TEN WAYS TO BE ADORED WHEN LANDING A LORD by Sarah MacLean

Despite writing an entire post about the fact that there should be no shame in enjoying romance novels, I’ve still been hesitant to blog about the books that I’ve been reading the most in the last couple of months (internalized misogyny runs deep, y’all). But I started this blog to share the books I’ve been reading, and if you’ve been experiencing a similar period of significant life changes that’s been making you anxious, maybe these are exactly the kinds of books you need, too. I have been devouring Sarah MacLean’s oeuvre, and I wanted to tell you about my favorite so far.

The heroine of Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord is Isabel (because the female-protagonists of romance novels are called heroines–isn’t that fantastic?). Her father, a reckless gambler who’s been absent for most of Isabel’s life, has just died, leaving Isabel and her younger brother, a future duke, penniless and even more alone than they were when he was alive. But Isabel has always been resourceful; in fact, her home has become a refuge for many other women, as well. Some of them have escaped abusive marriages, cruel families, or even their own mistakes, and have found community and purpose in Isabel’s manor, dubbed the Minerva House. But with Isabel’s sudden impoverishment, she’s not sure if she can take care of everyone anymore–until Nicholas, a London aristocrat known for his knowledge of antiquities, comes into town. Isabel’s most precious possessions are her collection of marbles, but the residents of the Minerva House are more important to her, and she enlists Nicholas’s help in appraising the last things of value she owns in order to sell them. What she doesn’t expect is that Nicholas has come to her town for another purpose, one that might jeopardize Minerva House–and what Nicholas doesn’t expect is, well, Isabel.

I think what makes this book my favorite of MacLean’s novels is Isabel. She is headstrong, stubborn, and proud of her ability to solve her own problems. But she is also constantly afraid of disappointing those around her, taking on the burden of caring for everyone until it becomes her own hamartia. Her character feels real and familiar to me, making it all the more rewarding to watch her overcome her obstacles. This book also has an interesting reversal of a common trope. Usually in mainstream romantic stories, it is the man who is scared of vulnerability, too guarded to express his feelings and ask for what he wants. In this book, the reverse is true. Nicholas is a really sweet hero, and a nice change of pace from the kind of tortured anti-hero we’ve come to expect in our dramas. He’s open about his feelings, and trusting with his heart–it’s Isabel who is stubbornly resistant to what’s in front of her. In a genre of satisfying happily-ever-afters, this one had me cheering on the most.

Luckily for me, Sarah MacLean just released a new book, but once I’m finished with that, I will have read all of her romance novels. But here’s the best thing about discovering a genre: I have so much catching up to do, so many characters, settings, sub-genres, and happy endings left to explore. Expect to see romance reviews become a regular part of this blog; I’m excited to find (and share with you) more of the smart, feminist, charming, fun books this genre has to offer.

BAD GIRLS THROUGHOUT HISTORY by Ann Shen

If I imagine my book tastes as a pie chart, “badass historical women” would be a pretty big slice (a fact that probably won’t come as a surprise to many regular readers). From the time I was a child devouring the Royal Diaries series to the undergraduate thesis I wrote on Joan of Arc, I have always been captivated by the women who have made their mark on our cultural landscape, often by defying norms and expectations placed upon them. So when I heard about this book, I knew it would be something I would like, and I was right. Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World by Ann Shen provides great introductions to some of history’s most notable rule-breakers, but of course, the fantastic illustrations that accompany the essays make the book a complete delight to look at, and the combination of these elements made for a perfect way to pass an afternoon on a porch.

Bad Girls Throughout History takes the reader, well, throughout history, spanning centuries and cultures to highlight 100 women who, in myriad ways, left an impact on their society that resounds into our own. Shen is upfront in her introduction to the book that her list is certainly not exhaustive, but I found it to be an interesting variety. Some of the women were pioneers of science and exploration; others were groundbreaking artists. Still others were fearsome pirates and ruthless outlaws. Shen has not created a list of perfect role models, and the women found within these pages would not fit seamlessly into a Disney Princess lineup. I liked that the book included figures a little too intense for me to have learned about in school; I even read about some women that I had never heard about before. The list sometimes skews a little heavily towards entertainers, but I didn’t think this was a problem. The choices were always interesting and surprising with each turn of the page, and I really enjoyed getting a glimpse into the lives of women that I’m now excited to learn even more about (luckily, Shen included a detailed bibliography in the back of the book to encourage exactly that).

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the first thing that grabbed my attention about this book was the beautiful illustrations, and they are definitely as much of a draw as the essays. Shen’s art style is distinctive and pleasing, and this is a perfect book to flip through and linger over. It’s both comforting and a little sobering to thumb through the pages, to see how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go. It didn’t make me want to become a pirate, but it did make me want to work to defy expectations in my own life.

SEVEN BRIEF LESSONS ON PHYSICS by Carlo Rovelli

Between my year working at a used bookstore (with an employee discount, at that) and the bargains to be found on my eReader, I’ve noticed that the way I think about the book as a physical object has changed. I’ve devoured paperbacks with cracked spines and coffee-stained pages along with free ebook versions of classic tomes that would be a hindrance to carry around with me otherwise, and both of these types of books have valued places in my reading life. But I’m come to develop a deeper appreciation for the way a book feels in my hand, the way the cover art complements the prose inside, the way the story is bound and decorated into an art piece. The books that I buy new copies of are books that I know I’ll want to hold in my hands many times over, books that I can picture accompanying me from bookshelf to bookshelf like an heirloom. So when I took my first trip to the newly opened Gramercy Books in Bexley (review of that lovely store to come), I was looking for a new treasure. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli proved to be the perfect answer.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is exactly that: in seven short essays, Rovelli takes the reader through a foundational understanding of how our universe operates, from the scale of our smallest components to the complexity of the vast cosmos. Don’t be fooled by the brevity, though–the lessons are densely packed and almost startlingly informative–I often felt a little knocked over upon finishing a passage, and found myself wanting to reread the paragraphs to make sure I had absorbed everything within.

I don’t want to make it sound like the text was incomprehensible–just the opposite. While Rovelli doesn’t hold back on the science, he is able to convey his knowledge in a clear, even poetic way. It seems that his effort is not to obfuscate or show off, but to illuminate the inherent beauty he sees in the principles he’s illustrating. His prose is deft and adroit, and through it, Rovelli is able to bring the complex, often paradoxical concepts of physics into motion like the gears of a clock. The result is lovely, and almost meditative. I found that as I was reading, I felt grounded into the present moment and my surroundings in a way that I usually really struggle with. Reading about how intricately and perfectly the physical world around us functions helped me to sort through the seeming chaos of my day-to-day. When I started reading this book, I expected to understand the basic tenants of physics a little better. Instead, I came away feeling more connected to the world around me, appreciating the uncertainty I often feel–a rhythm that often feels like unpredictability–as instead a way of being in a world that has made sense out of chance, that has come together into something both functional and beautiful. The reality of space, both within and without us, becomes something of a communal experience in Rovelli’s hands, a way of feeling in company with the universe no matter what your religious leanings might be. As Rovelli writes:

“There is no such thing as a real void, one that is completely empty. Just as the calmest sea looked at closely sways and trembles, however slightly, so the fields that form the world are subject to minute fluctuations, and it is possible to imagine its basic particles having brief and ephemeral existences, continually created and destroyed by these movements. […]

Quantum mechanics and experiments with particles have taught us that the world is a continuous, restless swarming of things, a continuous coming to light and disappearance of ephemeral entities […] A world of happenings, not of things.”

If, like me, you often cry when reading Carl Sagan, I think you will get a lot out of this deceptively slim volume. If you’ve never really thought about what understanding physics has to do with understanding your own life, I still think you will get a lot from this book. I know it’s one I will carry from shelf to shelf, understanding a little more with each reread. The book itself may be a thing, but the experience waiting on the page is a happening, one I am eager to repeat.