Inspiring Excitement and Passion about History and the Humanities
I’m working on a new Renaissance English History Podcast about trade and exploration (because of course the two were linked – without the possibility of new trading markets, there could be no exploration of new lands). It’s impossible to read much about any of the early English explorations without stumbling across Richard Hakluyt, England’s first…
Caitlin Moran talks in her book, How to be a Woman, about the idea that often when we discover a particular book, we are suddenly introduced to all its friends, and so join this society that we hadn’t even known existed before. So if you, for example, start reading Dorothy Parker, suddenly before you know…
I’ve had a project going on over the past few years that I call my Shameful Shakespeare Catch-up (shameful because it’s shameful that so much of my life has gone by without me reading any Shakespeare at all – it’s been since college, which, sadly, was fifteen years ago) and today I read Richard III. I’ve…
I spent much of this past week being a Single Mama while my hubby was away in Amsterdam, and consequently, what with NaNoWriMo and Hannah refusing to nap because her schedule was all screwed up, etc., I haven’t had a lot of time to read. But with that said, I finished a biography of Mary…
In my professional life, one of my roles is as the New Products columnist for Public Libraries magazine, and much of what I wind up writing about are eBook products, since that’s where my big interest lies. I just found this new product that’s been around for a while for individuals, and just launched into…
I’m a big fan of the Messiah. Every year I go to a sing-a-long, and since I’ve been in LA it’s been at the Disney Center. I used to play my parents’ old record of the complete recording (vinyl, before it became trendy) and would study to it. I can whistle all four parts of…
I’ve said before that I’ve been clearing out my physical books the past few years; it’s my goal to eventually have my library only on my kindle, because then, when we move, I can just pack all my books in one teeny tiny box. I’m down to about 2-3 shelves, and working my way through them….
Because I spend a lot of time reading online publishing news, I kind of thought everyone’s heard about Oyster and Scribd, the two main ebook subscription services. I was recently reminded that most people don’t have their head stuck in digital publishing news the way I do, so I thought I’d talk about them here….
In my quest to turn my library completely digital and get rid of all my paper books, I’m finally catching up on some of the books that have been on my shelf for years, and one of those “finally” books is Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age by Fiona Maddocks. There’s a theme…
I’ve recently started reading The Greatest Traitor, The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England 1327-1330, by Ian Mortimer. I’m a big fan of Ian Mortimer, having read his Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the 14th Century several years ago. He writes about some obscure history in a…