Sunday at Borders - 13 August 2006

New and reviewed this week in history and historical fiction:

History
Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power, by Psyche A. Williams-Forson, reviewed by Matt Lee and Ted Lee in the New York Times. Sounds like intriguing social history. What can we learn about a disenfranchised population from how they interacted with food?

The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations, by Paul Kennedy, reviewed by James Traub in the New York Times. One of the grand old men of the history of great-power politics takes on the UN. Probably not much new in it, but who reads Paul Kennedy to find something new?

Historical Fiction
The Judas Field: A Novel of the Civil War, by Howard Bahr, reviewed by Jeffrey Lent in the Washington Post. Yet another Civil War novel. But at least this one's about a lesser-known battle (Franklin, Tennessee), and looks like it may have an actual story in it.

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, by Gordon Dahlquist, reviewed by Kevin Allman in the Washington Post. Sometimes, no matter how wrong it is, it's fun to review a book by its title -- and why would anyone use both "Glass Books" and "Dream Eaters?" Allman's full review doesn't dissuade me ("poonderously ornate").

Helen of Troy, by Margaret George, reviewed by Clare Clark in the Washington Post. A woman's-eye view of the events in the Iliad, but without the gods, apparently. Too bad, they do a lot to explain why Helen wasn't completely nuts.

The Book About Blanche and Marie, by Per Olov Enquist, reviewed by Ruth Franklin in the Washington Post. Blanche Witman was Marie Curie's lab assistant, and later the subject of some ghastly medical experiments, and, in this book, she sleeps with her neurologist, too. Sounds like the Marie Curie parts may be interesting, though.