The Poisoned Crown by Maurice Druon

This book continues the story of the end of the Capetian kings in France. Philip the Fair, son of Saint Louis, has died and passed the crown to his somewhat incompetent son, Louis X, le hutin, who has just had his estranged wife strangled so that he can remarry. But the kingdom is full of plots, and Louis's inability to gauge his friends and enemies may be his downfall. This book is another enjoyable entry in the series.

The Strangled Queen by Maurice Druon

This book continues the story of the French throne after the death of Philip the Fair (IV). Louis X, Philip's son, inherits the throne, but he must decide what to do with his unfaithful and inconvenient first wife. In the meanwhile, a variety of other people are making their own plays for power. I enjoyed this story: it really makes the history and the people come to life.

The Iron King by Maurice Druon, translated by Humphrey Hare

This book starts in France with a sibling rivalry: the wives of Philip the Fair's sons are rumored to be unfaithful, and Philip's daughter Isabella, trapped in a loveless marriage to the King of England, wants to do something about it. But when the family is royal, the repercussions of a family fight are wide: they extend to the church and the very peace of the kingdom. I really enjoyed this book, which is historical fiction in the best French tradition and sets up a series clearly and compellingly.

Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Goldstone

This book is part biography and part history. It's about the four daughters of Raymond Berenger, count of Provence. Marguerite and Eleanor marry the kings of France (Louis IX) and England (Henry III), respectively, and the two younger daughters marry their sisters' brothers-in-law. Both of these brothers are crowned kings in their own right (although they do less ruling). Sanchia marries Richard of Cornwall, who is briefly king of Germany, and Beatrice inherits Provence and marries Charles of Anjou who takes the throne of Sicily. I was very interested in the power politics behind the thrones, and I loved reading the history associated with these four women. I was surprised by how much a king's prowess in battle mattered in the Middle Ages, and by how religious Louis and Henry both were. I also enjoyed a minor theory expounded in the book: while earlier Provence had been the center of a literary movement (troubadours writing poems about courtly love) after Raymond Berenger died, there was no count (and thus no court) in residence in Provence (Beatrice lived in Sicily, and in other places, after her marriage), so there was not the same support for the arts, and the interest in love poetry moved south--to Italy.

The Novel and the Sea by Margaret Cohen

This monograph contends that fictions of the sea constitute a traveling, adventure genre that begins in the modern era with Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. This genre challenges our dominant accounts of the formation of the novel: Cohen insists that we account for the sea adventure narratives of writers such as Defoe and Smollett, even though the adventure genre has been critically neglected. After Smollett, the number of sea fictions wane until the subject is adopted by James Fenimore Cooper. In part this decline may be the result of the incredible, but true, tales that were happening on the world's oceans. Like the previously mentioned authors, though, Cooper is not famous for his sea fictions (The Pilot and Red Rover) but his Leatherstocking Tales. These American sea stories became popular just at the moment that the craft of seafaring became obsolete, replaced by mechanical inventions (such as accurate clocks to measure longitude). Thus Herman Melville, Victor Hugo, and Joseph Conrad had the opportunity to use their sea stories to focus on other kinds of craft at the margins. Jules Verne, on the other hand, took the exploration of frontiers beyond what people were actually experiencing to what they could only imagine. Thus, Cohen contends, sea fictions are the root of today's science fiction. I found this book to be ambitious, but thoroughly researched, and I was ultimately persuaded by Cohen's readings and her contextualizations, that we ought to pay more attention to sea fictions as a genre. I thought her description of the mariner's craft in the first chapter was particularly useful.

Regeneration by Pat Barker

This book presents life behind the lines at a hospital during World War I. In particular, it focuses on the friendship between Doctor Rivers and Siegfried Sassoon, who has published a letter insisting that the war is no longer morally justified. It really helped me understand what was happening (and the background behind) the third book in the trilogy. Next time I will try to read things in order!

The Romance of Tristan by Beroul and translated by Alan S. Frederick

This book combines prose translations of The Romance of Tristan by Beroul and Tristan's Madness. The story is not one that a modern reader would expect: there's little continuity (for example, one character dies twice), and the author tells the reader what to think (and then the characters' actions may not match the author's descriptions of their morality). But this version does give a clear version of the romance of Tristan and Yseut with the best episodes preserved (the sword between the sleeping lovers, the piggy-back ride in disguise, Yseut's double-speak, the sail confusion). Of interest to those who want a more complete view of the Matter of Britain and those interested in medieval romance (in a modern translation).

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss

This book is much more than the biography of General Alex Dumas (today best known as the father of Alexandre Dumas, author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, among many other novels). It provides a lot of context for General Dumas's life and times--including the French colony of St. Domingue, the French Revolution, and the rise of Napoleon. The book makes two arguments: that General Alex Dumas achieved remarkable success, especially given the prejudices and hardships he had to overcome--and so should be more widely remembered; and that Alexandre Dumas, the novelist, based several of his literary works, including The Count of Monte Cristo, on his father's life. I found both claims well substantiated in the biography. I enjoyed the tone, which not only detailed the general's life and helped readers with the history surrounding that time and place, but also gave a personal account of researching the biography and teasing out the relevant details (including an incident of sanctioned safe breaking!). The narrator of the audiobook had a clear and enjoyable voice. All in all, a great book to listen to.

The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus

This book is Andreas Capellanus's guide to courtly love. Capellanus was chaplain at the court of Marie of Champagne, and supposedly wrote the book at her request to portray conditions at the court of Eleanor of Aquitane, who was Marie's mother. The first book describes what love is (pain--and, by the way, it can't be experienced between a husband and wife) and how to woo a lady (with descriptions giving sample conversations between eight different couples of different social statuses); the second book describes how to retain love once you've wooed someone; and the third book is a palinode that suggests rejecting love in favor of religion. The book reminded me a lot of Machiavelli's The Prince in genre and style (and perhaps even in content at times). There were some really lovely allegories scattered throughout the book, which added interest to its narrative.

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

This book introduces James Bond, agent 007 of the MI-6. I was a little thrown by the plot: Bond's mission (which involves a complicated gambling scheme to financially ruin a Russian agent in France), seems to wrap up well before the story's over. It's also not the Bond I expected from the movies: he seemed more apt to fall in love and less sure of himself. In many ways, the book explains the way that Bond became the way he did. An easy, quick, and enjoyable read.

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

This book is a quirky novel about a family under pressure and on holiday. The stresses on the family's relationships become clear when they find a woman floating in the pool of the home they've rented. She's invited to stay (no room at the inn, as it turns out) and her presence highlights the unhappiness of the rest of the family. The whole book has a surrealistic, dreamlike quality--the point is as much the objects and other descriptions as the plot. Shortlisted for the 2012 Booker prize.

The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco

This book reminds me a lot of a certain kind of witty historical fiction--the kind of thing you might read in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, for instance. It's the story of Roberto, a young nobleman who gets caught up in Parisian politics and sent to spy on developing science (here, the goal is to calculate longitude), but ends up shipwrecked on a deserted (or maybe not quite deserted) ship. The book is highly meta-fictional: the narrator is coy about how he came into possession of Roberto's papers, although fairly upfront about how much he makes up or supposes along the way. The book is a lot of fun if you're into seventeenth century scientific theories, early novels (this story can't help but remind me of Robinson Crusoe), or meta-fiction generally.

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

This book centers around three editors for a vanity press in Milan. When the press decides to start publishing a series on the occult, the editors, up to their ears in conspiracy theories, decide to create their own version of the Plan, by which the Templars secretly went into hiding in the fourteenth century, and which they were supposed to use to return to power in 1944. But as the conspirators cook up the Plan, they realize that others are taking their game very seriously. Part of this book is a fun conspiracy story--it puts together an almost-plausible narrative that links the Templars with other mysterious groups through the ages (and has a ton of literary and cultural in-jokes, to book). What separates this book from something like The Da Vinci Code, though, is that the other part of the book is so moving. Belpo and Causabon, in particular, are well-developed characters, and the reader comes to understand that their manic devotion to finding the truth behind these conspiracy theories (which in the book are lined up like a house of cards) is about a lack of meaning in their day-to-day lives (which they only realize too late) rather than from any value inherent in the theories. I really enjoyed this story.

Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik

This book has another great story about Temeraire. He and Captain Laurence have been recalled to service in order to help with British difficulties in Brazil. But when the Allegiance sinks, and the remaining crew is rescued (and subsequently taken prisoner by) the French, it takes all of Temeraire's and Laurence's wits to escape and help the British. I loved seeing the South American dragons, and the cultural differences in the ways dragons were treated. I think the dragons--as Novik has imagined them--are really great characters, because they are powerful and smart but deeply different from humans. These differences make for a lot of really fruitful conflict. I can't wait for more of this lovely series.

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

This book masterfully tells the story of a jazz band just before and during the Second World War. The trumpet player, Hieronymous Falk, is a prodigy--worthy to play with Louis Armstrong, but even in Paris he's having visa problems (his German nationality isn't helping matters any) as the band tries to head for the United States. Jealousies about musical talent and a woman, and the pressures of living in occupied Paris all come to a boil as the band cuts a wonderful record turning Nazi propaganda on its head. I loved the way this book played out--moving between (something close to) the present day and the past, with a narrator just self-interested enough not to be entirely trusted. It's a fresh and engaging World War II story.

Culture and Imperialism by Edward W. Said

This book in some ways picks up where Orientalism left off, but in other ways it is far more universal in its reach. Said contends that empires generally--and especially the British, French, and American empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries--do not exist as merely political and economic formations, but must also be supported and reinforced by the culture of the metropole. Similarly, though, resistance to imperialism, as it arises, also bears a cultural mark. This book combines a great idea with compelling close readings ranging from Austen to Conrad to C.L.R. James and beyond. As I read, I realized that lots of my ideas about both empire and how we can use literature and other cultural productions to understand, reinforce, and contest empire, come from this monumental study. This study gives critics a standard to which to aspire both in its content and its style.

The Confusion by Neal Stephenson

This book contains more of the same careful attention to detail, plot, character, and history which marked Quicksilver, but it also does much more to suggest the overall arc of the plot--where things are headed. This clarity could come from the fact that I've already read one book setting things up, but I appreciated it. I loved the gold-theft plot--it worked particularly well between the two interwoven books (writ large, the story of Jack and the story of Eliza). I'm looking forward to the third book in this trilogy.

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

This book has an extremely unpleasant main character with a split personality. When the book opens he's trying to determine his identity, which he can barely remember, and whose stability is compromised by garments and accoutrements that seem to belong to two lives rather than one. As the book goes on, the main character, Simonini, his alter ego, the Abbé Della Piccola, and the narrator work together to reconstruct Simonini's activities. Despite the main character's reprehensible views, the book is fascinating, as it ties together a wide range of nineteenth century conspiracy theories (from the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair). It also reflects on the nature of forgery and on the difference between fabula and syuzhet--the latter in an afterword that traces the structure of the plot. Despite the complexities of the plot and theme, this book was easy to slip into and enjoyable to read.

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

This book presents a complex and intriguing portrait of the Royal Society around the time of its founding, mixed with adventures in European politics and espionage. Some of the characters (particularly Eliza) are really compelling, and it's a treat to see the great minds of the Royal Society in action. There's a lot of attention to cryptography, mathematics, and science in this book, which I enjoy. If anything, it's lacking a clear plot: there are elements to various stories that play out very clearly, but overall, I'm not quite sure where this story is headed. I'm willing to give the second and third books a chance, though.

Modernism by Michael Levenson

This book reexamines modernism, defining it not by its formal practices or content, but by its oppositional culture. Levenson contends that to understand modernism we have to pay more attention to its roots before World War I (and this time period is where the majority of the book's attention lies). The book does a nice job moving back and forth across the Channel, although I felt its attention to the United States was a bit lacking in places. It covers a broad range of artists and does a nice job giving both the overall sweep of the movement and close readings of important modernists. It covers a variety of genres (focusing on narrative fiction, lyric poetry, and drama) and represents a worthy addition to and reconsideration of our understanding of modernism.