I think I mentioned that I’m on a bit of a kick for books about Crazy Rich People and Their Big Houses. It started with Empty Mansions and continued with The Secret Rooms. It’s even bleeding into my fiction reading with The Emperor’s Children, which has its fair share of rich people craziness.

Not one to ignore a reading trend, I went looking for more books on this theme. No surprise, there are a ton to choose from. Here are a few that caught my eye:

740 Park by Michael Gross

Rich people live in nice houses. One of the ritziest apartment buildings in Manhattan is 740 Park Avenue, which has been home to old money legends like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers and remains the address of choice for the wealthy today. In 740 Park, Michael Gross looks at the history of the building and offers a “social history of the American rich.” And how about this for a “fun” fact about the building: “After World War II, the building’s rulers eased their more restrictive policies and began allowing Jews (though not to this day African Americans) to reside within their hallowed walls.” I must read this.

When the Astors Owned New York by Justin Kaplan

The Astors made their fortune by turning a fur trading monopoly into a real estate empire in Manhattan. In the Gilded Age, cousins John Jacob Astor IV and William Waldorf Astor used their fortunes to build the grandest hotel in New York, the Waldorf-Astoria, as well as other grand hotels. Apparently, the cousins were so argumentative that the hotel was actually two connected buildings that could be sealed off from each other — fun facts from When the Astors Owned New York. Family drama + money = my genre kryptonite.

Fortune’s Children by Arthur Vanderbilt II

I will pick up any book with a subtitle that discusses the fall of a famous person or family — it’s schadenfreude, not my best quality. But whatever! Fortune’s Children is the story of the Vanderbilt family. Patriarch Cornelius “The Commodore” Vanderbilt made his fortune in shipping and railroads, becoming the richest man in the world by 1877. Forty-eight years after his death, one of his descendants died penniless as part of the fall of the house of Vanderbilt.

The Phantom of Fifth Avenue by Meryl Gordon

If you can’t get enough of Huguette Clark, make sure to look for The Phantom of Fifth Avenue, which is coming out on May 27 from Grand Central Publishing. Based on the description, it sounds like this one will focus more on Huguette than her father, W.A. Clark, than Empty Mansions did. The marketing also claims that the author will “finally solve the mystery of what turned a Jazz Age socialite into an Internet Era recluse,” which intrigues me.

House of Outrageous Fortune by Michael Gross

Not one to stop at one book, Michael Gross will be back on March 11 with a new book on the rich and their crazy houses, House of Outrageous Fortune. In this book he’ll be taking a look at 15 Central Park West, a “new-moneyed wonderland that’s sprung up on the southwest rim of Central Park.” Tenants include actors, athletes, top executives and hedge fund heads. I’m sensing a Rich People Houses tour during Book Expo America this year?

Actually, I could have just made a list of Michael Gross’ books, which include titles like Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret Story of the Lust, Lies, Greed, and Betrayals That Made the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles and Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women. Dang!

Briefly // The weather has managed to throw wrenches into my plans twice this week. I was supposed to drive to Minneapolis on Wednesday afternoon for the Minnesota Newspaper Association convention, but a blizzard warning all day kept me at home until Thursday morning. I was planning to stay until Sunday — hanging out with friends and family — but a blizzard warning today prompted me to head home last night. While that leaves me with an unexpected Sunday to myself, I’m disappointed I missed time with people I care about. Welcome to winter in the country.

Time and Place // 1:45 p.m. at my desk in Morris

Eating and Drinking // Freeze dried pineapples and some peach black tea

Reading // I got very little reading done this week, but I did manage to finish The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud this morning. I have to think a bit about what I want to say about it, but it was definitely a good read. I’m not sure what I’ll pick up this afternoon — perhaps Marketplace of the Marvelous by Erika Janik for a paid review or Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco because Chris Hedges is scheduled to give a convocation at the local university on Tuesday.

Watching // I finished the first season of Arrow and have started making my way through the second season. My sister also informed me that Veronica Mars is available on Amazon Prime… so I may switch to a rewatch of that show!

Listening // I started Paddle Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman (I almost wrote “Ron Swanson” there…) on one of my drives this weekend. It’s pretty great, if you’re into Libertarian politics and don’t mind a liberal amount of cursing, but also a little disjointed.

Blogging // I didn’t mean to fall off the blogging bandwagon last week, but the weather and traveling ruined the plans I had to write during the week. I’m hoping to use much of this afternoon to write ahead a few posts, but since I’m not traveling at all in February I think it’ll be a better month.

Promoting // Cindie at Nonfictionado is hosing a President’s Day Reading Challenge, which sounds so fun! Since she’s also opened up the challenge to books about world leaders, I’m thinking about reading Elizabeth the Queen, a biography of Queen Elizabeth II by Sally Bedell Smith that I bought last year.

Hating // The weather, obviously. The view from my living room is depressing.

Loving // I’ve been working to finish up my journaling and thinking about my One Little Word for this year. To keep my word visible, I ordered some letterpress stamps that are sitting on my desk. I love them.

Avoiding // The outside?

Anticipating // Although I love the things I get to do in January, I’m excited that I will be home more on February. I feel like it’s going to be a month of getting settled and really focusing on the routines I want to build for this year.

Happy Sunday, everyone! What are you reading today?

Title: The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess and a Family Secret
Author: Catherine Bailey
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2013
Publisher: Penguin Books
Acquired: From the publisher for review consideration
Rating:

Review: In April 1940, John Henry Montagu Manners, the ninth Duke of Rutland, was diagnosed with pneumonia. But rather that spending time recuperating in his elegant personal rooms, John resisted the orders from his doctors and locked himself in a suite of dank, musty rooms in the bottom corner of his family’s vast castle. John had been in the rooms, the home of his family’s vast archives, almost constantly for months, but no one in the castle seemed to know what he was doing.

John died, likely alone, in the archives on April 21, 1940. Immediately after, his son had the rooms sealed. They remained closed for sixty years until historian Catherine Bailey became one of the first people allowed inside. As she combed the archives, Bailey discovered there were deliberate gaps in the collection. While organizing the archive, it seems John carefully destroyed all of the correspondence for three distinct periods. What secrets were so devastating he would sacrifice his life to make sure they never got out? Those are the stories that Bailey set out to tell in The Secret Rooms.

One of the things I loved about this book is that it’s a story of the process of uncovering a mystery as much as it is a book about the mystery itself. After setting up the Duke’s strange behavior at the end of his life, Bailey backs up to share how she stumbled across the mystery and her extensive process exploring, proving and disproving theories to explain the gaps that John put into his family history. If you are not into that kind of storytelling style, then I bet the book will be more frustrating than satisfying… but I totally loved it.

Unfortunately, the book started to lose a little momentum for me during the final third, when Bailey started to uncover the secret behind the third gap in John’s letters. The missing time period had to do with John’s service in World War I and his mother’s attempts to keep him away from the front in France. The book spent a lot of time filling in details about British and French strategy at the beginning of the war, a topic I find, to be honest, pretty dull. And without giving away too much, I’ll just say that the motivation Bailey uncovers for the final scandal John was trying to hide wasn’t nearly as surprising as I think Bailey tries to make it.

On the whole, I thought this book was a great read. The first two-thirds are awesome — gripping, mysterious and entertaining all at the same time. The final third is a little dull, but not so much that it took away from my overall enjoyment of this book. If you like historical mysteries and the tribulations of the rich and crazy, this book is worth picking up.

Other Reviews: Bookalicious Babe | Lovely Treez Reads |

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Time and Place // 10:50 a.m. at my desk

Eating // Shredded wheat (I have a strange fondness for this cereal) with strawberries

Drinking // Peach black tea, as part of an effort to drink up my existing tea collection before I buy new flavors.

Reading // After an initial reading binge to start out the year, my reading pace has slowed down quite a bit. Since I last checked in earlier this month I finished Trapped Under the Sea by Neil Swidey (February 18 from Crown) and The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey. The Secret Rooms, which I’m hoping to review this week, started out awesome, but faltered a bit near the end — probably a 4 out of 5 star read in the end.

This week  I started reading The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud, which I’d been toting around, intending to read, since Christmas. I’m also hoping to start a couple of nonfiction read this week — Marketplace of the Marvelous by Erika Janik for a paid review and Cairo by Ahdaf Soueif, which I received for review last month. But I’m traveling (again) this week, so who knows how much reading I’ll actually get done.

Watching // The boyfriend and I are just getting to the end of season two of Deadwood, which I think we’re both still enjoying a lot. The dialogue is a little hard to follow sometimes, but it’s an oddly funny show in a lot of moments. I also watched the first two episodes of Enlisted, a new comedy on FOX, that I thought was charming. It’s a family/workplace comedy about three brothers in the Army, a bit like of Brooklyn Nine Nine merged with Modern Family.

Listening // Paying for Spotify premium was, perhaps, the best music-related decision I’ve made in awhile. In addition to the curated playlists, I am head over heels in love with Home Free’s first album, Crazy Life. Home Free is a country a cappella group that won season four of The Sing-Off. I’m totally charmed by them.

Cooking // In an effort to eat more healthy foods, I chopped up all my fresh produce when I got home from the grocery store on Friday night. I also made some awesome minestrone to help get me through the week.

Making // One of my intentions for the year is to deal with my yarn stash, either by completing half-finished projects or getting rid of the yarn I’m not going to use. To that end, I picked up a couple of almost completed scarves and started working on them last night. I might be able to finish one during the football games this afternoon.

Blogging // This week I shared a post about personal reading analytics and a review of Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr. I haven’t decided on plans for the blog this week. At the very least, I’m hoping to have a review of The Secret Rooms up soon.

Promoting // I really loved Andi’s (Estella’s Revenge) post on how to keep a sustainable blog. It’s full of smart advice from someone who has kept a blog going for nine years (nine years!).

Hating // It’d be predictable for me to say the weather, so let’s just move on from this prompt assuming that I hate winter in Minnesota. On the plus side, cold weather gives me excuses to bust out the super warm scarves in my collection, including a beautiful blue and gray one that the boyfriend’s mom got me for Christmas. New for this week, I hate self-absorbed people. I had a string of frustrating back-and-forths at work this week that I’m hoping to not repeat for awhile.

Loving // I put in some work last night on the prompts and journaling for One Little Word, and I’m feeling really good about it. Just keeping my word — curate — in mind has helped me make some good choices this month and I’m excited to keep that momentum going.

Avoiding // I watched the first episode of the new season of Downton Abbey and… I’m just not that into it? The characters feel really static to me — they’re so boring I can’t get past it to just revel in the costumes and Maggie Smith of it all. Anyone care to convince me to keep watching?

Anticipating // I haven’t gotten to watch nearly as much playoff football this month as I usually do. I got most of my chores done for the weekend, so I’m excited for an afternoon being lazy in front of the television.

Happy Sunday, everyone! What are you reading today?