Devourer of Books

The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson

Allegedly, James Patterson’s “The Murder of King Tut” is a nonfiction account of, as you might have guessed, the murder of King Tut.  As far as I know, scholars do not universally agree that Tut actually was murdered, but Patterson, like many others, believes that he was murdered and endeavors to prove it.  There are actually three storylines to this book, and I’m going to describe and review each one in a separate paragraph, from the most minor to the most major.

James Patterson actually inserted himself and a bit of his writing process into “The Murder of King Tut.”  He talked about how he became interested in the case, how he pitched it to his publisher, and, incessantly, how many other manuscripts he had going on at the same time.  This is definitely the storyline that worked LEAST for me.  First of all, it was not given anything approaching equal weight with the rest of the book.  I expected he would talk about his research process, but he didn’t.  The whole thing was just 2-3 random scenes thrown in the middle.  Far from adding anything to the story, I’d say that this just distracted me from what Patterson was trying to write about.

The next story thread was that of Howard Carter, the man who would one day discover Tut’s tomb.  This was a fairly interesting storyline, but it really did not fit with the storyline of King Tut as well as might have been hoped.  I will say, though, that I thought it was reasonable that one might call this part of the storyline nonfiction.  Carter certainly is close enough to being a contemporary that there might be a good deal of information on his thoughts, activities, and conversations.  I didn’t see much in the way of citations of where he got this information, though, if he wants to call it nonfiction.

Now we come to the part that was simultaneously most enjoyable and most annoying.  This is the storyline I expected when I picked up “The Murder of King Tut,” the one beginning in ancient Egypt.  Instead of beginning with his supposed grandfather, Amenhotep III.  Let’s be clear, though, that scholars are NOT of one mind about whether Tut was the son of Akenhaten and grandson of Amenhotep III.  Of course, that isn’t mentioned in Patterson’s work.  The whole thing is told as a narrative, which makes for good reading, but drove me completely insane.  We do NOT have tape recordings of Tut and his wife speaking in Ancient Egyptian, so how on EARTH can copious discussions between the two be presented matter-of-factly in something purporting to be nonfiction?  People!  This HISTORICAL FICTION, it is not nonfiction.  Then there’s the fact that Tut’s alleged murder gets just sort of thrown in at the end.  I do think that 2/3 of Patterson’s theory on who killed Tut is more than plausible, although he did NOT convince me at all of that last 1/3, but the ‘evidence’ he gives is circumstantial at best.

Okay, so my biggest issue with this book is that it really, really, REALLY needs to be called Historical Fiction.  Then there’s the fact that it isn’t particularly good historical fiction.  This is simply not Patterson’s genre.  He writes modern, not terribly deep characters, so he put modern, not terribly deep characters against the setting of Ancient Egypt.  Tut’s wife in particular I did not buy as living over 3,000 years ago.  Patterson’s style also drove me a little insane.  Yes, the cliffhanger on every page technique can work in thrillers, no, it does not work in historical fiction.  Really, it just makes you look silly when Tut and General Hohremheb have a (not particularly suspenseful) conversation and you decide to end the chapter in the middle of said conversation, only to continue it on the next page.

Long story short: I thought this book sounded interesting (who better than James Patterson to bring life to a very cold case), but there were far too many flaws in the execution.  Perhaps working on 18 manuscripts at once is NOT a good idea.

Buy this book here and support this blog. Purchase from:
Powells.
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.
Amazon.

Source: My TBR pile, originally won in a blog contest

Pendragon’s Banner by Helen Hollick

“Pendragon’s Banner” is the second book in Helen Hollick’s ‘Pengdragon’s Banner’ series and follows the story of King Arthur from where “The Kingmaking” left off, so there are naturally some spoilers in this review, although not any more than if you already know the basic legend of King Arthur.  Heck, the fact that I’m calling him ‘King’ Arthur is already a spoiler for “The Kingmaking,” but then so is the title of “The Kingmaking” itself.  Sorry, you’ll just have to deal with the spoilerliciousness.

At the beginning of “Pendragon’s Banner,” Arthur has indeed become King of Britain and, surprisingly, has begun making peace and alliances with the Saex.  I was initially shocked by this, since Arthur’s big problem with Vortigern in “The Kingmaking” was his relationship with the Saex, but Hollick won me over with this as something that Arthur would reasonably decide to do, even if he couldn’t fully convince his supporters that it was a wise choice.

So much personal drama for the Arthur and Gwenhyfar!  Their marriage definitely hits some rocky patches with the pressure of the whole King of Britain thing going on.  Like the rest of Arthur’s followers, Gwenhyfar doesn’t always understand why he is making the decisions he is making.  I noted in my review of “The Kingmaking” that there seemed to be quite a lot of violence against of negative attitudes towards women.  Although Hollick doesn’t try to bring 21st century attitudes into the 5th century, I was pleased to note that there seemed to be far less of this in “Pendragon’s Banner.”

I really appreciate that, while these books are Arthur as he would have been as a post-Roman war lord and are fantasy-free, they also show you glimpses of where the more mystical legends could have developed.  Definitely a worth-while series if you’re interested in Arthur.

Buy this book here and support this blog.  Purchase from:
Powells.
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.
Amazon.

Thank you to Paul at Sourcebooks for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Undercover by Beth Kephart

After reading “Nothing But Ghosts,” I immediately got onto my library’s website and requested another one of Beth’s books, I just loved it that much.  The one I grabbed first was “Undercover.”

Elisa is a young girl with a poetic soul.  She is her father’s daughter and doesn’t really relate well with her mother and older sister, which makes life difficult when her father has to go away for an extended period of time for work.  To make life even more complicated, Elisa starts to fall for the boy who she is providing with poetry to woo another girl.

Oh my goodness, is Kephart’s writing ever gorgeous in this book!  Just beautiful, and not only when she is showcasing Elisa’s poetry.  Something about the whole thing reminded me of Laurie Halse Andersen’s work – because of the gorgeous writing, not because it seemed derivative.  I felt like Elisa held me at a distance, didn’t allow me to get close, but it worked for me in this case, where usually it would annoy me.  She was so distanced from everyone since her father was away that it made sense that she would keep even the reader at an arm’s length.

If you’re a literary fiction fan who isn’t convinced about the whole young adult literature thing, please, please try Beth Kephart.  Now I know why Amy was always raving about Beth, she writes consistently strong books.

Buy this book here and support this blog.  Purchase from:
Powells.
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.
Amazon.

Source: library

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

Please avoid spoilers!

We had hoped to stick around for the fight, but then we learned that the Gypsy was putting it off till later in the evening, when it would be cooler and more people would be around to make donations. “We don’t have time to wait,” Bilal said.  He picked up his bike and we hit the road to the madrassa.

Children of Dust: A Memoir of Pakistan by Ali Eteraz, p. 96

So the entire Readathon was pretty fantastic.  I think that was probably the most I’ve ever read and, overall, the most concentration I’ve ever given the Readathon.  I only made it from 5:00 am to 12:30 the next morning, but I didn’t take any naps along the way (and I didn’t sleep particularly well Friday night either, so that put me at a disadvantage).   I finished 7 books (6 of my own plus a short one read to Daniel) at almost 1400 pages.  The amount I read, however, is not the real highlight.

The best, funniest parts of the Readathon all had to do with Daniel.  He made it quite clear between 11 and 12:30 last night that he wasn’t going to sleep if I wasn’t and was trying REALLY hard to roll over back to front then again trying REALLY hard to scoot somewhere to keep me entertained.  It worked, although it meant little to no reading occurred then.  The very best part of the whole thing, though, is when I was reading Daniel HIS book.

Daniel’s book was a new one that one of my mother-in-law’s friends bought him.  It is called “Where Is Baby’s Pumpkin?” and has shininess on every page.  The thing basically consists of ‘Baby’ looking in different places for her pumpkin, then you check behind the flap and see it isn’t there.  Well, Daniel has gotten really good at picking up cues of whether people are slightly nodding or shaking their heads and mimicking it.  On each page we would ask him “Do you think Baby’s pumpkin is (wherever)?” and on each page he would SHAKE HIS HEAD.  Honestly, that’s more response than I sometimes got out of my 2nd graders during read alouds when I was still teaching.  His grandma and great-grandma thought it was hilarious, needless to say.  I’m so please that he likes books, both looking at mine and looking at his.

Having Daniel around (even though I sent him to grandma’s house without me for awhile so I could get more reading done) definitely made this my favorite Readathon yet.

By the way, I’m very excited to say that I’ve raised $125 for my charity – a Donors Choose grant for a 2nd grade teacher in an impoverished area of Chicago who wants quality read aloud books for her class.  I will be donating $35, $5/book.  My dad pledged $10/book and another reader pledged a flat $20.  She needs $400 total, so please take a minute to check her grant out and think about contributing.