George V (1865-1936), grandfather of the current Queen, was not one of England’s liveliest monarchs; he collected stamps. (Apologies to philatelists everywhere.) Tommy Lascelles, an astute royal advisor (played brilliantly in The Crown by Phillip Torrens), said of George V, “He was dull, beyond ... [Continue Reading]
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
I love it when a novel inspires me to conduct extra research, and in The Weight of Ink there was plenty of material which demanded further investigation, like The Great Plague of London, Spinoza, and Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. Now you may prefer to read a book that requires no additional effort on ... [Continue Reading]
Black Maestro, The Epic Life of an American Legend by Joe Drape
Before the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, and NASCAR, the national sport in the United States was horse racing. At the turn of the last century, there were over 300 racetracks in the U.S., and over 500 million dollars was bet on horseracing by 1900. If you were a small, black boy from Bluegrass country, ... [Continue Reading]
The Eyes of the Queen and The Queen’s Men by Oliver Clements
The historical thrillers by Oliver Clements are set in the early, shaky years of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, where the old religion is not completely dead, and Elizabeth’s Catholic cousin Queen Mary makes mischief from her prison in Scotland. The Agents of the Crown series features the ... [Continue Reading]
The Maid by Nita Prose
Molly is the maid every hotel wishes they had on their payroll. Obsessively tidy, punctual, and methodical, Molly cleans each room at the Regency Grand Hotel as if it is a surgical theater. “Your room has been returned to a state of perfection,” she cheerfully exclaims as she finishes her ... [Continue Reading]
The Confidence Men by Margalit Fox
It all started with a homemade Ouija board. In an isolated WW I prisoner-of-war camp in Yozgad, Central Anatolia, British prisoner Harry Jones, a lawyer by training, alleviated the tedium of captivity by experimenting with a Ouija board. This exercise in spiritualism ultimately led to a ... [Continue Reading]
The Churchill Sisters by Rachel Trethewey
Without question, Winston Churchill was one of the great statesmen of the 20thC, but as a parent, less great. This is somewhat understandable as his own parents set a lousy example. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a harsh man and often unkind to his son. Winston’s mother, the lovely Jennie ... [Continue Reading]
Penny & Connelly & Osman
Louise Penny the Madness of Crowds As soon as I finished the seventeenth Chief Inspector Gamache novel, I complained to anyone who would listen! For those of you who missed my rants----The Madness of Crowds is terrible. If you haven’t read the Gamache novels, the earlier ones are wonderful and ... [Continue Reading]
Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
In this culinary memoir, Stanley Tucci’s life experiences, from his childhood in Westchester County, New York, to film sets around the world, are filtered through what was on the menu. Family members and friends (mostly famous) make cameo appearances, notable locales are described, and tragedies ... [Continue Reading]
A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell Reading histories of World War II, one could assume that the resistance movement in France was populated entirely by men. Not so, as two recent biographies of heroic women ... [Continue Reading]