The White Witch
Mar. 31st, 2016 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyMarch books read
In which I continue my goal to start the year by reading at least ten books I already own before I buy any more. Nine down, one to go!
* Keating - Kerry O'Brien (2015) ★ ★ ★ ☆
Keating is Paul Keating, Australia's 24th Prime Minister. Kerry O'Brien is one of Australia's leading political journalists. And this is a series of conversations between the two. My mum gave me this for Christmas and it was good, although I struggled with the star rating. Four stars because I like Keating and was interested in what he had to say; three because of the book's odd format? Let's split the difference and say three-and-a-half. This is obviously a book for a fairly niche audience, but if you want to know about Australian politics in the late twentieth century, well, this is the book for you!
For Australian readers, the section in which he talks about Bob Hawke reneging on their Kirribilli agreement is predictably and enjoyably spectacular. Sample quote: "He has a PhD in ordinariness."
For non-Australians, Keating was a Labor politician. He left school at 14 to do clerical work in a town council, developed an interest in antique clocks and classical music to the bemusement of his working-class parents, won a seat in Parliament in 1969, became Treasurer in 1983 and oversaw a radical restructure of the Australian economy, became Prime Minister in 1991 and opened up national conversations on all sorts of topics: Aboriginal reconciliation, becoming a republic, our relationship with our neighbours in south-east Asia. He is also largely responsible for turning Australian politics into the blood sport that it is today, so... yeah, thanks for nothing there, Paul. As O'Brien puts it in the book, he was part emperor, part street thug. A hugely divisive figure, and the only Australian politician to have a successful comic musical based on his prime ministership (which he endorsed).
(Side note: If I could write a politics-based musical, I'd turn the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years into an epic opera. Songs to include "My Name Is Kevin (And I'm Here To Help)", "Detailed Programmatic Specificity", and, everyone's favourite, "(Misogyny) Not Now, Not Ever!")
Anyway, a taste of Keating: here he is as Prime Minister in 1993, answering a question from the Opposition Leader, Dr John Hewson, about why he won't call an an early election:
Which was turned into a number in Keating! The Musical (everything Keating says in the rap battle is actually something he said in Parliament):
(He won that election when he got round to calling it.)
* Measuring the World - Daniel Kehlmann (2005) (trans. Carol Brown Janeway) ★ ★
A few years ago, I saw a TV show about the Humboldt squid, then a few days later I came across this book, which features Alexander von Humboldt as a character. I took that as a sign the universe wanted me to learn about him. And then I put it on the shelf for several years.
This book is a fictional biography of Humboldt and mathematician Carl Gauss. Humboldt leaves Germany and explores South America; Gauss stays home and explores the cosmos. The cover promises that it is a witty masterpiece and... I did not read that book. It could have been interesting; it was actually pedestrian. (Some of that may have been the translation. Is there a German verb that means "to scream" that can apply to birds/dogs/anything that doesn't scream in English? Because everything in this book screams, and it really annoyed me. It made *me* want to scream.)
My favourite part of the book was when Gauss mentioned in passing that his best student was called Möbius. Well done to the book for resisting the impulse to have him twist a strip of paper and stick the ends together. I would not have been that strong.
* Broken Homes - Ben Aaronovitch (2013) ★ ★ ★
This is the fourth book in a series aboutHarry PotterPeter Grant: Supernatural Policeman. (I don't know if the series has a name; maybe Rivers of London, after the first book?). I bought it when it first came out, but then read a review that gave away a major twist in the ongoing plot, so I put it away for a bit.
I find the plots of these books beyond understanding, but the ride is fun. If I'd read this closer to the preceding books, it might have been four stars, but I'd forgotten so much of the world that I actually had go back and flick through the book before as a refresher. Highly recommended if supernatural policemen are your thing, but only if you start at the first one; I don't think they'd make any sense at all out of order.
Fun fact: Australia has the same covers for these books as the UK editions, which is good because they are lovely. Compare and contrast with the hideous US covers for the first two.
In which I continue my goal to start the year by reading at least ten books I already own before I buy any more. Nine down, one to go!
* Keating - Kerry O'Brien (2015) ★ ★ ★ ☆
Keating is Paul Keating, Australia's 24th Prime Minister. Kerry O'Brien is one of Australia's leading political journalists. And this is a series of conversations between the two. My mum gave me this for Christmas and it was good, although I struggled with the star rating. Four stars because I like Keating and was interested in what he had to say; three because of the book's odd format? Let's split the difference and say three-and-a-half. This is obviously a book for a fairly niche audience, but if you want to know about Australian politics in the late twentieth century, well, this is the book for you!
For Australian readers, the section in which he talks about Bob Hawke reneging on their Kirribilli agreement is predictably and enjoyably spectacular. Sample quote: "He has a PhD in ordinariness."
For non-Australians, Keating was a Labor politician. He left school at 14 to do clerical work in a town council, developed an interest in antique clocks and classical music to the bemusement of his working-class parents, won a seat in Parliament in 1969, became Treasurer in 1983 and oversaw a radical restructure of the Australian economy, became Prime Minister in 1991 and opened up national conversations on all sorts of topics: Aboriginal reconciliation, becoming a republic, our relationship with our neighbours in south-east Asia. He is also largely responsible for turning Australian politics into the blood sport that it is today, so... yeah, thanks for nothing there, Paul. As O'Brien puts it in the book, he was part emperor, part street thug. A hugely divisive figure, and the only Australian politician to have a successful comic musical based on his prime ministership (which he endorsed).
(Side note: If I could write a politics-based musical, I'd turn the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years into an epic opera. Songs to include "My Name Is Kevin (And I'm Here To Help)", "Detailed Programmatic Specificity", and, everyone's favourite, "(Misogyny) Not Now, Not Ever!")
Anyway, a taste of Keating: here he is as Prime Minister in 1993, answering a question from the Opposition Leader, Dr John Hewson, about why he won't call an an early election:
Which was turned into a number in Keating! The Musical (everything Keating says in the rap battle is actually something he said in Parliament):
(He won that election when he got round to calling it.)
* Measuring the World - Daniel Kehlmann (2005) (trans. Carol Brown Janeway) ★ ★
A few years ago, I saw a TV show about the Humboldt squid, then a few days later I came across this book, which features Alexander von Humboldt as a character. I took that as a sign the universe wanted me to learn about him. And then I put it on the shelf for several years.
This book is a fictional biography of Humboldt and mathematician Carl Gauss. Humboldt leaves Germany and explores South America; Gauss stays home and explores the cosmos. The cover promises that it is a witty masterpiece and... I did not read that book. It could have been interesting; it was actually pedestrian. (Some of that may have been the translation. Is there a German verb that means "to scream" that can apply to birds/dogs/anything that doesn't scream in English? Because everything in this book screams, and it really annoyed me. It made *me* want to scream.)
My favourite part of the book was when Gauss mentioned in passing that his best student was called Möbius. Well done to the book for resisting the impulse to have him twist a strip of paper and stick the ends together. I would not have been that strong.
* Broken Homes - Ben Aaronovitch (2013) ★ ★ ★
This is the fourth book in a series about
I find the plots of these books beyond understanding, but the ride is fun. If I'd read this closer to the preceding books, it might have been four stars, but I'd forgotten so much of the world that I actually had go back and flick through the book before as a refresher. Highly recommended if supernatural policemen are your thing, but only if you start at the first one; I don't think they'd make any sense at all out of order.
Fun fact: Australia has the same covers for these books as the UK editions, which is good because they are lovely. Compare and contrast with the hideous US covers for the first two.