Bodrugan

• Rated 3 stars

“This unusual biography excerpts diary entries of young seaman Van Buskirk, who first signed on-ship in the U.S. Marines as a drummer when he was twelve years old. Van Buskirk was candid in his diaries about his homoerotic interests, so he provides insight into a subject that, of course, was taboo in the 19th century.

I would have preferred reading Van Buskirk's actual diary, but Burg does a good job with commentary and explanations of what he excerpted. Van Buskirk seems to have been a disturbed young man -- not necessarily because of his homoerotic experiences, since he was also interested, unhealthily, in young girls too: his inclinations seem to have been that of a pedophile. He was also a hypocrite in that he was on a "moral crusade" to shame his fellow seamen for their sexual excesses. This is a rare and valuable first-person glimpse into the world of 19th-century sexual mores.
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Bodrugan wrote this review Monday, December 17, 2007. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“"A Christmas Carol" so outshines the other four Christmas stories in this collection that my 3-star rating, of course, does not reflect how I feel about that timeless tale. "The Chimes" starts terrifically with the best descriptions of wind that I've ever read, but unfortunately it declines thereafter into too much melodrama for my taste. "The Cricket on the Hearth" is charming, but slight. I'm afraid "The Haunted Man" and "The Battle of Life" have barely registered with me -- though I know I had read both before this latest reading, I recalled so little about them, and I probably won't remember them for long, this time, either.

Perhaps, as other reviewers have proposed, the key to appreciating the other stories better is reading them out loud. After all, I've heard "A Christmas Carol" read many times -- as well as read it silently to myself, and watched various film versions -- so no wonder it's indelible. However, there's no doubt, to me, that "A Christmas Carol" is a classic for many reasons while the others just slightly miss the mark. ”

Bodrugan wrote this review Wednesday, December 12, 2007. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 0 stars

“I acquired this book after seeing Seth Morgan interviewed by Angela Hill in the early 1990s. I was intrigued, though I had doubts that it would be my kind of book. Turns out that it isn't -- the subject matter is too sleazy -- but I did find it interesting enough to finish. Shortly after I set the book aside to be traded, I heard on the radio that Seth Morgan had been killed in a motorcycle accident -- in New Orleans East, if I remember correctly. I gently moved Homeboy from the trade-in pile back to my bookshelf and have kept it ever since. ”

Bodrugan wrote this review Monday, December 3, 2007. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“Nineteen-year-old Quintus Tullius Pertinax, a true Roman because he was from the city of Rome, crossed the channel from Gaul to enter Britain as a soldier in the Ninth "Hispana" Legion. He had ulterior motives: other than serving his Emperor, he wanted to find out what had happened to his grandfather who had served Julius Caesar in Julius's own campaign in Britain -- his grandfather had never returned to Rome.

Quintus's time in Britain began with bad omens: it was a strange land, inhabited by peculiar people, in Roman eyes. Quintus and his best mate, an aristocratic young man from Rome named Lucius who was no better than he should be, were posted to the north to a fort near The Wash. Routine life in a Roman fort held sway until the Ninth Legion was called to march south to aid in an uprising against the Romans by the Icenians, headed by their Queen, Boadicea (Boudica). The tumult Quintus witnessed would change his life and lead him from East Anglia to the Salisbury Plain, site of the mysterious Stonehenge and strange Druid goings-on, and on to the fort of the Twentieth Legion northwest of there, to plead for the Twentieth to come to the rescue of Londinium. But there was something odd going on with the Twentieth, a historical fact that has never been completely explained.

Seton's story, while imaginative, uses historically-known incidents to frame a more personal tale, that of a young Roman who finds an explanation in Britain for his past and, more important for him, what his destiny will be.

Perhaps some of Seton's historical research has been superseded (the book was written more than fifty years ago), but the basic story is still a good one, well told. I was so enchanted with this book when I was an adolescent that I repeatedly checked it out from my local library. Finally, the librarian told me that I needed to give it a rest: she wouldn't allow me to take it out again for at least a month. That was agony! For the next few years -- until I graduated from high school -- I reread The Mistletoe and the Sword over and over. Then I lost track of it for many years. A few years ago, I reread it again and found that it was apparently geared toward a younger reading audience (what we would call Young Adult, nowadays), but that didn't diminish its appeal for me. ”

Bodrugan wrote this review Tuesday, November 20, 2007. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Ahh! I'm still feeding my Beatlemania, forty-plus years after. I was always a "John girl," and instinctively preferred the songs John wrote and performed, even before I knew for sure which Beatle was responsible for what. George deserved a lot more credit than he ever got, being in the shadows of John and Paul. Ringo...well, Ringo was a really nice bloke who did all right with a little help from his friends.

The stories behind the songs are very interesting and sometimes surprising -- one example: evidently John disdainfully dismissed "Day Tripper" as a throwaway song. I've always liked "Day Tripper" with its energetic rhythm and sarcastic lyrics -- "it took me so-o-o long to find out/ and I found out" -- so I don't agree with Lennon on that, but I do agree with him that McCartney's songs tended to be sappy...except when they were genius ("Eleanor Rigby" and "Yesterday").

Excellent work from Hertsgaard; I'm docking it one star because some of it was repetitive -- but no more than usual. ”

Bodrugan wrote this review Tuesday, November 20, 2007. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Woolley's history of the Jamestown settlement has a wider context than most: for example, he chose not to concentrate so much on John Smith, although Smith gets his due. I particularly enjoyed reading about some of the more elusive characters, such as Henry Spelman and Richard Frethorne, and what happened to them. The wreck of the Sea Venture on "the Bermudas" is a fascinating interlude, too. Woolley also tied in, for me, how the various Hundreds, such as Martin's Hundred, were related to Jamestown.

The Virginia Company was formally dissolved in 1624, leaving the settlers effectively to fend for themselves. When the settlers heard of this, their reaction was that "of a people who felt they were no longer visitors but inhabitants." They were there to stay, and thus a new stage began in the history of colonial activity, one that would alter these one-time Britons into their new identity of Americans.

Woolley writes clearly and engagingly. I could have read another four hundred pages, easily, and was sad to see his recounting end. ”

Bodrugan wrote this review Thursday, November 15, 2007. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 3 stars

“I fell right into this story, perhaps because it reminded me of Rona Jaffe's Class Reunion which was also set largely in the 1950s. I seem to have a thing for girls' school settings -- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Picnic at Hanging Rock, to name a couple more.

I wouldn't say that Silent Cry is on par with the latter two examples, but I like Bigg Veazey's characterizations of the schoolgirls and their familial relationships, and the head mistress and staff of the school are similarly troubling characters. Throw in a bit of mystery and Silent Cry is quite a good little page turner. ”

Bodrugan wrote this review Friday, November 2, 2007. ( reply | view 1 replies | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“The "what if" premise had a lot of potential, I think; but unfortunately the way the story was told seemed implausible, and the characters were unbelievable in a 19th-century setting with their 20th/21st -century sensibilities. I didn't even find it entertaining in a this-is-so-awful-it's-fun sort of way. ”

Bodrugan wrote this review Thursday, November 1, 2007. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“Well-told retreading of the familiar history of the founding of Jamestown and Virginia. Price does give some observations that I don't recall reading elsewhere, such as the English attitude not being inherently racist toward the "salvages," but rather a reaction to what they considered primitiveness. That's one to think about -- to try to understand the colonists according to their own sensibilities, not the accretion of sensibilities built up over the subsequent four hundred years.

I still prefer Ivor Noel Hume's "The Virginia Adventure," but Price's is a good, spirited retelling. ”

Bodrugan wrote this review Friday, October 5, 2007. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“So, this woman Dana Sue Gray had a compulsion to shop; and if she had to kill elderly women to get the money to feed her habit, that's what she did. This not particularly well-written account barely sustained my interest. I did finish it, but I won't remember it or this lousy woman past Thursday, I'm afraid. ”

Bodrugan wrote this review Monday, August 6, 2007. ( reply | permalink )