I read two books last week — one for research, one for pleasure — but I ran out of space and time to talk about them in my ROW80 post yesterday.
The research book was The Crimean War, by James Barbary. It was much more readable than the French Revolution book I read last year, probably because it focussed more on specific people and events than statistics.
The chapter on Florence Nightingale even had me in tears, although that might be more a property of her story than Barbary’s writing. And I got plenty of useful historical details from the rest of the book.
The novel was Storm Front, by Jim Butcher. It’s the first in a long series, which I’ve been trying to start reading for a while.
However, I don’t have much to say about it. It was enjoyable, certainly; I especially liked some of the ways technology interacts with the magic (like dressing up a potion as a sports drink). But it hasn’t exactly left a strong impression on me.
Not that that’s a problem; I only read it for enjoyment in the first place.
Jenkins Rising 