Finished: Close to Home (Jackson) Eh, not my favorite Lisa Jackson book, but ok for reading on the airplane. I never really became attached to any of the characters, since most of them weren't really that likable, and the story was super predictable. Usually her books are much more page-turning. And, this one had a couple of ghosts thrown in, which isn't really my cup of tea. Anyway, not bad, just not great either! On to Outlander I think!

Finished: The White Queen (Gregory). A nice, page-turning historical fiction account of Elizabeth Woodville, i.e., the white queen, from the time she meets King Edward IV of England to the time, as his widowed queen, that she goes into sanctuary as his younger brother betrays her young son, the rightful heir to the throne, and has himself crowned king. This is the first in a great series of books that deals with this time in history...the time of the tragic "princes in the tower". Those princes, ages 12 and 9, are Elizabeth's sons by King Edward, Prince Edward and Prince Richard. Right before King Edward dies, he still trusts his younger brother Richard implicitly and names him the protector of Prince Edward who will soon be a very young king. Of course, instead of honoring his brother's wishes, Richard has the marriage between Edward and Elizabeth declared illegal, making her children illegitimate and the boys no longer first and second in line to the throne. This makes way for Richard to be crowned the new king. He has the boys imprisoned in the Tower of London, but supposedly never intends to harm them. In the television show, it is implied what happened to them, and that it wasn't Richard who had them murdered, but perhaps his own wife...or perhaps Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, who defeats Richard in battle and actually steals the crown from him. In the book, the Margaret Beaufort theory is put forward, and Richard has a passionate scene with Elizabeth swearing he didn't harm the boys. In any event, in real life (as in the book) the bodies of the young princes were never found, so no one ever knows what exactly happened to them. The book is a great, compelling tale of the three brothers, Edward, George and Richard...but mostly it is the tale of the love story between Elizabeth and Edward, told from her point of view. It definitely includes many battle scenes that happened during that period, including the scene between Edward and his former father-figure and mentor, the "kingmaker", Warwick. And the book realistically shows all the betrayals...including King Edward finally realizing he must have his own brother George executed for treason. George picks his own punishment...being drowned in a barrel of wine! As the book ends, we are left with King Richard about to go to war with the young Henry Tudor and his many supporters. And the prize for the winner, other than the crown....Elizabeth's oldest daughter, also named Elizabeth. She will marry the winner of the battle and become queen of England, and eventual mother to King Henry VIII! I might just have to read more books in this series. :-)

Finished: Henry VI Part II (Shakespeare). More great words by the bard. I'm so glad I decided to finish reading these particular plays in Shakespeare's histories! Though the characters can be confusing, I just keep my little cheat sheet open and then I know who he's talking about when he calls characters by titles instead of names. In this book, York and Warwick declare war on King Henry because York believes he is the rightful heir to the throne. York's three sons, Edward, George and Richard come into prominence in part III of Henry VI, when Edward becomes the next king. There is alot of seemingly quick beheading in this book, but I guess that's just the way it was back then. And, there's a huge tangent where a rebel, Cade, tries to raise troops to go against the realm and declare himself king. One of the reputed best lines of the play comes from that section, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". However, I don't like that line since my son's dear friend Zach just finished the bar and became a lawyer. :-)  In correlation with reading the histories, I've been reading The White Queen, which I'm almost finished with, so I am about saturated with the sons of King Edward III, their progeny, their battles for the crown, white and red roses, the greed and ambition that apparently trumps brotherly love, etc.. I've truly enjoyed it though...and am heartbroken only by the horrific fate that the two young princes in the tower met at the hands of their "protectors". I think I may tackle Henry VIII next after a small trip out of town.

Finished: Henry VI Part I (Shakespeare) I'm really enjoying reading these Shakespeare histories! Of course, I had to draw myself a little genealogy chart to keep track of who begot who, who succeeded who, etcetera, etcetera. :-) In Henry VI Part I, the play opens with the death of Henry V and all the kinsmen descend to begin fighting over who will be the prominent regent in the baby King Henry VI's rule. The war continues between England and France, and somewhere along the line, suddenly Henry VI is a youth who is now ruling. I guess the years pass. :-) Anyway, the most moving part of the play to me is when the previously undefeated warrior, Talbot of England, is left to battle his last battle with France with his own son by his side. The exchanges between them are heartbreaking, as Talbot wants his young son to flee home, but his son refuses to besmirch the family name, and his father's great warrior name, by leaving the battle like a coward. So, die together they do. Sigh. Meanwhile, a war of roses is brewing between Richard of York (who has claims to the throne through his father Edmund of Langley, King Edward III's 5th son) and the Duke of Somerset (a Beaufort who has claims to the thrown through his father John of Gaunt, King Edward III's 3rd son). I believe that sets the scene for Parts II and III to come. At the end of the book, La Pole, the Earl of Suffolk, convinces Henry that he should marry Margaret of Anjou, the young princess of France, to unite the countries. This coincides with the church of England declaring that the war should cease and the King of France should be a Viceroy under Henry as King of both England and France. We'll see how that holds up. :-)

Finished: Henry V (Shakespeare) "But we in it shall be remembered---We few, we happy, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother." King Henry V speaking to his much outnumbered army as he encourages them to face the mighty French army in yet another great Shakespeare play. I had no idea that the Band of Brothers term came from Shakespeare, but why am I surprised? :-) I mostly enjoyed this play during all the scenes where Henry, the grownup Harry/Hal from Henry IV, was spurring his army on to have courage...and when he wandered among his men in disguise to see what their true feelings were. In this play, King Henry continues the battle with France, which he thinks he's the rightful heir to. The French King is incredulous that Henry feels like he'll have success against his huge forces, and constantly sends a messenger to Henry asking him for concession terms. However, Henry always sends back the same message, that he will die rather than concede. With greatly diminished troops, Henry does win...overwhelmingly in fact, and it is then King Charles of France who is asking for terms when all is said and done...including offering his daughter, Catherine, to be Henry's wife and unite the two countries in peace. Truly another joy to read! One of my favorite scenes was earlier in the battle when King Henry was first rallying his troops in spirit and courage:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility.
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger.
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage.
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon. Let the brow o'erwhelm
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war proof!....

I could keep going, but I think that is the gist of it. :-) Onward to Henry VI, Part I!

Finished: Henry IV Part II (Shakespeare) "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown"..."Wake not a sleeping wolf"...."Thy wish was father to that thought". Just a smattering of Shakespeare's sweet words in Henry IV, Part II. Oh how I've missed reading Shakespeare. I left off with Henry IV, Part I, skipped over the middle, and read Richard III next. I've finally decided I need to read everything in between, which includes Henry IV, V and VI. In the meantime, I will make The White Queen my treadmill book to read at the gym in the mornings. I just can't give Shakespeare the respect he deserves by reading him at the gym, lol. Anyway, this will be neat because we watched the series The White Queen, and it deals with Edward, who usurped King Henry VI, and Edward's love, Elizabeth Woodville (the white queen.) It all ties in! :-) Having dived back in, I must say I truly enjoyed Henry IV, Part II...mostly because I like the way Prince Harry (soon to be Henry V) completely changes, gives up his partying ways, mourns his father's death, and accepts the crown as his sovereign responsibility when the king, his father, dies. I didn't enjoy the Falstaff scenes so much...but was so glad when Harry denounced him and his vile ways after his coronation. Also, I think my favorite passages were the deathbed scenes between the king and Harry. Sigh...and so my mini-marathon of Shakespeare's kings begins. :-)

Finished: Dead Souls (Gogol) What is supposed to be a brilliant, funny piece of Russian literature, satirizing the Russian way of life from the government, to the nobility, to the peasants, just seems kind of like the average, preachy-tangent-going piece of Russian literature to me. I'm not meaning to knock any of the Russian literature I've read, or this book in particular, but I think I'm finally understanding that maybe "you just had to be there" to really get the intricacies of much of the humor of Russian literature. The premise is rather unique. The main character, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, is a man of about middle class stature, yet born of some nobility. He lives the high life and wants to continue living the high life, but doesn't want to at all work for it. He loves the money he has accumulated and comes up with a plan to take his two servants and drive around through unknown country towns getting to know and basically schmoozing the rich landowners and political figures of the towns. Then, he swoops down on these newly acquainted landowners and convinces them to sell him their dead souls. Dead souls are the peasants that they have working for them who have passed away, but are still on their books because peasants remained on the books, with taxes to be paid on them, until the next governmental census was taken. In other words, a peasant could die the year after the census was taken, but remain a live person to the government in terms of taxes, etc., for ten more years! So, Pavel Ivanovich decides he will buy up as many dead souls as he can from as many unsuspecting landowners, and when he's got enough, he will mortgage them to the government (because that was allowed), and then run off with the money! Before he can buy up too many souls, the landowners start comparing notes. The towns get up in arms thinking that Chichikov is some grand swindler, maybe even a wanted outlaw, and he leaves town in the middle of the night with his money and deeds to the dead souls in tact. All the while, Gogol describes in great detail the lives of all the various levels of people involved, and assigns certain characteristics to them that I suppose were meant to really be scathing towards certain Russian people. The next time we catch up with Chichikov, he's moved on to another town and some other rich landowners. This time he's more into seeing how they run their estates and earn money on them. He'd love for a rich estate to just fall into his lap. This is where a chapter or two are missing from the actual manuscript of the book, so there are some big holes. As it turns out, though, Chichikov somehow forges the will for a deceased rich lady in favor of himself. He ends up being thrown into a jail cell by the prince, but there are so many unscrupulous government officials around that they actually come to HIM, willing to release him and let him go for payment. The book ends in the middle of a sentence with the prince admonishing all the government people who work for him. It was a book that started off with promise for me. I wanted to see if Pavel Ivanovich got away with his scheme...but then it deteriorated into the author's statement about Russia in the second half. Oh well! Each book I read is still worth the read. :-) (ok, except for Finnegan's Wake. I will never say that about Finnegan's Wake!)

Finished: We Were Liars (Lockhart) Eh, an ok young adultish book about three privileged cousins and a best friend who spend all their summers together on the family island until one summer things go terribly wrong. A bit predictable, but still nicely page-turning....just what I needed while doing my treadmill walking. I was able to figure out what happened to one of the cousins, Johnny, when two years later his mother wandered the island wearing one of his old shirts. Even though Johnny showed up to the narrator, Cadence, along with their other cousin Mirren, and friend Gat...it was pretty clear to me that perhaps Johnny was a figment of Cadi's imagination. I didn't bank on Mirren and Gat also being figments, but I wasn't surprised. Anyway....just a so-so book. :-) Onwards and upwards!