How do you fall in love with a city? I've fallen in love with a few of them: London, Venice, Istanbul. I fell in love with London before I ever got there, so when I did get there, I don't think I even saw the London of today. It seemed as if I already knew it like the back of my hand. Everywhere I went, familiar names called out to me. Baker Street, Bloomsbury, Tower Bridge. The Clink. The Clink!? Well, that explains that. Istanbul. Read more about Roman Reverie
Even with my reservations, I think every one of these is worth the price of admission - and should you use one of my links to buy a ticket, I get a piece of the action. Happy reading.
Written by a great-granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West about a summer a couple of years before the Great War, it is a reminder that the days of our innocence were not only not quite as innocent as we might have imagined, but far more innocent than we knew in light of the horror that is to come. A cautionary tale. Read more about Reading List October 2014
If you tell me the wars are over, then I know the shield walls will be made very soon. Uhtred of Bebbenburg, hero of Bernard Cornwell's .
One hundred years ago this month, the shield walls were made once again, this time with artillery. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, the walls have, are, and will be raised again and again and again, wherever people seek to end war once and for all. Read more about The Forever War
Elizabeth of York's mother, Elizabeth Wydville, queen to King Edward IV, died in 1492. When I read that, I thought well, there goes the Middle Ages. Because elsewhere in the world, completely unknown to the English crown, a sailor from Genoa thinks he's about to land in Japan. Cipango, he called it, after a tale told by Marco Polo. Read more about The Last Medieval Queen
In the early years of the 20th century, there was only one damned lawyer that the damned themselves could turn to, and John A. Farrell tells his riveting story in . Read more about One Damned Lawyer
The people who don’t get out much.
That’s how I see people who don’t read fiction. Apparently, 42% of college graduates never read another book after college; 33% never read another book after high school for the rest of their lives. Read more about The People Who Don't Get Out Much
I don't remember where I came across my first issue of Parabola, but I know it was sometime in the spring of 2001. That first issue was called The Garden. Beautiful to the senses and nourishing to the soul and body, a garden was our first home. So said the cover blurb. The first piece inside was the story of Rapunzel. Read more about Parabola
Going for a short entry today, these are the current books I'm reading, looking forward to how they will all, in one way or another, add to The Story:
- How the world of 19th-Century France produced the woman we know as Colette and how she, in turn, added to what women can be today.
- One woman's connection with the music that helped make my world. I'm beginning to see strands of connection between this world and that of the world of Colette - both growing out of and contributing to a cultural shift. Read more about Reading List February 2014
I've wandered, of late, into the forest that is the Wars of the Roses, where you can't always see the forest for the trees. Speaking of trees. Read more about The Last Medievals
I was 10 years old when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed to the top of Mt. Everest, but I must have been a little older when I discovered John Hunt's . Read more about Climb Every Mountain
