medieval history – Cannonball Read 17

Inter-Sibling relationships on the National Scale

Four Queens: The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Goldstone

May 21, 2022 by faintingviolet Leave a Comment

Nancy Goldstone’s Four Queens is the sort of non-fiction I enjoy tucking in to. I travelled last week and wanted a book to read at the airport and on the plane to decompress and scratch the same mental itch as my marathoning Time Team has done (a show which helped me recognize names and places in this book!) and am I ever so glad that I had thought ahead to pack this book as well as Last Night at the Telegraph Club for book club […]

Fourteen Hundred Years of History; Still Uncovering the Women whose Achievements were Hidden.

The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry that Forged the Medieval World by Shelley Puhak

March 12, 2022 by faintingviolet Leave a Comment

I work in Public History, but any good public historian (or historian of any stripe) will tell you that it is nearly impossible to know all eras and areas well. There are inevitable blind spots – you must choose where to apply your limited time. When this year’s Read Harder challenge asked us to read a history about a period you know little about, I was stoked, an excuse to go back further than I normally do and read about some women doing the leading. […]

Academic Fiction at it’s Best but also Worst

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

February 10, 2019 by CoffeeShopReader Leave a Comment

It’s probably been 15 years since I’ve read anything substantial by Umberto Eco. I’m pretty sure I was maybe a sophomore or junior in college the first time I read The Name of the Rose. Now, I find myself in the position of needing to reread it for a work-related event. In the intervening decade and a half, I’ve gotten a lot better at Latin, and I’ve also been exposed to a lot more primary source material concerning theology, philosophy, science, literature, and history of the […]

Wales Finally Gets Its Due

April 17, 2018 by Jen K Leave a Comment

From the time I was a teenager through a good portion of my twenties, historical fiction was my go to genre. John Jakes, James Michener, Edward Rutherford and others were among some my most reliable authors. Michener and Rutherford would take one location, and use one or two families across the centuries (or millennia) to hit the highlights of English, Polish or Hawaiian history in one comprehensive tome, while John Jakes wrote sweeping family dramas spanning several books. I also loved novels like The Mists […]

The beginning of an excellent series

December 29, 2014 by Walking Widdershins Leave a Comment

I stumbled on this one, as I often do, through a Kindle deal. It’s a great way to discovery a new author or a new genre without spending a bunch of money, or at least without a trip to the library. Martin Jensen is a Danish novelist (there are a lot of really good Scandinavian writers, aren’t there?) who has written a bunch of books. From what I can tell, these books are the first to be translated into English. There are two right now […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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