I read much more non-fiction than fiction. Partly because I do a lot of background reading for my own fiction; partly because, after years of writing fiction, it's harder than it used to be for me to enjoy fiction as a reader.

This is the story of an art-history student who, while wading through some obscure historical archives in a crumbling villa on behalf of her professor, comes across the trail of a lost Caravaggio painting. The book follows her progress as she tracks it through 350 years of records, from Italy to Scotland and beyond. A fascinating look at the world of art historians, art restorers, museums, collectors, and the life of Caravaggio.

Well-written, painstakingly researched account of Palestine 1917-1948, during which time it was under British control. I knew a little about this period, but I find surprises on practically every page. Segev evokes the color, poverty, fanaticism, violence, and exoticism of Palestine in that era very well, and particularly gives one a sense of what Jerusalem was like in those days. The book covers the escalating conflict among Jews, Arabs, and Britons during the thirty years of Britain's ill-conceived and costly colonial experiment in Palestine, until the crumbling Empire finally abandoned it in 1948.

Chris Anderson was the keynote speaker at the Novelists, Inc. annual national conference in 2007. I found his talk fascinating, so I finally read his book. (There's a revised paperback version coming out in July 2008.) The book is about how new technology is changing distribution, which in turn changes the businesses providing products. For example, whereas only major publishers had the distribution capacity to get novels into the hands of readers twenty years ago, there are now many small presses publishing fiction these days, and distributing their product via the internet, both on their own websites and through online bookstores. This is one example of how changing distribution channels are changing the marketplace.

The Decline and Fall of the House of Windsor
by Donald Spoto

"A piercing analysis of an ordinary family cast in extraordinary roles." —San Francisco Chronicle

Books about the royals are my personal preference for a great "beach read," and this one is very good. It's a dozen years old and evidently out-of-print now, but second-hand markets carry it (which is where I recently found it). It's a well-written biography of the House of Windsor, skimming over George I through William IV, then focusing in detail on Queen Victoria and her successors. It gives a rather sympathetic portrait of Edward VII, who waited some forty years for his mother to die, and a particularly unattractive portrait of Edward VIII (eldest son of George V), who abdicated within a year of becoming king and spent the rest of his life roaming aimlessly with Wallis Simpson, the woman he subsequently married.

A detailed, well-researched, riveting, and often shocking and infuriating account of Hurricane Katrina. The book focuses on the days before the storm made landfall, and the week that followed, ending when the National Guard finally arrived in New Orleans. In addition to covering a broad range of people and events in depth, Brinkley (a historian who evacuated his home in New Orleans and began working on this book as the city flooded) also gives considerable background and context to what happened that week.

I'm blessed with a terrible memory, so I get to re-read books that I know I liked, without really remembering what happened in them. I read this a couple of years ago, found it thoroughly enjoyable, and am currently enjoying it again (with still no recollection of how it ends). Set at Princeton University, with a tremendous feel for the setting (since the authors went to college there), it's a literate, articulate, contemporary suspense novel, centered around a (real) enigmatic Renaissance book which inspires scholarly fanaticism.

I stumbled across this out-of-print book at a local store and have been delighted with it. I've been researching pre-Industrial England for a possible project (which won't even be started until some of my under-contract books are finished), and this book contains a wealth of detailed information about the daily lives and tasks of working people for centuries in rural England.

AudioBook

I love the comfort and convenience of watching movies at home, so I rarely go to the cinema. Also, I don't have cable. So you can assume I'm always talking about movies and TV shows that are available on DVD.

Here's one you may not have heard of, a British romantic comedy starring James Purefoy (best known here in the US for playing Mark Antony in HBO's series Rome) and Kevin McKidd (who also played a lead character in Rome). McKidd plays Leo, a gay man in London. He falls for a straight irishman, played by Purefoy, who—to his own surprise—returns the attraction. Their affair gets complicated, however, when they discover they have a past love-interest in common. Tom Hollander, a thirty-something character actor who was in Engima and Gosford Park, steals the film in a supporting role as Leo's flamboyant roommate involved in an oddball love affair with a real estate agent. There are many engaging character actors in supporting roles, too, including the always-delightful Simon Callow (from Four Weddings and a Funeral) and Harriet Walter (whom you may remember as Harriet Vane from the Lord Peter Wimsey series in the mid-to-late 1980s). This is a cute, good-natured film, fun and friendly.

Company
(India, 2002; in Hindi, with English subtitles)

I'm a big Bollywood fan. (I gather people in the Bombay film industry object to it being called Bollywood... but they probably should have thought of that before they stamped it all over their own websites, their own distribution companies, their own publications, and their own film titles. Too late, now, folks!) Anyhow... this is an excellent film by Ram Gopal Varma, an innovative Indian director who seems to have no middle-ground: when I see a movie by him, I either love it or I hate it. This crisp, energetic, intelligent film has some musical interludes, but it mostly eschews the Bollywood tradition of song-and-dance numbers. It's a gritty, violent tale of Bombay's underworld, focusing on the rise to power of a couple of gangsters, and the gang-war that follows. (The film was inspired by true events and real characters.) Ajay Devgan, a well-known leading man in India, gives a riveting, underplayed performance as a shrewd gangster. His girlfriend is played by the versatile Manisha Koirala, one of my favorite Indian actresses. And Vivek Oberoi, a youngish actor who trained in New York, gives a compelling performance as a street thug who's clever and ambitious enough to rise to power in a major gang.

I haven't seen that many movies in recent months that I really liked, but I have been watching some excellent television series. And this one, Foyle's War, is among my favorites! Michael Kitchen gives a layered, understated performance as a police inspector on England's south coast during World War II. The mysteries are average, not great, but the real focus of the show is life in wartime England, and the effects of the war on the characters' lives and relationships—and this is so well done that the show is deeply compelling. There are continuing, steadily developing themes (such as the growing strain that the characters experience as the nightly air-raids continue for months during the Battle of Britain), and there are also specific aspects of war on the home front that individual episodes focus on, such as the black market, the internment of foreign nationals, the pacifist movement, Nazi sympathizers, and espionage. In particular, through individual lives and stories, the series explores the moral compromises and horrible choices that individuals, soldiers, and governments make during a war. The series ended after four seasons, but reputedly there is a possibility of their returning to production to do more seasons.

Midsomer Murders
(UK, 1997-present)

My mom recommended this to me. It's a delightful British mystery series (that apparently has some of the same writers who worked on Foyle's War). It's been on the air for years, so there are many episodes, and more are coming. John Nettles plays a dedicated, likeable police inspector in current-day rural England, in a fictional county, Midsomer, that visually evokes the ultimate ideal of English countryside. The show is chock full of quaint English villages, beautiful English gardens, charming thatched cottages, cozy village pubs, crumbling stately manors, lush greenwood settings... and homical maniacs! (After watching the series for a while, you begin to think of the lovely English countryside as far too dangerous for a vacation.) Many of the episodes are built around popular English country life and folklore motifs, such as the Green Man, Celtic mythology, gardening fanatics, second sight, hauntings and ghosts, amateur theatricals, traveling folk, fox hunters, and so on. It's great fun! And since Midsomer County always seems to be in bloom and greenery, it's particular soothing to watch during a Midwestern winter.

Rome
(UK, 2005-2007)