My Year in Books (and Anne Boleyn)

• All-around favorite fiction: Kate Atkinson, Human Croquet; Paul di Filippo, The Steampunk Trilogy; Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty; Richard Powers, Gain; Adam Thorpe, Ulverton; Colm Toibin, The Master. 
• Best personal discovery: Kate Atkinson. 
• Best novel about Victorian photography: Gail Jones, Sixty Lights. 
• Best meditation on Sherlock Holmes: Mitch Cullin, A Slight Trick of the Mind. 
• Best mystery: Reginald Hill, The Stranger House.  (How about a new Dalziel & Pascoe for next Chanukah?)
• Best comic novel: George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman on the March. 
• Best works of scholarship: H. J. Jackson, Romantic Readers; Peter Lake and Michael Questier, The Anti-Christ`s Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in Post-Reformation England.
• Mystery novelist most likely to make me drum my fingers impatiently: Stephen Booth. 
• Most aggravating use of the adjective "Dickensian": as applied to Clare Boylan's Emma Brown.  Boylan was completing (ineptly, I grant you) one of Charlotte Bronte's fragments, remember?
• Least scary novel on scary themes: Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian. 
• Work of literary criticism sent to me for review that inspired the greatest number of exasperated phone calls to my parents: John Rudy, Romanticism and Zen Buddhism. 
• Novel most likely to annoy a professional Victorianist: Linda Holeman, The Linnet Bird. 
• Novel that proved to me, once and for all, that I must be terminally unhip, because I found it repulsive beyond belief (thereby demonstrating that I lack the requisite avant-garde tastebuds--or would that be eyeballs?): Iain Sinclair, White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings. 
• Most frequently acquired Victorian religious novelist: Emma Leslie. 
• Best eBay bargain: A complete set of John Lingard's History of England (10 vols.) for about $36.  Runner-up: six novels published by Richard Bentley, ca. 1830s-early 1850s, for a little over $20. 
• Over-acquired bad Victorian novel: M. R. Housekeeper's The Hermit of Livry, of which I now have three copies.  #2 was purchased by accident (I thought it was Emma Leslie's novel of the same name) and #3, which is in transit, came as part of a bulk lot.  Really, one copy would have done just fine.
• Finally-acquired set: Augustus Neander, General History of the Christian Church (4 vols.). 
• Current purchasing trend: Sermons.  (This is what happens when you're supposed to be writing an article about them.) 
• Most overworked adjective on eBay: "Rare."

And now, a special epilogue devoted to novels about, or at least featuring, Anne Boleyn:

• The "Most Happy" Award for Best Novel: Nancy Kress, And Wild for to Hold. 
• The "Scaffold" Award for Worst Novel: A tie between Reginald Drew, Anne Boleyn, and Karen Harper, Passion's Reign.
• The "Goggle-Eyed Whore" Award for Nastiest Anne: Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl.   Surprisingly, Alison Prince comes a close second in her children's novel, Anne Boleyn and Me: The Diary of Elinor Valjean, London 1525-1536. 
• The "Chapuys" Award for Scenes that Make You Say, "What the $(@!?":  1) In Drew's Anne Boleyn, Henry Percy attempts to kill Henry VIII--in front of witnesses!--and remains alive.  2) In Lozania Prole's The Dark-Eyed Queen, Thomas Cranmer turns out to be gay. 
• The "Duke of Norfolk" Award for Adulterous Annes: Philippa Wiat, The Heir of Allington (with Thomas Wyatt); Norah Lofts, The Concubine (with three unnamed men); Robert York, My Lord the Fox (with Mark Smeaton); Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl (with her brother, or so it's strongly implied).
• The "David and Jonathan" Award for Unintentional Homoeroticism: Drew's Anne Boleyn, which describes Cardinal Wolsey's relationship with Henry Percy in a manner that is, shall we say, somewhat warm.  (Example: "The touch of his favorite gave pleasure to the austere prelate, whose soul craved what this touch meant" [44].) 
• The "Henry VIII" Award for Overstuffing: Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, The Dark Rose.  Harrod-Eagles tries to cram just about every major historical change of the period (and some historical changes that don't seem to belong to the period) into her narrative.
• The "Virgin Queen" Award for Worst Romantic Dialogue: A tie between Maureen Peters, Incredible Fierce Desire ("I love you, Nan Bullen! I want you to be my mistress, sweetling.  Ever since I saw you in your father's garden at Hever I've wanted you and none other!" [97]) and Harper, Passion's Reign ("My dear lord--Henry--the moment you look at me, the moment you touch me, I desire you between my thighs.  The way you have loved me this past month--I thought you knew that" [243]). 

Comments

[Jonathan Dresner]

"Romanticism and Zen Buddhism"? That makes me shudder just to think of it. I'm sure you and your parents were quite clear on what's wrong with the Romanticism side; if you need pointers on what might be wrong with the Zen side, drop a line, of course.

[Julia]

Just thought I would take the opportunity to tell you that I really enjoy your blog-Happy Holidays!

[Sredni Vashtar]

Did you ever get around to starting Neil Stephenson's "System of the World" trilogy? I recall you were debating whether to buy it or not.

[Miriam]

I've acquired Stephenson's first volume, and will get to it in due course (probably the next time I need to take a trip to California).