Booknotes 5.26

A Gambling Man: Charles II’s Restoration Game, by Jenny Uglow, published 2010, biography, 645 pages. Quite liked it, which is no surprise because (as I believe I’ve mentioned) 1600s England is my new objet de fascination. There’s Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn, John Aubrey taking Charles to see Avebury, the birth of the Royal Society, the East India Company, the plague, the Great Fire, Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, and more. I also like Uglow’s writing and have started collecting all of the biographies she’s written. Extreme Economies: What Life at the World’s Margins Can Teach Us About Our Own Future, by Richard Davies, published 2019, nonfiction, 430 pages. An interesting look at economies in different edge-condition parts of the world — refugee camps, prisons, failed states, demographic ageing changes, tsunamis, etc. Learned a lot. The Tomb of Dragons, by Katherine Addison, published 2025, fantasy, 410 pages. Third main book in the Cemeteries of Amalo series. Enjoyed it as usual,…

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