The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The Intersecting Lives of Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped (Paul Strathern)

A mouthful of a title, to say the least. It reflects the author's ambition, since he meant to write a book about the brief period--less than a year--in which Leonardo Da Vinci worked for Cesare Borgia, while Niccolo Machiavelli served as Florence's envoy to Borgia's court.

Of course, most people know something about these three men. Strathern doesn't make any big revelations about these three men, but for someone that hasn't read much about this time period, this book will be very interesting.

One statement he does make that I hadn't considered before referred to Leonardo's influence on the world. The man that made drawings of helicopters and tanks, who painted the famed Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, had little to no influence on science. In part, this happened because Leonardo decided to keep many of his ideas secret. Strathern posits that this happened in part because of the horrors that Leornardo saw while working for Cesare Borgia.

Few historical figures stir such sinister feelings as does the Borgia family. Really, they didn't do anything that most powerful families wouldn't do back in those days (even nowadays). Yet they did do it openly, which came as a surprise. I went to Catholic school when I was little, so reading about the Borgias comes with a few shocks. Although I don't necessarily think that some of the allegations about them are true, I wouldn't put it passed them. Cesare Borgia took advantage, schemed and plotted, and he succeeded for as long as his father lived. Like Strathern, I agree that he may not have imploded if he hadn't been at death's door when Alexander VI died. Would Italy become a unified country 300 years earlier than it did if Cesare Borgia had triumphed? Who know. In the end, nothing that he built outlasted him. And at his death, he was only 31 years old.

Strathern does more for Machiavelli than for his other two subjects. Maybe this is because I knew less about him than about Leonardo and Cesare, but I think this may be the case for most people. Strathern quotes many of Machiavelli's letters to his friends and gives a pretty good idea of Machiavelli would have been like. Indeed, I think he would have been a lot more interesting to talk to than Borgia or Leonardo. (Borgia might try to maim or kill you, while Leonardo might have been too smart for me to understand.) Despite his fame for writing a manual for dictators, Machiavelli doesn't like the type of person that would have put people in harms way for no reason. If anything, he understood the world around him and pointed out truths that plenty of people didn't want to hear.

Sometimes Strathern repeats himself a little too often. Each chapter reads almost as if you didn't have to read the ones before. I would understand that if it were a book of essays on these three men, but it isn't. Other than that, Strathern writes in a straightforward, smart, yet accessible manner. Quite enjoyable.

Next up: Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff. And I'm super excited that it finally came in at the library for me. I've read plenty about her, but reviewers sang Schiff's praises for her writing so I'll give this one a go.

Fly Away Home (Jennifer Weiner)

I can't believe it has been over ten years since I first picked Jennifer Weiner's first novel, Good in Bed. The first time I saw the title I thought it would be smutty. Pleasantly, it wasn't. This didn't stop the security person at the airport to make a comment about how much she loved erotic novels while she was going through my very carefully packed bag.

Regardless, I have read almost all of Weiner's books since. I've loved everyone of them (although Certain Girls didn't really do it for me as much as the others). Fly Away Home totally lived up to my expectations.

Weiner has three narrators to tell the story. Sylvie, the mother, is married to Richard Woodruff, a US senator. Diane and Lizzie are her daughters and they both have their issues. And no, they aren't minor, quirky issues. These are big problems. The book starts with the incident that serves as a catalyst for Sylvie reexamining her life and her relationship with her daughters. Richards is discovered to have had an affair with an aide, who he helped land a job at a DC law firm.

Old story, right? Practically a cliche, you say? Well, in Weiner's hands the reader gets to see the fall out from the family's perspective. She does still cover themes that are staples for her, such as body image and the relationship between sisters. It also doesn't paint any of these women's choices with a black and white pallet. They may not always be sympathetic. Still, people aren't perfect and making bad choices doesn't necessarily make you a bad person.

This book has been labeled as "chick lit". Like Wiener, I do find it a little offensive that so much of women's fiction is pigeon-holed into this label. Lets face it, it kind of belittles them. We don't have a genre of "dude lit" even though it should totally exists. Anyway, Weiner is a fantastic writer and she totally deserves more respect.

So that's my love letter to Jennifer Weiner. I will most certainly read anything else she puts out for years to come.

Next up: I think this is the first nonfiction book I review here. The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The Intersecting Lives of Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped.

The Bad Girl (Mario Vargas Llosa)

I read this for the book club I participate in. The idea had been that we expand our horizons and read something from a foreign author. Mario Vargas Llosa made a great choice, since he has just won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

A friend of mine had told me she wasn't a fan of Vargas Llosa, so I hadn't felt the need to rush to read any of his things. I must say that most of my impressions about Vargas Llosa came from her.

So when this book totally surprised me. Of course, Vargas Llosa is a good writer. My friend didn't say otherwise. But I knew he was fairly conservative and my friend had confirmed this.

This book may have a political message, but if it did I missed it. It's about Ricardo, a rather unambitious though intelligent man whose main goal in life is to live in Paris. When he is a teenager, two sisters that say they hail from Chile move into his barrio in Lima. One of them steals his heart forever.

Like Ricardo, we only know her consistently throughout the book as "the bad girl". She calls him "the good boy". Both labels fit quite perfectly. Ricardo is good guy that loves this woman despite everything she does to him. And she pulls quite a lot of crap on him. She constantly comes into his life and leaves him, moving all over the world. He does move to Paris fairly early in the book, realizing his one goal early in his life. This isn't enough for her. The bad girl needs to constantly move, constantly connive, constantly deceive. She wants a level of security that is unattainable and that eludes her because of her own need to continuously look for something better than what she has at that moment. I found it really hard to have any kind of sympathy for her.

Ricardo knows he shouldn't continue his relationship with this woman. Yet he can't help himself. No matter what she does, he can't stop loving her. I have yet to meet a man like this, but I'm sure there are a few out there like this. I identified with him a lot, probably more than I would like. He doesn't want to conquer the world, he just wants to live quietly in Paris with the woman he loves. That sounds pretty good to me.

One important thing: I read the Spanish version of this book. So my opinion of the writing doesn't take into account the translation. Vargas Llosa doesn't need me to say he is a good writer. He has a million and a half prizes. I can only say that I enjoyed it and didn't find it stuffy or too high end for me to understand. I'm glad I read it.

Next up: Fly Away Home, by Jennifer Weiner.