Ultimately I have to take this book at its word(s) because I have such an otherwise facile understanding of Roman history that I am a stuck/kept audience member. I found the sweep and scope of this book both manageable and readable. The research seemed quite sound, and the theorizing that does happen (which is relatively little) is mostly sidebar commentary and joking more than interpreting. This is a history of the beginnings of Rome. There’s a debate that was and maybe still is happening in […]
Assassination Vacation (literally! I listened to this on vacation)
So I took 2 months off of reviewing. The BE clan decided to travel all over the country and world so there was hardly any time to update my reading spreadsheet, let alone write a review. But we’re back and finally all healthy so moments of free time are now available! Welcome to catch-up. And let’s start with an adorable history book about presidential assassinations! In Sarah Vowell’s vein of quirky, off kilter history books this one talks about the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, […]
Murder in a Small Village
Book 11 in the series moves Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, out of London to the seemingly sleepy Shropshire village to visit the grandmother of Jamie Knox (a man who was most likely a half-brother, and killed in the last book because of his resemblance to Devlin) and to hopefully uncover more clues to his parentage. Alas, even in such peaceful surroundings the grim reaper raises its ugly head. A young woman is discovered dead on the bank of the river, and all indications point […]
Agoraphobia: A study
If you told me this was required reading for Australian middle schoolers, I would believe it. It has that quality of an obvious kind of black and white ethical framework, the story of young people, the story of oppression, and then fortitude of a hard journey all within a small package. I think it’s a pretty good book. But the book itself lends itself well to young readers because it’s really good at creating a clear sense of the context of the events. In this […]
He’s Lost His Head – How Frightfully Gauche
Book 10 in the Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series begins with a grisly discovery of a decapitated man at Bloody Bridge, his head mounted on a spike. The man was Stanley Preston, a wealthy man who owned a plantation in the West Indies. He was also a man who collected mummified heads (what fun), and a lead coffin strap linked to King Charles 1648 was found near his body, indicating he may have been lured to his death with the promise of the head. As […]
“There were human beings and there was Audrey Hepburn.”
Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. was my selection for this quarter’s Book Club, although it wasn’t selected. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s was one of the earliest pictures to ask us to be sympathetic toward a slightly immoral young woman. Movies were beginning to say that if you were imperfect, you didn’t have to be punished.” While Wasson’s main goal is to educate his audience on how Breakfast at Tiffany’s went from novella to motion picture but it is also a brief history about the shift from movies in the ’50s […]
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