Inspiring Excitement and Passion about History and the Humanities
I keep hearing the name Inigo Jones in various books I’m reading, and it always makes me kind of want to giggle because it reminds me of Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride. It’s kind of hard to take seriously someone who makes you think that they’re about to jump out at you and accuse…
Normally on Thursdays I do a little bit on ebooks and libraries in a bit I call Writing About Reading. Today I’m reblogging my column from over at The Digital Reader which was published on Saturday. Cool beans. — When most people, even book publishers and ebook readers, think of libraries they often still bring up…
So let me tell you a story about a weekend in Cornwall in 2000. I had just moved to the UK about 4 months before, and one of my dear friends was having a party in Cornwall. He rented out a farmhouse, and was going to have a massive end-of-summer party with a DJ, tee-pee’s…
In my seemingly never-ending quest to get rid of all my physical books before we move (and buy an ebook of ones worth keeping, but getting rid of the physical book either way) I’ve been going through the stack of books that I’ve kept around which look interesting. One of these was Worldly Goods: A…
Yep, I’ve had a little break from blogging recently, mostly doing a lot of writing and working and other fun creative things. But let’s get back to business, shall we? Everyone who has studied even a smidgen of music has heard about the Bach clan. Johann Sebastian and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel (known as…
Happy 2015! What kind of special foods do you eat on New Year’s Day? If you’re like me and/or you have German ancestors, or you were raised in Lancaster PA, you probably ate pork and sauerkraut today. We had ours. Hannah absolutely adored the sauerkraut. My hubby isn’t a sauerkraut fan, but he ate the…
This past week I’ve been reading two books, one of which, by the previously-blogged-about-and-Monty-Python-esque Howard of Warwick was a murder mystery set in a monastery near Lincoln, and the other, a fairly scholarly book about King Oswald and Britain around the time of Bede, was mind-numbingly boring, though based on the Amazon reviews, I’m clearly…
I’ve been busy the past few days getting another Renaissance English History Podcast episode researched, written, recorded, and posted. I’m always getting emails and facebook messages asking me what the music is that I use in the intro. So I decided to do my Old Music Monday on the intro music to my podcast, which…
So recently we were at Applebee’s (because we are officially Old People who go to Family Restaurants where it doesn’t matter if Hannah cries a little bit, and they have unlimited refills of diet coke) and I saw something in the desserts that spoke to me. Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel Bites with a cream cheese dipping…
It seems that my love affair with most chick lit is coming to a sad and ugly end. Maybe it’s because I’m not 28 and single any longer, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. Most of what I read that passes for contemporary romance is ridiculously unrealistic, trite, sappy, and has one dimensional characters….