The Life of Elizabeth I

From the book cover

Perhaps the most influential sovereign England has ever known, Queen Elizabeth I reigned prosperously for more than forty years, from 1558 until her death in 1603. During her rule, however, she remained an extremely private person, keeping her own counsel and sharing secrets with no one - not even her closest, most trusted advisors.

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I selected this novel as part of my biographies and memories reading list because of my fascination with the monarchy.

This book is way too long. Alison Weir does a wonderful job capturing Queen Elizabeth I's personality, the mood of her court and the high and low points of her reign, but I really feel like it could have been done in under 300 pages. At 488 pages, not including the epilogue, this is a hefty brick of a novel.

It's obvious that Ms. Weir is a meticulous researcher and a born storyteller. This novel reads like a historical fiction. She did a great job of drawing out suspenseful moments and interjecting humour. It's even more amazing because she's writing about someone who's been dead for more than 400 years as though she was right there witnessing everything. I especially enjoyed the chapters that describe the everyday realities of life in the 1500s.

At times I found it hard to keep up with the name changes. Once a character received a new office or title, Ms. Weir started referring to the character by a new name. An example of this is William Cecil, Elizabeth's most loyal councillor. He goes from being referred to as Cecil to Burghley about midway through the novel, when he gets promoted by the Queen. Then three quarters of the way through, his son arrives at the court and so we start reading about 'Cecil' again, but now Weir is referring to Thomas Cecil, William Cecil/Lord Burghley's son.

Elizabeth was a great queen but I don't like Elizabeth the women. She was vain, superficial, manipulative, mean, selfish and sometimes just plain unrealistic in her expectations of her subjects. The amount of people that she placed in the tower for daring to marry without her consent is shameful. And then there's the way she treated the wives of her 'favourites', refusing to acknowledge their existence, humiliating them at court and purposely keeping their husbands away from home. For the record, I think it's cool that she refused to marry and stuck to her convictions.


Eventually I would like to read Ms. Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

3.5/5

Trailer from The Golden Age starring Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I.

Bob Marley: The Untold Story

From the book cover

What was is about Bob Marley that made him so popular in a world dominated by rock ‘n’ roll? How is it that he not only has remained the single most successful reggae artist ever, but also has become a shining beacon of radicalism and peace to generation after generation of fans?

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Bob Marley is the most well-known of my countrymen, so when I saw this biography in Coles I didn't think twice about picking it up. Usually, I read books recommended by friends, family members or acquaintances. This book was chosen solely because I've always enjoyed Bob Marley's music and wanted to find out who he really was.

Chris Salewicz's writing style is dreadful (no pun intended). His bridging techniques are awkward at best and he litters the story with too much insignificant information. An example of this is the background information he provides for virtually all of the major and minor characters in Bob's life. Every time he introduces a character he tells the reader where and when the person was born and who their parents were, how they grew up and all sorts of other useless information.

When Salewicz isn't bombarding the reader with useless information, he's repeating facts and quotes every few chapters. There's almost a feeling that this book might have be written over several years.

Despite my issues with Salewicz's writing style, I have to admit that this biography does provide some really great information about Jamaica, the history of reggae, and of course Bob Marley. If nothing else, Chris Salewicz is a great researcher.

Thanks to the information about the history of reggae, there's handful of albums that I will be seeking to add to my collection.

3.5/5

*UPDATE*
It's been about a month since I read this novel and only now is the affect of everything I learned about Bob Marley becoming apparent. Prior to reading this book, I could listen to all of Bob Marley's songs all the time and anytime. Now I'm having a hard time listening to some of them because I know the story behind them. I'm repulsed by the ones written about his mistresses, especially Waiting in Vain, because they remind me of how poorly he treated his wife (He flaunted his relationship with other women in front of her and at one point denied their marriage). It's hard to separate the man from the musician. 

Angela's Ashes

From the book cover

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”

So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank’s mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank’s father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy – exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling – does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father’s tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.

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I'm starting to wonder if there is something wrong with me. I didn't shed a single tear while reading Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. I didn't laugh either. I was impressed by his bravery in leaving nothing unsaid. The details of his impoverished childhood are painful and it's easy to see how embarrassing his situation would have been at the time, but what gets me is his honesty when describing the joy he got from masturbating. I could have done with less info about him "interfering" with himself.

I found myself annoyed with Frank's mother, Angela. She came across as a lazy whiner. I know times were tough, I get that. But she just seemed to spend too much time complaining about things. It took her forever to cross her legs and say no more kids. She was always threatening to go to work but didn't until the end of the novel. She often sent her kids to the pubs to do what she should have been doing - confronting her husband about drinking the money that was meant to feed the kids. The last straw for me was when she moved in with Frank and The Abbott and started taking the money Frank was earning from his messenger job.

There's much hype about Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. I chose to read it because it is suppose to be one of the best memoirs ever published. It won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, the 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 1997 Boeke Prize. I don't know if it lives up to all that hype.

McCourt’s childhood is definitely miserable, but doesn’t it take more than misery to make a book awesome? There's no denying that Angela’s Ashes is solid work in its genre, but it just left me feeling blah.  It didn’t elicit any strong emotion. It's just like every other book about people living unfortunate lives.

Some criticism of the book is that the poverty McCourt describes in Limerick is “overdone.” For his part, McCourt has said that the book is not meant to be an exact history.

 3.5/5

Movie Trailer for the film adaptation of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes.

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is a memoir written by United States President Barack Obama.

In 453 pages, Mr. Obama brings us through his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, his work as a community organizer in Chicago’s south side and a trip to Kenya. He very briefly describes his time at Harvard Law School, his courtship and marriage to Michelle and a second trip to Kenya.

I really, really enjoyed this novel. Mr. Obama’s struggle to find answers in a racially polarized America is probably familiar to many black youth growing up in North America. As I read through several passages, I found myself shaking my head in agreement or recognition of a situation that is reminiscent of an experience I have lived through.

This memoir really humanized Mr. Obama for me. I’ve been a fan every since he hit the international stage, during his campaign for the democratic leadership. (I really struggled with who to root for. I’m a Hillary Clinton fan, but at last I had to support my black brother.) Anyways, back to the memoir.

Mr. Obama’s characteristic eloquence made this novel an enjoyable read. He recreates scenes, analyzes situations and shares his feeling without pretension. I felt like he was sitting across the table sharing his story with me. I didn’t have to reach for the dictionary too often. His story is so absorbing, it almost doesn’t seem real. Two or three times, I found myself wishing for a sequel from the perspective of one of the secondary characters. I would love to learn more about Ruth (Obama’s father’s third wife), and Obama's paternal grandmother.

In this novel, Mr. Obama demonstrate his ability to analyze both sides of issues without letting emotions cloud his judgment. It could have been very easy to have several ‘bad’ guys in this true story, yet there are very few.

Mr. Obama is very brave to write so honestly about his family’s history. It’s not all roses. Once the facts are laid bare, Mr. Obama’s father is revealed to be a near-do-good, adulterous, alcoholic with high ideals and no staying power (he goes through many families before his premature death as a result of a car accident).

This book was written and published after Obama graduated from Harvard Law School, where he made history as the first black editor of The Harvard Review. That’s about 10 years before he entered politics. I wonder if the story would have changed any, had he realized that one day he would be the President of the United States.

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