I’ve been reading a steady stream of factual books. This is shocking, for my reading habits generally are ‘fiction with a sparse, tiny, weeny smattering of factual’.
But no. Not this month. Nor last month. I’ve been reading books and they’ve all been off my factual shelf.
(Quite literally. I have a shelf dedicated to factual books. It’s at eye level. I haven’t necessarily read them all, but they do make me feel intelligent.)
Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller
by Jennifer Kloester.
I wouldn’t say that I loved this book – I’ve even removed a star, for I like to re-award stars after a little thought marination.
I liked to learn of Georgette’s personal life because I’m a stalker even though what I read was a tad depressing.
Why I Didn’t Love This Biography:
- There was a heavy focus on bills, and the need to pay them. Georgette was the family bread-winner and she had to write to keep her family’s head above water. It was a little depressing to be constantly reading about them – and it must have been even more so to have this heavy burden.
- Her letters were one-sided. We only really read her letters to people and though I love the woman’s work, constantly reading of her very. strong. will and so very self-deprecating nature was a little … overwhelming?
- I don’t think we’d have got on. I know. It’s an enormously sad fact, but I rather think I’d be diving under the sofa or out of the window if she was coming. She sounded like a strong character who I’d rather admire from a distance. A great distance.
- Rather unconventional, she seems. (Like Yoda, I speak.) Her relationship with her husband was a meeting of minds and hearts, but quite passionless. And for me, I find this rather dispiriting. She wrote such wonderful novels, and I’d like to think she had a complete Happy Ever After.
She once said that she was to be found in her work. I think I’ll enjoy finding her there, rather than in her biography.
Narconomics: How To Run A Drug Cartel
by Tom Wainwright
This book. This book. I couldn’t put it down. I came home from work, found this had arrived, picked it up, and gobbled the whole thing down in one afternoon/evening.
It. is. so. interesting.
I’m not entirely sure how Wainwright does it, but once I’d finished reading this book, I felt that I’d completed a course in:
- business studies
- economics
- criminology
- how to run a drug cartel
- how to destroy a drug cartel
… and found it all fascinating. Every bit of it. This is quite astounding for business and economics are not two words that bring much excitement to mind.
‘He is one of the luckiest journalists alive just to have survived his research,‘ says the Washington Times in the first page blurb. And he is.
But honestly, if you want to be informed about the war on drugs, on how it could be more effective, on how the drug cartels work and how their franchising is a bit like McDonald’s (for realz!) I’d highly recommend this book.
It’s the best one I’ve read this year.
Happy reading!
of words & books 