in poems like these:

..........a story of booklice, and one about bees.

So get with a friend and find out the joys that come out of making

..........A JOYFUL NOISE!


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In the Time of the Butterflies Review

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(More customer reviews)By means of the sharpened scalpel of fiction, Julia Alvarez carves and shapes the central characters in this difficult and delicate novel as subversive agents who see themselves obligated by fate to participate in the ultimate demise of an oppressive regime. Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and Dedé, each one in her distinct fashion, break through the tyrannical grip that holds sway over an entire island population for thirty-one nightmarish years. Alvarez is at her absolute best here, far surpassing the previously successful HOW THE GARCÍA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS. Even the more recent SALOMÉ, in my view, doesn't come across as powerfully (especially for those readers unfamiliar with Dominican cultural history). IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES is a masterful work that illustrates the perniciousness of political oppression in every aspect of a society, written in a language of turbulent calmness. As a Dominican myself who experienced first hand the unspeakable horrors of the Trujillo Dictatorship, I admit honestly that Alvarez has presented brilliantly the case of repression and heroism more formidably than any other writer. She has officially immortalized las hermanas Mirabal as national heroines.

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