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cassieyorke's reviews
72 reviews
Flappers and Philosophers: Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5.0
Critically important for anyone writing about the 1920s.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
5.0
A lush, colorful story, a beautifully-realized setting, and a rich heroine. Naomi Novik weaves all these together into a masterpiece of fantasy storytelling that has won a special place in my collection. I loved it far more than I expected to, and even as I write this, I'm getting the urge to go back and read it again. Not many books can be called masterworks, but this book is a watertight tale, beautifully started and neatly realized. I could only hope to tell a story this beautiful and well-packaged.
The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
5.0
Ambitious, beautiful, ominous, even a little spooky sometimes. Most of all, Queen of the Tearling is expansive, as wide as the open spaces of the Tearling. This is the tale of the rise of Queen Kelsea, a young woman who has the same love for her people that Erika Johansen has for her story. You can feel her love in the small touches - characters, voice, the flavor text with which she begins each lovely chapter. It's appropriate that artwork is a major theme throughout the series, since the Tearling often feels like a painting in its moods and shadows and lighting and description.
Erika's shaded storytelling has influenced my own writing in more ways than I probably realize, but she's just the kind of writing role model our generation of women needs.
Erika's shaded storytelling has influenced my own writing in more ways than I probably realize, but she's just the kind of writing role model our generation of women needs.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5.0
Critically important for anyone writing anything set in the 1920s.
Possibly one of the best works of literature ever written.
Possibly one of the best works of literature ever written.
Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, The End of Civilization by Nicholson Baker
5.0
Immediately dark, ominous, and gripping from the very first line. Baker tells the story of World War II entirely through little anecdotes, most of which are left out of the more popular, widespread histories. Each blurb is shrouded in shadow, promising more darkness to come, hinting at something dreadful on the horizon. He details personalities and decisions that would turn out to be pivotal, and they all end like chapters in a thriller novel. I was a history major in college and I took at least eight credit hours (or more) just on World War II, and I've read more books on the subject than I can remember, and I've still never encountered a lot of the personality and little facts that Baker weaves into his chronicle, just minor details about people or events that turned out to shape things in a huge way. I guess what I'm trying to say is - Baker examines the calamity as more psychologist than historian, and the book is huge. And obviously I don't mean in physical size - I mean in scope and emotional impact.
So much of World War II is told from the perspective of strategy, of attack and defense, of espionage and covert operations, of logistics and economy. But this is the first time I've ever (personally) read the war told from a pacifist perspective. Baker examines Churchill and Roosevelt with the same critical eye he gives to Hitler and Goehring, and tells us uncomfortable things about our heroes that most of us never knew. To Baker, all belligerent powers are partly to blame - his heroes are the Quakers and other pacifists, entirely ignored by history, who came to the aid of the Jews long before war broke out in the West. He examines the correspondence from Eleanor Roosevelt, pleading for FDR to remember certain groups of people who needed help, pleas that Roosevelt would ignore. He explores Churchill's and FDR's obsession with grand navies and naval strategy. He even highlights the antisemitic ideas of the age - not an entirely German thing, but ideas shared by the leaders of most of the Western powers as well, and even a lot of average American citizens. I think most of all, he paints World War II not as something any one person "started", but as a monster inside all of us that had been growing for a long time - one that eventually devoured our humanity.
When someone tells me they wished they knew more about World War II, they almost always say "not about the armies and bombs and stuff - more like how it impacted us as human beings". And I always tell them to read this book. Because that human perspective is critical, and Human Smoke is a critically important book for that perspective.
So much of World War II is told from the perspective of strategy, of attack and defense, of espionage and covert operations, of logistics and economy. But this is the first time I've ever (personally) read the war told from a pacifist perspective. Baker examines Churchill and Roosevelt with the same critical eye he gives to Hitler and Goehring, and tells us uncomfortable things about our heroes that most of us never knew. To Baker, all belligerent powers are partly to blame - his heroes are the Quakers and other pacifists, entirely ignored by history, who came to the aid of the Jews long before war broke out in the West. He examines the correspondence from Eleanor Roosevelt, pleading for FDR to remember certain groups of people who needed help, pleas that Roosevelt would ignore. He explores Churchill's and FDR's obsession with grand navies and naval strategy. He even highlights the antisemitic ideas of the age - not an entirely German thing, but ideas shared by the leaders of most of the Western powers as well, and even a lot of average American citizens. I think most of all, he paints World War II not as something any one person "started", but as a monster inside all of us that had been growing for a long time - one that eventually devoured our humanity.
When someone tells me they wished they knew more about World War II, they almost always say "not about the armies and bombs and stuff - more like how it impacted us as human beings". And I always tell them to read this book. Because that human perspective is critical, and Human Smoke is a critically important book for that perspective.
The Great Mortality by John Kelly
5.0
I've read more books on the Black Death than I can possibly remember, and The Great Mortality is easily my favorite. I return to it constantly, not just for the history, but for the storytelling. The Great Mortality is constantly ominous, haunting, ghostly, and terrifying.
Kelly transports you back to a 14th century a lot of non-professional historians like me (I was an undergraduate history major) have never imagined - rich, bursting with vivid detail and color. Humorous, hilarious, horrifying. Emotionally touching. Most of all, haunting. This book is one long fade-to-black on windswept grasslands, and Kelly always leaves your final thoughts lingering on ghost towns, unfinished churches, and the ghostly remains of English villages that vanished without a trace long ago.
It's probably been twelve years since I first read this book and it's hard to imagine a work that's reinvented my storytelling the way The Great Mortality has. The pages turn themselves and the eerie ambiance seeps out of the book and lays heavily upon you.
If anyone asks me for a recommendation on a book about the Black Death - or about the Late Middle Ages in general - this is the first one I show them.
Kelly transports you back to a 14th century a lot of non-professional historians like me (I was an undergraduate history major) have never imagined - rich, bursting with vivid detail and color. Humorous, hilarious, horrifying. Emotionally touching. Most of all, haunting. This book is one long fade-to-black on windswept grasslands, and Kelly always leaves your final thoughts lingering on ghost towns, unfinished churches, and the ghostly remains of English villages that vanished without a trace long ago.
It's probably been twelve years since I first read this book and it's hard to imagine a work that's reinvented my storytelling the way The Great Mortality has. The pages turn themselves and the eerie ambiance seeps out of the book and lays heavily upon you.
If anyone asks me for a recommendation on a book about the Black Death - or about the Late Middle Ages in general - this is the first one I show them.
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
4.0
One of the first lessons I've had on the craft of writing horror, and a pretty good one. My favorite kind of horror is the kind that deals with the distant past, and Simmons does this really well - he looks at a haunted past through the lens of pre-adolescent kids. He identifies with his protagonists so much that even his narrative and world-building take on that ominous, dangerous tone and those shadows that lurk on the edges of an incomplete, frightening view of times long gone. The whole book is speckled with these little glimpses, and that spreads a pall of fright over the whole book.
If I could have given 4.5 stars, I would have. The only .5 I marked off for was that the narrative, while it pulled me along really well, wasn't what I would have called gripping or compelling in a really feverish way. Still, Simmons showed a real deftness for talking about so many different times, switching language appropriately for a sense of immersion. But his real skill is in conjuring dread of things out in the dark. I have to say that I ended up liking this a lot more than Stephen King's It, not least because Simmons manages to tell a scary story - in the exact same time period as It and with similar protagonists, but without the skeeve factor. He also does what I thought was a superior job of putting dread in days gone by, and of writing protagonists who are universally relatable.
Summer of Night is my go-to writer's manual for creating a scary yesterday and an equally unsettling present.
If I could have given 4.5 stars, I would have. The only .5 I marked off for was that the narrative, while it pulled me along really well, wasn't what I would have called gripping or compelling in a really feverish way. Still, Simmons showed a real deftness for talking about so many different times, switching language appropriately for a sense of immersion. But his real skill is in conjuring dread of things out in the dark. I have to say that I ended up liking this a lot more than Stephen King's It, not least because Simmons manages to tell a scary story - in the exact same time period as It and with similar protagonists, but without the skeeve factor. He also does what I thought was a superior job of putting dread in days gone by, and of writing protagonists who are universally relatable.
Summer of Night is my go-to writer's manual for creating a scary yesterday and an equally unsettling present.