Be-Gothamed

Mea culpa for my blogging negligence of late.  I could cite numerous causes and influences, but why dwell?

I continue to read books made of cellulose, if you can believe it, more than a few borrowed from the public library, a fantastic institution, whose evolution (and preservation) intrigues me.  A wiki search on "public library" is in my future.  I have maintained a personal reading list for a number of years now, mostly as a personal goad.  An enthusiastic bibliophilic co-worker recently nudged me into participating in a site by the name of Goodreads.  My somewhat sorry record for 2013 so far suggests that I should not cite book-reading as a factor in my blogging sluggishness.  Both are down in the record books, probably for some of the same reasons.

Anyway, one of the more terrific recent books I have read was The Gods of Gotham, by Lyndsay Faye.  Historical fiction is not something that naturally beckons me.  But I'm sure glad this did.

Set in the mid-19th C in NYC, the insurgence of immigrants from Ireland courtesy of the potato famine and the association of these incoming folks with "romanism" and the ever-so-familiar bigotry and hysteria towards anyone "different" this triggers are a major theme of the book.

This is highly-recommended fiction that is exceptionally well written and manages to speak to our time quite eloquently to those who are receptive.

I know who you are.