“Throughout the centuries, lots of women have married princes. It is supposed to be the stuff that fairy tales are made of; a confection of dashing grooms and swooning brides and true love that conquers all. Needless to say, the reality was somewhat different.” From the introduction of The Wives of George IV Now that… Read More Book Review: The Wives of George IV by Catherine Curzon
I didn’t go to Slovenia with the intention of buying a book, but I don’t think anyone is surprised that I have! Especially since books are a huge deal in Slovenia – one thing I remember from the free walking tour is that the figure in the square is not a general but a poet… Read More Book Review: Slovenology by Noah Charney
Since COVID-19 looks like it will be endemic, I thought it would be useful to know a bit more about pandemics in general. Which is why the book Plagued by John Froude attracted my attention – I thought it would be useful. As its title says, Plagued is a book about plagues and it covers:… Read More Book Review: Plagued by John Froude
I haven’t taken part in a blog tour in years because I hate scheduling posts (and this tour is on Instagram!), but I made an exception for The Case of the Murderous Dr Cream because it’s historical true crime and I’ve never heard of Dr Cream before. Thomas Neill Cream was a Canadian born in… Read More Book Review: The Case of the Murderous Dr Cream by Dean Jobb
This has been sitting in my Overdrive TBR list for quite some time, but a recent episode on Dark Histories on this very topic spurred me to finally borrow it. If you’ve listened to the episode, there’s a lot of information overlap, but if you haven’t, The Lost City of Z is an entertaining introduction… Read More Book Review: The Lost City of Z by David Grann
This is another one of my BookXcess books and I got it mainly because the idea of a history of neighbours sounded intriguing, even if it was about the idea of neighbours in England. Cheek By Jowl is a history of neighbourhoods and the idea of “neighbours” from thirteenth century to present day England. It… Read More Book Review: Cheek by Jowl by Emily Cockayne
I decided to buy this because the topic was interesting (and felt kind of meta) but sadly, the book did not live up to its promise. According to its blurb, A Brief History of Biographies will take a look at biographies throughout the ages and see “how our attitude to life-writing [has] been affected by… Read More Book Review: A Brief History of Biographies by Andrew Brown
After reading Alison Weir’s biography of Katherine Swynford and one of her novels, I was pretty keen to read more and when I saw Queens of the Conquest going for about SGD8, I could not resist it. And yes, I will be letting you know if I get a book at a bargain because how… Read More Book Review: Queens of the Conquest by Alison Weir
I’ve heard of Mary Beard for quite a few years, and have always intended to read her books, but as you know, my TBR list is long and I haven’t quite gotten around to all of them. But when I saw a copy of Confronting the Classics at an extremely reasonable price, I decided that… Read More Book Review: Confronting the Classics by Mary Beard
If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen me share stories from this hilarious book. Ask the Past is a collection of some of the weirdest (and not so weird) advice found in various books. There’s not much to say about this, but I wanted to share some of my favourite pieces of… Read More Book Review: Ask the Past by Elizabeth P. Archibald