The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson

***Includes Spoilers***

Well, first off, I read WAY too many scholarly historical books because my brain would say "made that up", "took this from a newspaper", "took this from a diary", "made THAT up", "wait, is there evidence for that?!? because if so, that's awesome!", etc. So, there's my complaint on this being a little too much on the fiction side of non-fiction.

For the rest, I'm highly disappointed by the ending. I think his conclusion chapter was a total cop-out. Patterson gives no hard evidence to support that the wife was in on the conspiracy. The other two were obviously in on it, and fine, I'll take the cop-out there, but this is where his lack of scholarship (not that he didn't do the research, but through the flawed way he that he presented his research) comes into play. I wish that he'd gone into more detail about how he came about his conclusions. The chapter on finding the wife's ring is great because it answers the question of how he concluded that she'd been fed to the crocodiles. But how about a chapter like this on how he decided what conversations were held between the conspirators. How does he know that the queen's hand maiden was a spy? How does he know that it was a hired hit man that killed Tut? Does Patterson just assume that anyone reading this book has read other books that go into these details?!? If so, that's being stupid on his part.

I would rate this a 5/5 if it had been more scholarly, but as he was more interested in telling a certain story than to explain why he believed himself correct, a star is lost

Unwise Passions by Alan Pell Crawford

First off, I recommend this book; as a good historic novel, not for it's scholarly contribution.

It's about the "first" great scandal of 18th century America. Well, the scandal happened in 1793, so how exactly can it be the first? But then the country was only born in 1787, so maybe I'll let it slide.

Alan Crawford isn't a scholar, in fact he's a former speech writer and press secretary. I can't find who in particular he wrote for, but I did find out that his latest book on Jefferson dying in debt is well liked by UVA's Jefferson Professor. Fine--I haven't read that one. I read Unwise Passions. And this post is about that book.


I think Crawford took some liberties with the story to give it a moral theme. I mean, the story literally ended with me feeling that "if I'm good and persevere I will come out on top and anyone who makes my life miserable will die miserable and alone". That's not how real life works--that's a Jane Austen novel. One of my friends gave me a good label for this: "non-fiction novel".

So, to end this: take it with a grain of salt. I believe that any non-fiction book should be taken with a grain of salt but I think this book should be taken with an even bigger grain of salt than normal. Use it to become interested in the people and look for more scholarly works on them.

Not sure what to title this as.

I mean, it's not just one book and the author is just as important as the books. So, please read this article and then put these books on your reading list--they're on mine.

Socialism in Provence 1871-1914: A Study in the Origins of the Modern French Left

I could probably go on with books!! I wish I had more time to read after seeing some of these titles.

Madame Curie

A surprisingly entertaining book about the life and work of Marie Curie. I admit that I didn't finish this book at camp because the chapter on the death of her husband (sorry to spoil the plot) left me feeling sad and depressed--I wasn't expecting that, especially since it's written by her daughter Eve. This biography will interest any history buff, science nerd, or anyone who's interested in turn of the century family life from Poland to France.

"Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey" by Lillian Schlissel

Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey is an amazingly interesting book, with a few drawbacks that may or may not take away from its importance. I'll let you decide.

This book is essentially tracing the women's journey across the midwest to California and Oregon using the diaries that these women kept and left behind. Schlissel uses 96 diaries to defend her conclusions, and as one can expect that the journey wasn't entirely different for these women. There are some differences, as the circumstances of women differed--being married with children, newly wed without children, being older with children back home, etc, but the scenery doesn't change that much. This is where I find the drawback--the book is really repetitive. I understand why, but it can still be tedious. But once you overlook this, there's a lot of important information to be found. And a lot of questions that you can ask about women living on the road and those things that we women have to deal with that men will probably never understand.

Even with the repetitiveness, it's a very quick read--I think I spent 3 hours reading 150 pages before class, not sure how much time I've spent since to finish it. And it's a very visual book--you should be able to vividly picture the world that these women traveled through.