NetGalley ARC | The Real Leonardo Da Vinci

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐

This is going to be pretty quick, because it became clear early on that there were lots of problems that still need to be ironed out in this one.

First, more editing. This reads like a college term paper at best and does not read as a professional author writing about easily the greatest polymath in history, his scores of interests, and unparalleled genius. Books posted to NetGalley are supposed to be decently close to a finished product, and I am hoping that this will see more editing before its August 31st publishing.

There are structural changes that would help the book flow better. Within chapters, information was further broken down into sometimes very short sections - for example, when discussing da Vinci's friends. This lead to the reading being very choppy and disjointed. This occurred in other chapters as well, such as that which explored (very surface-level only) da Vinci's own words on all manner of topics. I would much rather have seen his journals quoted than for the author to attempt to tell me what he thought or meant about any given subject.

We were given far more information than necessary about the Medicis, the Borgias, and the Templars even. I found the extra information about family members not needed. Really, the only figures necessary to talk about would be the ones da Vinci worked for. The author also addresses the issue of whether or not da Vinci was a Templar, and delved into The Da Vinci Code for a few pages.

The section on Freud analyzing da Vinci was super weird. I have said many times with historical figures that it is incredibly dangerous and also not really professional for someone from the modern era to attempt to diagnose or analyze someone so far removed from our world today. (Henry VIII is an excellent example, and everyone wants to to drop medical diagnoses on him and it doesn't matter, nor will we ever know for sure.) Plus, Freud is also dead, so any questions we might have about his thoughts/findings on da Vinci can't even be clarified.

There's a ton of repetition from section to section and chapter to chapter. There's also a lot of contradictions where there should not be, despite the fact that the author tells us eleventy bajillion times that da Vinci was a man of contradictions.

With major editing and polishing, I think this could be a decent contribution to texts on Leonardo da Vinci. At this time I can only recommend it with caution in this form as an ARC.

Cesare Borgia in a Nutshell

Rating: 2 Stars

The book serves its purpose, which is to provide basic facts about the subject matter. I have read several of the "In a Nutshell" books now, and intend to read more, but this one was not up to the standard that I have come to expect from the series. The writing itself was the issue at times, while there were incidents of repetition; it was simply not as professional as I expected.

The editing is what really sunk this book for me however, as there are numerous sentences that never should have made their way into a final manuscript.

"...With reports making their way back to Rome that since his death she seemed to have aged at least three times her age" (46%).

"...There is no evidence at all that he had gotten mad at all" (65%).

"Did he hide his ravaged face behind a mask? Probably not. Did he wear a mask? Yes, but it was more likely to keep himself disguised so he wouldn't be noticed, not to hide a blotched face away" (66%).

The first two are more examples of lack of editing, but the third is such a cluster of clunky, awkward sentences that it requires more than a quick dash of the editing pen. And to be fair, I'm pretty sure my attention would definitely be drawn to a dude in a mask if I thought that Cesare Borgia was lurking around nearby.

On a positive note, it is clear that the author has done a fair amount of research on her subject. The facts themselves are not the issue, and she appears to have a deep interest in Cesare and his family, and what I read here mostly coincides with what I have read elsewhere.

This book had the potential to be a valuable resource for quick information, and in that respect the book is passable. But the editing process should have been more thorough, as those sentences had no business in a final draft. Perhaps another round of editing would make this one a better read.  Until then, I can only recommend it with caution.

Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History — Without the Fairy-Tale Endings

Rating: 2 Stars

I originally rated this book 3 stars, but time away from it has given me a better perspective and I am debating between 1 and 2 stars even. Really, this book was not very good. Perhaps I felt inclined to give it the original 3 stars because within the first chapter there was a subsection about fierce queens from Antiquity and a page devoted to Boudicca. I would have liked to see a blurb about Eleanor of Aquitaine (though she did not live during Antiquity, I know), because she certainly bucked tradition in her life time with the way she took control of her life to end her first marriage and begin her second within weeks of returning home to Aquitaine (and most likely, she had been planning it long before).

But the more I thought about it, and looked back over the few notes I took while reading, I had to accept the fact that while parts of the book were entertaining, by and large the princesses were never really made to feel like real people. The author relied a lot on the myths surrounding these women and did not do a decent enough job separating the two. I guess I would have been more willing to rate the book higher had the two been more clearly divided. Perhaps even presenting the myths first and then following up with what was true in the myth, why the myth grew to overtake the facts we do know, etc. But there was none of that and so the author does herself a disservice, and her readers as well.

Immediately in the introduction, I had some misgivings about the book. Even in the table of contents, the author referred to Isabella of France (wife of Edward II, more on these two in a minute) as a she-wolf. It was at that point I already expected much of the book to be a regurgitation of gossip and nonsense. She-wolf was not a compliment at that time, and using it now without explanation is no better.

While still in the introduction, I found it kind of ridiculous that the author would call her book 'Princesses Behaving Badly', and then rant against Disney Princesses and these cultural and gender norms that exist in society now. Why would these princesses in the book be considered to be 'behaving badly' then, unless the expectation of the behavior was the opposite, and more Disney-like? The message there is already mixed, and nothing is ever done to clarify it.

Back to Isabella and Edward II. Edward was not the king his father and grandfather were, nor his son Edward III would become. I have always felt a bit bad for him, as he enjoyed activities that were considered beneath a king, but he made his own problems as well when he let his favorites sway his opinion and policy. Piers Gaveston was a terrible influence on Edward and there will be speculation until the end of time about whether or not Edward was gay and Piers was his lover. What matters in that bit of information is that Edward never bothered to at least pretend that Isabella mattered, and from their wedding day on it was clear she was of no importance to him - considering the fact that he gave the jewels she'd brought with her to Gaveston, and Gaveston sat with Edward at the coronation, in what should have been Isabella's place.

This quote was one of a few that really sealed the deal for me on how untrustworthy the book is:

"When Gaveston was around, Edward was worse than useless, barely able to hold a conversation, much less govern. When Gaveston wasn't around, Edward was a wreck" (page 79).

This seems a bit...sensational, don't you think? I was interested to read the chapter on Isabella, but it ended up just being a rehashing of rumors and gossip. In looking at the bibliography for this chapter, I found that the author only used one book, Helen Castor's 'She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth'. That in itself is kind of shady, to use only one source. and Castor's book is definitely not sensational and gossipy. I mean, it has its moments, but it was still well-researched and I liked it. Isabella's behavior was more then justified, by our standards today anyway. As far as we can ever really know, Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer took power and eventually Edward II died in captivity under dubious circumstances. At the time her behavior was considered unacceptable, and that is why once their son, Edward III came to power, he had Mortimer executed and Isabella basically under house arrest for the rest of her life.

Basically, the book started out decent, but even after the rough introduction I had concerns. By page 55 when the author referred to Tuthmosis III as 'T-III', I just could not take her seriously. There were some solid stories but over all this is more entertainment than academic. That is not a bad thing necessarily, but it is problematic when myths are presented as fact. If there was not enough factual information about someone available to us today, then perhaps that is a sign that they should not be the subject of a book.

Take it or leave it, but keep in mind its shortcomings.