Sea of Poppies

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

This is my second book for Chunkster Challenge. I had intended to read it last year for the book club, but it just didn't happen so I've finally completed it for this year. At 468 pages it's a fairly quick read.
When I first read the book jacket about the slave ship, the Ibis, I was a little put off for some reason.
But once I got deeper into the book, I became intrigued by the story and the wide range of characters and social milieu. It's set in India, mid-nineteenth century, starting in the poppy fields along the Ganges inland from Calcutta. A peasant woman, Deeti, has a vision of a ship even though she's never seen the ocean or an ocean going ship.  Originating with that vision, Ghosh weaves together several different story lines including Deeti's, low-caste Kalua's, a disgraced raja Neel, a young Frenchwoman Paulette, and a young mixed race freedman from Boston Zachary.  There are other characters too who all play a part by ending up on the Ibis, going to Mauritius across the Indian Ocean.  The opium trade is an important part of the story and it's interesting to read how the British forced small Indian farmers to plant ever more opium to the point where people couldn't raise enough food to eat and faced starvation. That opium in turn was used to help ruin China's economy and initiate the decline which China is just now starting to recover from.
This book is first in a trilogy and ends in an ambivalent way.  We don't know what's become of our characters and hope that their stories will be continued in the next book, River of Smoke.  I enjoyed this book and hope to read the next installment.

Elizabeth of York

Elizabeth of York, A Tudor Queen and Her World, by Alison Weir


This is my first book for the Chunkster Challenge and at 476 pages, quickly read.
Elizabeth of York was of course Henry VII's wife and more famously Henry VIII's mother. 
She was the eldest child of Edward IV and after her two younger brothers (the Princes in the Tower) were killed or disappeared, she became the de facto successor to the throne. The book begins with her birth instead of an eagerly anticipated boy and follows with a childhood fraught with intrigues because this is the era of the War of the Roses.  At one point she is engaged to the Dauphin (the heir to the French throne) but shortly after that falls apart her father dies and the whole family is plunged into chaos.  What follows is well-known territory, Richard III's usurpation of the throne, his subsequent death on Bosworth Field, and the establishment of the House of Tudor by Henry VII.
Even though it is well known history, it's still quite extraordinary times to have lived through much less been at the epicenter. Marriage to Elizabeth is a big part of establishing the House of Tudor and Weir offers quite a bit of research to point out that many people felt at the time and later that Henry VII was only able to rule as king because he did marry Elizabeth and made her queen, thereby uniting the York and Lancaster factions of the royal family. Elizabeth as it turns out is a popular and capable
queen and she and Henry manage to forge a genuine bond. They suffer a major blow when their eldest son Arthur dies unexpectedly.  Elizabeth tries to have another child but sadly dies in childbirth.
Weir doesn't solve any of the Tudor mysteries but she does offer extensive detail of court life and she presents Elizabeth as a quietly assertive presence as opposed to being completely dominated by her husband and mother-in-law.
I have read other book on this time period, both historical and historical fiction, and it's amazing how the same historical facts can be used to tell different stories.  I read Sharon Kay Penman's "The Sunne in Splendour" and although it's historical fiction it deals with the same time period and SKP tells it all from Richard III's point of view and the reader ends of up sympathizing with Richard! I liked this book and recommend it to anyone who enjoys English history.