I had a really good month of reading in February. Things were a bit slow in the beginning, but picked up after I took a little blogging break. By the end of the month I was able to finish 11 books, for a total of about 3,784 pages:

• Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling (essays/memoir)
• Avatar The Last Airbender: The Lost Adventures by Bryan Konietzkio (fiction, graphic novel)
• Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku (nonfiction)
• Raised Right by Alissa Harris (memoir)
• Quiet by Susan Cain (nonfiction)
• My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster (memoir)
• The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey (fiction)
• My Life at Liz Claiborne by Jerome Chazen (memoir)
• In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson (narrative nonfiction)
• Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckhoff (narrative nonfiction)
• Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl (memoir)

And that makes 19 total books for the year, which still surprises me. I think part of the reason I was able to read so much this month was that I didn’t travel anywhere. After being gone a lot around Christmas and the New Year, I haven’t left my small town in about two months. I’ve liked that, but I think I’ll be doing more traveling soon which will probably mean I’ll be reading less.

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Title: The Flight of Gemma Hardy
Author: Margot Livesey
Genre: Fiction
Year: 2012
Acquired: From the publisher for review consideration
Rating:

Review: Writing a book based on a book as beloved and well-known as Jane Eyre is no easy task. Although it’s been several years since I read Jane Eyre, I went into Margot Livesey’s The Flight of Gemma Hardy with high expectations, wondering both how Livesey would honor the original book while still writing something new and original.

Having finished, I think it’s safe to say that while Livesey’s book closely follows the original plot through much of the beginning of the book, she is able to use a new time and setting to transport the spirit of Jane Eyre — strong-willed, feisty, passionate and serious — to a story that both honors and updates the original.

The first section of the book follows the plot of Jane Eyre almost exactly — a young orphan lives with her aunt and uncle after her parents die unexpectedly. When the orphan’s uncle dies, her nasty aunt and cousins treat her terribly until she is able to fine her way to an all-girls school. In Jane Eyre, Jane is a student; in Gemma Hardy, Gemma is a charity case, forced to work for the school in exchange for her education. Eventually, the young woman takes a job as a governess/teacher for a spirited little girl living with her mysterious guardian. A romance begins…

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Title: The Discovery of Jeanne Baret
Author: Glynis Ridley
Genre: Narrative Nonfiction
Year: 2010 (Paperback 2011)
Acquired: From the publisher for review consideration
Rating:

Summary (Source): The year was 1765. Eminent botanist Philibert Commerson had just been appointed to a grand new expedition: the first French circumnavigation of the world. As the ships’ official naturalist, Commerson would seek out resources—medicines, spices, timber, food—that could give the French an edge in the ever-accelerating race for empire.

Jeanne Baret, Commerson’s young mistress and collaborator, was desperate not to be left behind. She disguised herself as a teenage boy and signed on as his assistant. The journey made the twenty-six-year-old, known to her shipmates as “Jean” rather than “Jeanne,” the first woman to ever sail around the globe. Yet so little is known about this extraordinary woman, whose accomplishments were considered to be subversive, even impossible for someone of her sex and class.

Review: There’s nothing like finding a book that tells a previously unknown or misunderstood story, and the tale of Jeanne Baret is definitely one of those. Set on the high seas, and full of romance, intrigue and adventure, it’s exactly the sort of narrative history book that I find deeply fascinating.

And for much of The Discovery of Jeanne Baret, author Glynis Ridley manages to tell a fantastic story, woven together with a limited and obviously biased set of sources. The Jeanne of Ridley’s account is independent, smart, daring and sympathetic. And her major contributions to our understanding of botany — despite the obstacles she faced from her master and lover Commerson and the situation she found herself in at sea — are well worth recognizing. On the whole, I really enjoyed reading the story.

Where this book struggled, for me, was in the parts where you could see how it was being put together (you know, that old joke about sausage and politics). Because Baret never wrote her own account of her life and voyage, Ridley is forced to read between the lines of the number of unreliable narratives available to find Baret’s story. There are a lot of “Perhaps Baret felt…” or “Certainly, Baret would have thought…” moments that leave many more questions than answers. Although I appreciated the way Ridley showed where she was making assumptions and what her logic was, there were serious moments when I didn’t agree with her conclusions or the way she moved from assumption to fact as the narrative continued.

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I’m borrowing the idea for this post format from Kathleen who blogs over at Kapachino; I hope she doesn’t mind! I expect to be back in full blogging form with a review on Tuesday. Happy Sunday!

Time // 10:15 a.m.

Place // At my desk in my home office/library/cat playroom.

Eating // An egg over hard on toast. This has been my breakfast of choice lately. Yum.

Drinking // Milk (out of a stemless wine glass, classy) and a mug of Good Earth Mate and Citrus Energizing Tea.

Watching // The Boyfriend and I are in the middle of season two of The Wire. We tried to watch Sherlock last night, but Netflix was not working

Reading // Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff (my last read for the Indie Lit Awards!!) and Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl.

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