I had a couple of books arrive yesterday that I’m most keen to read. One isn’t on Audible yet, and the other has a narrator that bothers me to no end, so… paper it is. Not that there’s ever a problem with that.
One of the side effects of going to Scarborough every year is that I renew my interest in British history… history that, admittedly, gets a bit spotty for me during Elizabeth’s reign and pretty much stops cold at James I right after the Gunpowder Plot until Victoria enters the picture. Most of what I know of that era is bleed-over from my studies in American history. I know… it’s a big chunk of missing info. All I can say is that my forte comprises the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
To that end, I’ve discovered a new book in Ian Mortimer’s Time Traveler’s Guide series, The Time Traveler’s Guide to Restoration Britain.
If this lives up to the promise of the previous books in this series, this is going to be fun.
But I started on the other book first. My latest nightstand read (for when insomnia strikes… which is hitting hard these days) is Diarmaid MacCullough’s The Reformation: A History.
I was really impressed with his massive tome on Christianity, which certainly covered this era, but this is a more laser-focused look that covers all of Europe, some of Asia and Africa, and far more than just the usual suspects. I read the introduction last night, and I already admire the scholarship that went into this. Among everything else, the man learned German to research this book.
StarWars.com dropped a notice yesterday that got me all excited. Ian Doescher is releasing the next in line of his Star Wars / Shakespeare mashups: The Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh. It’s due in October.
If anyone was going to pick this series apart and bash it to hell, it was going to be me for being cheap, but so help me… I can’t do it. This series is genius. Not only is the spirit of Star Wars fully intact, I daresay the Bard would approve as well. I’ve had a blast with the previous six, and especially with the full cast audio performance the original trilogy got. It bothers me to no end they never recorded the prequels. I truly want to see these plays performed live at Renaissance festivals. I really should do a proper review of them at some point. I did a small one for Audible at the time, but it was one of the reviews that I didn’t transfer here. Regardless, I’ve pre-ordered the book. It confuses me that, like it’s predecessors, the hardcover is $3 cheaper than the ebook, but I’ll take it. I most definitely want the hardcover.
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