Booknotes 5.1

This Hallowed Ground: A History of the Civil War, by Bruce Catton, published 1956, nonfiction, 733 pages. Riveting. This was my first time really reading about the Civil War in detail as an adult. I hadn’t been aware how inexperienced both sides were in military matters, nor had I realized how much they bungled things over the course of the war. (Which I suspect is common to all wars.) Great writing, and this was a good single-volume history of the war. The last part was particularly memorable. Looking forward to reading Catton’s other Civil War histories.

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, by Ruth Franklin, published 2016, nonfiction, 704 pages. Compelling and interesting and sad — speaking mainly of Jackson’s relationships with her mother and her husband on that last point, along with her early death at forty-nine. I’ve read only “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House so far, but I’m looking forward to We Have Always Lived in the Castle (which my brain is convinced is the same book as I Capture the Castle).

The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens, published 1837, fiction, 1,194 pages. Though this wasn’t my first Dickens, it felt like it in some ways because I am finally receptive, ready at long last to appreciate his writing. And I loved it — the voice! the humor! the humanity! Though his being only twenty-four when it was published is a fact that pours a little bit of jealousy into my soul. The Gabriel Grub story felt like a precursor to A Christmas Carol in several ways. Enjoyed the Bardell trial, and Sam Weller and his dad, and Mr. Jingle’s way of speaking. The commentary on debtors’ prisons was worthwhile, too. Very much looking forward to reading the rest of Dickens.

This Long Pursuit: Reflections of a Romantic Biographer, by Richard Holmes, published 2016, nonfiction, 379 pages. Loved this autobiography (of sorts; it’s not a typical autobiography) about biography and Romanticism, and I came out of it with a long list of biographies I want to read — Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley, Coleridge, Keats, Mary Somerville, Thomas Lawrence, Boswell’s Johnson (of course) and more. I’m also itching at the bit to read Holmes’ The Age of Wonder, a history of science in the late 1700s.