It’s that time of the year to look back and review all the things that made my life easier and more pleasant. None of the links below is a referral; I will update this note if I change the links to referrals. As this year was devastating with the war in Ukraine and protests in Iran, I don’t feel in the mental position to share more than the books I enjoyed this year.
Some of the books I liked had a dedicated article on this blog: Address Unknown by Kressman Taylor, books about Operation Mincemeat, Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, Lillian Gilbreth in the books written by her children, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein.
One of the better discoveries of this year was Jonathan Clements, a biographer and translator. Take, for example, A Brief History of the Vikings: The Last Pagans or the First Modern Europeans?, An Armchair Traveller’s History of Finland, Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy, Wu: The Chinese Empress who schemed, seduced and murdered her way to become a living God or Clements’ translation of the Art of War. These books are tremendous efforts to introduce slices of history to laypeople. And the language is often witty:
The Russians were not particularly impressed with Finland. Since they already had trees, lakes and snow of their own, the country initially had little to offer but a buffer zone between them and the rest of Europe, with limited transport and amenities.
For the later Tsars, after the tragic assassination of Alexander II by Russian anarchists in 1881, Finland became a popular holiday destination because it was not Russia, and Finns could usually be counted on not to blow them up or shoot them while they were fishing or sunning themselves.
The treaty specified that the roads, bridges and towns of Karelia should be left intact, but when the Russians moved in, they discovered they had forgotten to stipulate that the Finns should remain.
However, it must be admitted that the leading edge of their expansion chiefly comprised thugs, brigands and outlaws. Latter-day apologists have attempted to soften the image but, by definition, the word Viking refers to pirates.
A Viking is categorically not a flaxen-haired maiden making attractive jewellery by the side of a picturesque fjord, no matter what some museum curators may imply. The Vikings were the rejects of Scandinavian society – forced to travel further afield to make their fortune. Some, of course, returned to claim their homeland as their own, applying their experience of foreign wars to internecine struggles.
The Vikings were a group created by circumstance, not blood – they were not a ‘race’, nor did they have any patriotism, any sense of ‘Viking-ness’.
While the Vikings are inhabitants of the past, the forces that created them are not. Ours is still a world with famines, floods and incidents of overpopulation. Our battles over resources are fought by proxy in distant lands, but they are still fought. You do not lead a band of men to take from those less able to protect themselves, but somewhere far away, others do on your behalf. It takes only the tiniest turn of fate, the slightest lapse of law, to make Vikings of us all.
A Brief History of the Vikings: The Last Pagans or the First Modern Europeans?
Another favourite was the Summer Book by Tove Jansson, a book about nothing and everything. It describes in a few short chapters the fullness of interactions between a six-year-old girl and her grandmother during the summer they spent on a tiny island in Finland.
It was a particularly good evening to begin a book.
Yes, this is a particularly good book to begin an evening.
The Facemaker: One Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I by Lindsey Fitzharris is a nonfiction masterpiece about how plastic surgery was established during World War I, focusing on the work done by Harold Gillies. Gillies is credited with developing many plastic surgery techniques still in use today, including skin grafts and pedicles to support skin grafts.
Fitzharris also wrote The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine, a biography about Joseph Lister, who innovated the antiseptic surgery field. Lister pioneered using carbolic acid as an antiseptic during surgery and is credited with reducing the rate of post-surgical infections, thus improving the overall survival rate of patients.
Both books are terrific as Fitzharris has a particular writing style where she weaves medicine and history, keeping the reader engaged.
If you are interested in historical fiction, Laura Shepherd-Robinson has two excellent books set in 18th-century London: Blood & Sugar and Daughters of Night. Blood & Sugar presents a whodunnit resolved by Captain Harry Corsham, depicting the horrors of the slave trade. In Daughters of Night, Caroline Corsham, wife of Harry Corsham, is the one chasing the killer of a woman she knew, coming across the corruption and hypocrisy of the Georgian society, which is deeply involved in the sex trade.
The Five Books website or following authors on Goodreads are good resources for book recommendations.
This year was a relentless nightmare that took a heavy toll through devastating wars, leaving behind trails of destruction and misery. When facing the darkest depths of human nature, we try to cope by looking for an escape, even for a few hours. And media content, either books, podcasts, tv shows, or videos, will always be there for us.
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