Fading Memories

2003-09-26

Tipping the Velvet

By Sarah Waters
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 26, 2003

I was very fond of Fingersmith, so I eagerly snapped up Tipping the Velvet when I had to go on a long train journey to Brussels. Well, when I say eagerly, I must admit that I spent some time looking for a copy with a different cover. While I rather like the way the right-hand girl looks at the left-hand girl (Nancy at Kitty, not vice versa), there is a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that makes this copy a little less suitable for public perusal. I blame the television, and their idea of Victorian undies, myself.

2003-09-24

Practical C++ Programming

By Steven Oualline
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 24, 2003

I bought this book in Lisbon in 1996 or so, when I was still an Oracle Software Engineer (or, in other words, a PL-SQL hacker), and wanted to learn C++. This book didn't help me then, and now, when I want again to learn C++, but for a certain project, this time, it doesn't help me either.

La vie quotidienne pendant la guerre de cent ans, France et Angleterre

By Philippe Contamine
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 24, 2003

I'm not a dab hand at French — when I was in Brussels last weekend, I had a hard time getting the taxi driver to understand me, and had to resort to English, because he refused to understand Dutch. And everytime I wanted to say something in French, I could only produce a broken Greek.

The Documents in the Case

By Dorothy L. Sayers
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 24, 2003

Dorothy L. Sayers co-authored this novel with Robert Eustace (who primarily presented her with the scientific foundation for the crime). It is an experimental work, presenting the evidence for the case in the form of letters, newspaper clippings and statements.

Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew

By R.K. Harrison
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 24, 2003

I usually love the language courses from the Teach Yourself series: I must have more than twenty of the little blue, black or yellow books. But Biblical Hebrew is a bad egg. Originally published in 1955, and written in a style that was dated in 1890, H&S had no business reprinting the text photographically in 1991.

The Orthodox Church

By Timothy Ware (Bisshop Kallistos)
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 24, 2003

Being an Orthodox Christian myself, it behooves me to know something about my religion, naturally. And this book, The Orthodox Church was both my first introduction and one of the books I now and then take up again, to refresh my memory.

The Small Bachelor

By P.G. Wodehouse
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 24, 2003

A couple of quick notes, both because I've got a big stack of books I've read cluttering up my desk, table, floor and mind, and because I want to go on with learning C++.

Sixty Poems

By Rudyard Kipling
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 24, 2003

The 1907 Nobel Prize laureate Rudyard Kipling is one of the lions of the English literary history. His work, particularly his poetry, has inspired countless authors, most of whom seem to end up writing mil-sf for Baen.

Buddhist Mahayana Texts

By E.B. Cowell
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 24, 2003

When I studied Chinese, Sanskrit, Pali and a few other East-Asian languages in Leyden, I was pretty interested in Buddhism. One of the books I bought at that time was this volume, a nice and durable reprinto of the out-of-copyright Oxford University Press series published near the close of the nineteenth century, when scholars where scholars and books were books.

Culinaire Tierelantijnen

By J.W.F. Werumeus Buning
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 24, 2003

Is this really the first time in a year that I read something by Werumeus Buning? Probably not, it's more likely that I just assumed I'd already written a notice on what I read, because I read and re-read Werumeus Buning a lot.

2003-09-11

Death in Autumn

By Magdalen Nabb
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 11, 2003

This is the fourth Marshall Guarnaccia book, an early Magdalen Nabb, therefore. Death in Autumn is a quite perfectly formed, nicely rounded, well told and concise in plan.

The Analects of Confucius

By Arthur Waley
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 11, 2003

As Dorothy L. Sayers has a woman say in Gaudy Night, once I was a scholar. I went to the University of Leyden to study sinology, capping my studies with an attempt at comparative linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman area. During my five years in Leyden, I acquired, amongst others, this translation of the Analects. I never quite got round to reading it — I always preferred Mencius to Confucius.

Major Poems of the Hebrew Bible -- at the Interface of Hermeneutics and Structural Analysis, Volume I: Ex. 15, Deut. 32, and Job 3

By J.P. Fokkelman
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 11, 2003

It was reading the afterword in De Psalmen that made me order this book through inter-library loan. Of course, like a fool, I started with Volume I, which is not about the psalms; I should have ordered Volume III (which is what you get when you click the buy this link; books like this are hard to get through Amazon, and the scholarly booksellers that do have a web presense don't have a search function.). Still, I'm very glad I've dipped in this book.

2003-09-04

Halssnoer en Kalebas

By Robert van Gulik
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 04, 2003

Necklace and Calabash is the last Judge Dee novel but one Robert van Gulik wrote. One year after its completion, van Gulik died from cancer, after completing Poets and Murder, the very last Judge Dee mystery. Robert van Gulik is one of those authors who show a clear progression in their work, and Necklace and Calabash is one of his best works.

2003-09-03

De Psalmen

By Lloyd Haft
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 03, 2003

Poetry is notoriously difficult to write about — perhaps the only form of literature that is more difficult to write about than to write. Even more difficult is to write about this book, De Psalmen which is the collection of Lloyd Haft's reworkings of, well, the Psalms.

With Bitter Herbs They Shall Eat It -- Chemical ecology and the origin of human diet and medicine.

By Timothy Johns
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 03, 2003

I am not an ethnobotanist. What I know about organic or anorganic chemistry would fit in the RAM of a first issue ZX-80. But With Bitter Herbs They Shall Eat It still held me spellbound. The author, Timothy Johns, manages to present his difficult and to me unfamiliar subject with admirable clarity. His prose is seldom dull, the book has been organized in the most transparent fashion and the ideas he presents are thought-provoking.

2003-09-02

The Plague Lord

By Paul Doherty
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 02, 2003

It is always dangerous to be even moderately well-informed about a subject. It can, for instance, seriously distract from ones enjoyment of a book if one is trained as a sinologist, and the author of a book set in China manages to get almost every Chinese word wrong. This remarkable feat, far beyond the usual mangling, is the achievement of Paul Doherty. Not that there isn't plenty else to dislike.

Year of the Griffin

By Diana Wynne Jones
Reviewed by Boudewijn Rempt on September 02, 2003

What's the difference between a children's book and a book for adults? That the protagonists are children and the plot can be a bit more complex and the story a bit swifter paced if it's a children's book? That the book is a bit shorter? Year of the Griffin is a book about students at a University, so the protagonists aren't really children, but there's a lot of story going on. Anyway, people with taste read Diana Wynne Jones, no matter under which category they are packaged and marketed.