Inspiring Excitement and Passion about History and the Humanities
I recently stayed up Really Late several nights in a row to finish The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett. Let me just say, it was worth the extra cups of coffee I needed in the mornings to function properly. I absolutely loved this book. The Versions of Us tells three separate stories of Eva…
Now that I’m back in Spain and not solo parenting like I had been there for a while, I’ve been doing a lot more reading. My goal is always to read about 5 books a month, but I haven’t had a month this year where I’ve achieved that. Last week I did finish two, though….
A few weeks ago I was reading a book in the bathtub. This isn’t a new occurrence. Reading in the bathtub is one of my favorite luxuries. What happened during that particular bath, though, was kind of a big deal. I’ve been ruminating for a while on different projects I could start – because writing…
Lauren Johnson is a medieval historian and consultant for Past Pleasures (the UK’s oldest costumed interpretation company) and a storyteller who has appeared on radio and TV. For all those reasons, I was excited to read her origin story about Robin Hood, and had high expectations for the history. In general, I was happy with…
It’s been a while since I’ve written about writing. With my babyloss memoir, the NetGalley Marketing Experiment has about a month left in it, and I’m continuing to get really good feedback, which makes me feel validated, but hasn’t resulted in a lot of book sales yet. In fact, I got this review last week:…
I found this on my old blog from 2012, and it seemed interesting and relevant, and worth re-posting. Enjoy! Did you watch the Venus Transit this year? You know, when Venus’s orbit makes it appear that it’s going across the sun, and it happens every 110 years or so? Well, that’s not entirely accurate. It…
I’ve written before about how much I love this author, who epitomizes all that is good in hilarious historical humor (history “as it might have happened, but probably didn’t”). The best way I can describe him is to tell you to imagine reading Monty Python and the Holy Grail in a novel format, only slightly funnier. I…
A diversion from history for a moment: I’m in Frankfurt right now for the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is the world’s largest publishing trade show with 300,000 people in attendance. This is my first time at the fair. I’m incredibly fortunate in that my location right now – Spain – is close enough to make…
History can often seem intimidating because it seems like only the stories of dead white men. And there’s a reason for that. The white men were the ones who kept most of the records, being the ones who were educated and literate, and so they are the ones about whom we know. I am…
I recently came across a post on medievalists.net about a thesis by Christian D. Knudsen concerning sexual misconduct in convents and monastic houses. The idea that the monasteries were corrupt, and in “decline” just before the Dissolution is a narrative that has been largely unchallenged for 500 years, and in that light the Dissolution undertaken…