Skip to main content

Booking Through Thursday


Sometimes I feel like the only person I know who finds reading history fascinating. It’s so full of amazing-yet-true stories of people driven to the edge and how they reacted to it. I keep telling friends that a good history book (as opposed to some of those textbooks in school that are all lists and dates) does everything a good novel does–it grips you with real characters doing amazing things.

Am I REALLY the only person who feels this way? When is the last time you read a history book? Historical biography? You know, something that took place in the past but was REAL.


I read a lot of history! As a former history major, every now and then I’ll read some popular history, or biography. I’m currently reading Letters From Egypt, letters that Lucie Duff Gordon sent home from Egypt in the mid-19th century. I do enjoy reading historical nonfiction, but I probably only read about one such book a month. I also read memoirs; a couple of books ago I read Myself When Young, Daphne Du Maurier’s memoir of her early years. Before that was biography: Pearl Buck of China, by Hilary Spurling; and before that, another memoir, West With the Night. I’m making more of an effort this year to read more nonfiction, and I’m certainly sticking to my goal!
Labels:

Comments

Lisa said…
I never know what to say when people declare they don't like history or don't read history. I'm a former history major too, and I read a lot of history books. I definitely find some periods more interesting than others, and I do tend to focus on American and English history.
August 25, 2011 at 10:00 PM
Kate Maxwell said…
I commend you on having a goal to read more non-fiction. One day, when I am brave and strong, I will do the same! But for now, I cheat and read HFs.

Here is my answer!
August 26, 2011 at 5:26 PM
Kate Maxwell said…
ps..love your site name! I, too, like spending money on books!
August 26, 2011 at 5:27 PM
John (London) said…
I read a fair bit of popular history, altho' not biography (and I'm not the slightest bit interested in Duchesses of Devonshire, past or present)but I think once you know the main story,good historical novels can give you a better idea of how it must have been.
August 27, 2011 at 10:53 AM
Anonymous said…
I definitely find some periods more interesting than others, and I do tend to focus on American and English history.
web designer perth
September 12, 2011 at 8:31 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.
194 comments
Read more

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...
115 comments
Read more

Review: Mariana, by Monica Dickens

Mariana is the story of one young girl’s growth towards adulthood during the 1920s and ‘30s. The book begins when Mary Shannon is eight, and traveling with her somewhat flighty mother to Charbury, her grandparents’ house; and continues up through the time that Mary is twenty-four and waiting to hear news of her husband from the war. Monica Dickens (a great-granddaughter of Charles) depicts Mary’s maturation to adulthood with perfection. The reader sympathizes with Mary as she experiences the ups and downs of relationships and careers—experimenting with both seems to be pretty characteristic of Mary, as she grapples a bit with identity and independence. And yet, there isn’t the usual amount of teenage angst that one usually finds in a novel about growing up, which I found to be very refreshing. Mary is a sweet and sometimes naïve girl, but at the same time, she’s also wonderfully sarcastic towards her peers. She’s hard to like at times, but in an odd way, I found myself sympathizing wi...
2 comments
Read more