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 It’s been all over the news in the last few weeks in the UK – archaeologists digging in Leicester may well have found Richard III. Even if it wasn’t across the internet, it’s now been covered by the magazines I read.
When a group of archaeologists from the University of Leicester began digging in a car park in a search for the Franciscan Priory where Richard was supposedly buried, I admit I was sceptical. Archaeology is fantastic and reveals tons of information that informs our understanding of the past, but searching for one person whose burial site has long been lost? I thought they were foolish to publicize the fact that they were actively looking for the king who has been the source of so much speculation because it was so unlikely that they’d find him. Yet here we are, with the archaeologists having found a skeleton that has clear evidence of unhealed battle wounds and one shoulder higher than the other, buried in the highest status position in the church and with evidence of a hurried burial without a coffin. With the dig covered in at least two of the bigger magazines this month, it’s a subject that has attracted a huge amount of attention:
I’m fascinated by this in a sort of morbid way. Like probably most others who study history, I like to visit the mortal remains of the people that I find most interesting. Plenty of them have been lost, and Richard III has always been one of those figures. Finding his bones, if the DNA analysis proves that they are his, changes a few things about history the way we’ve understood it. We may now discover if his shoulder was actually higher on one side and how the end of the battle went, but we’re still not going to know whether or not he killed the famed princes in the tower. Yet this particular king has caught public attention for hundreds of years, both as a popular villain and as a king that some feel deserves a break. He has a society devoted to him and many many works of history and fiction attempting to do one of the two.
I waver between these two attitudes. Understanding the context around the history makes the question even harder to answer, although I tend to lean towards the fact that they were murdered under his watch these days. Will that stop me from visiting his grave, if this is him and when they finally decide where he will lie (in York, as he possibly wished, or in Leicester, where he was found) after all these years? No, I don’t think so. If anything, it’s incredibly interesting to me to watch this unfold, as it will inevitably become part of Richard III’s history, more than five hundred years after his death, even if it isn’t him. It is a tiny part that I actually get to live through, and these reminders that history happens all around us, all the time, are always welcome.
Have you heard about this potential discovery? What are your thoughts?
This past week, we had a flood here in York. One of the most popular pictures going around on Facebook was Clifford’s Tower, our last particularly visible remnant of York’s two castles, surrounded with water. Here’s one of them, which was shared by English Heritage earlier this week:
 photo from English Heritage York floods frequently as a result of being in a valley and situated in between two rivers, the Fosse and the Ouse. In short, the reason for the town’s location and, in the past, prosperity, results in the flood which threaten it. usually it’s the Ouse that floods. Usually the floods don’t get far enough to do much other than overflow the river’s banks and get in the racecourse and the gardens, but this one was worse than usual. We were fortunately unaffected, although some drains overflowed just two streets away from ours and did get into people’s houses and a local pub’s cellar, but it served as a stark reminder that we’re never too far from Mother Nature’s wrath, even in a country which doesn’t suffer from the natural phenomenons that plague so many others. The flood is now receding, and I’m hoping the recovery for the people and livelihoods harmed by it is smooth and quick.
In reading news, I’ve spent most of the week buried in Blackout by Mira Grant. It’s been strange to read this straight after reading Ashes of Honor, which is written by the same author under her real name. The books have very different feels to them, except for a few things, one of which is the way both main characters absolutely crave a particular caffeinated drink. For one, it’s coffee, for the other, it’s Coke – and I don’t really remember reading too many main characters with such obvious addictions. Definitely curious, but both are fantastic books and well worth your time.
I’m now about halfway through Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor and hoping to finish today to round off this month’s reading. Can’t believe, as usual, that tomorrow is October, and we are well and truly into fall, but at least this season is perfect for curling up under a blanket with a great book.
How was your week? Anything exciting coming up for you in October?
Good morning everyone. I’m devoting this morning to catching up – on blogging, on fellow blog posts, on commenting. This past week was BBAW and it seemed like such a fantastic week. I only had a chance to post once, but I did have an opportunity to look around your blogs and leave comments on some posts, which I don’t do nearly often enough. I loved reading in particular about books that everyone loved, and the BBAW interview swap, both of which I missed. And, of course, thank you to everyone for your support on my own post. I am so grateful to have you all still interested and reading on a regular basis.
This week has been fairly busy for me, with only two evenings free and one of those spent gaming, the other spent cleaning (exciting, I know). We’ve not ventured anywhere particularly exciting this weekend, either, as my husband has an exam coming up and has been more diligent about studying. It’s also looking very rainy today, so less than ideal for a walk outdoors. I’d hoped for one last weekend spent camping, but I don’t think it’s going to happen this year.
Fortunately, what I do have to look forward to is a trip to Edinburgh in November for the first time; we’re going for a long weekend away and going to see our very first Final Fantasy concert. I’m also going to Barcelona for a week for work in October and hoping to actually see the city at some point, so the rest of the year isn’t all going to be stuck at home. And when my own city is full of beautiful history, I can’t complain all that much.
 York Minster On the reading front, I progressed incredibly slowly through 1356 by Bernard Cornwell this week, which was not the book’s fault; I’ve finished and I’m still pondering what to read next. I have Fledgling by Octavia Butler coming for the upcoming A Diverse Universe blog tour and I’m going to be reading Blackout by Mira Grant very soon as well. Speaking of Mira Grant / Seanan McGuire, I have Friday off work and I’m actually hoping to have an October Daye read-a-thon so I can get to Ashes of Honor, but I can’t decide if I’m patient enough yet to read five books before I get to the latest one. Lots of fantasy and science fiction, just the way I like it these days.
Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead – let me know what you’re looking forward to!
Seems like summer – at least as the UK experiences it – has finally arrived in the beginning of September! We’ve spent the last two weekends exploring the area around a town in the North York Moors called Goathland.
This is a fantastic little town for walking with plenty to see – it has a waterfall called Mallyan Spout:
Lots of lovely paths across the moor, which is just coming out of the deep purple heather season:
And a Roman / no one actually knows but it’s certainly old road:
It also has its fair share of sheep, pubs, and other walkers, but I didn’t take any pictures of those. Next time! Hoping the weather holds until next weekend at least so we can continue to enjoy the countryside – it’s rained so much this summer that this is our first real chance.
I did fit in some reading yesterday, finished Small Favour by Jim Butcher and The Hidden Goddess by M.K. Hobson. I’ve now moved on to 1356 by Bernard Cornwell, which is going to be released later this month and so far promises to be just as good as his previous books. I’ll be reviewing that in a couple of weeks’ time.
This week, I’m anticipating BBAW and hoping to participate in a few of the post topics. I’ve always enjoyed this week, and I’m definitely looking forward to catching up and finding some new bloggers to follow.
Have a great week everyone!
It has started feeling decidedly like autumn in the UK already, which has depressed me to a ridiculous degree; I truly feel as though we haven’t had summer this year. The temperature has stayed very low and the rain we’ve had (the most since 1912) has certainly made it gloomy. I seem to require a higher temperature to be comfortably warm than most Brits, probably because my American skin is used to hot summer weather, so even when my husband and friends noted that it was a bit warmer, I just never really got there. Summers aren’t always like this here, fortunately, so I’m already hoping for next year.
The colder weather does seem to have inspired me to read more books, though. I’m still reading at a slower pace than I have in the past, but I was delighted to finish 12 books this month (although I am including a novella in that figure). Of the ones that I intend to review, I’ve actually done a fair job, too, with 3 more reviews coming next week. I’m attributing the reviews to last week’s bank holiday, but clearly a single three-day weekend gives me enough time to get back into the swing of reviewing. Yay!
Here’s what I read:
- The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin
- The Secret Life of Bletchley Park, Sinclair McKay
- The Midwife of Venice, Roberta Rich
- The Last Caesar, Henry Venmore-Roland
- White Night, Jim Butcher
- Secret Desires of a Gentleman, Laura Lee Guhrke
- Tides of War, Stella Tillyard
- Gunmetal Magic, Ilona Andrews
- The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
- Map of a Nation, Rachel Hewitt
- Winter’s Passage, Julie Kagawa
- The Dirty Streets of Heaven, Tad Williams
Favourite of the Month
 
Totally different books, both awesome in their own completely different ways. I already reviewed Harold Fry. Gunmetal Magic is going to be reviewed this week. Nothing like a new Ilona Andrews book to make my reading world brighter.
What’s coming in September
This should give you a good idea of what I’ll be reading this September:
This is my immediate TBR pile, which alternates between review books (that’s a review book up top) and my own books that I’d like to read next. Blackout is definitely getting read this month; I’ll probably start this week, in fact. I’m also planning to read 1356 by Bernard Cornwell, and will be featuring an excerpt from the book ahead of its pub date in the UK this month. I’m excited; I really enjoy all of Cornwell’s books, and I don’t think this is going to be an exception.
Finally, I’m also participating in Aarti’s A More Diverse Universe blog tour, which involves lots of bloggers reading speculative fiction books by authors of color. This is a fantastic project; I was so dismayed to discover that there are so few speculative fiction books actually written by authors of color in comparison to how many there are and that I’ve personally read. I need to make more of an effort.
As for what else I have planned this month – I’ve just ordered some books to start refreshing my Russian. Working amongst so many people who speak multiple languages has made me both jealous and irritated that I never kept up the one language I did study intensively (for six and a half years). I do also hope to go to Russia in the next couple of years, so it’s a good time to start trying to refresh my memory and get back into it.
What does September have in store for you?
I discovered a link today via Lady Business of this fall’s most exciting science fiction and fantasy releases which reminded me just how many books I have to look forward to this fall and early winter in two of my favorite genres. We’re really spoiled for choice this year and there are a number of books I just cannot wait to read.
I’m going to start by telling you about the books from authors I already love, which I will definitely purchase; I do intend to try some new ones, but here are my guaranteed reads this fall:
 Ashes of Honor, by Seanan McGuire – this one isn’t actually at the link above, although I’ve seen it on others; it’s the sixth October Daye book. Seanan McGuire has become one of my favorite authors for this series and others. I wrote at length on how much I simply adore this series for being epic, heart-breaking, and amazing, and I can’t believe the next book is actually out a week from Tuesday, although Amazon is predicting I will have to wait a little bit longer. I preordered it in April as soon as they released the cover and have been stamping my feet in impatience ever since.
The only question now is whether I should attempt a re-read of the entire series before this one arrives. If I do decide to, it will be next weekend, and I’m sure you will hear about it. I’d never recommend you start with this one, but if you’re craving urban fantasy, Rosemary and Rue is calling your name.
 Next up, The Dirty Streets of Heaven, by Tad Williams. An epic fantasy author goes urban fantasy and, by all accounts already, does a fantastic job of it. I actually already have this book for review (thank you, Amazon Vine) because I have read and really enjoyed some of that epic fantasy in the past. As far as I recall, it didn’t really break the stereotype of farmboy saves the world, but when an author does stereotypes well, you’re reminded why they exist in the first place. That’s exactly what Tad Williams did there, and is another reason I’m excited to read this book. It’s in my “immediate TBR” pile, so you’ll be hearing about it from me very soon. I haven’t even read the summary, so I have no idea who Bobby Dollar is, but that’s okay; I’m ready for Williams to introduce me to this new world his way.
 Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey, another new urban fantasy, is a completely obvious must-read for me. I adored her original Kushiel trilogy when I first got into epic fantasy, and I’ve not quite found another match for something that so very brilliantly evoked a new world and mythology, while creating absolutely fantastic characters, a perfectly epic saga, and an incredible love story. Even Carey’s own later novels haven’t quite matched it, but I simply love the way she writes and haven’t failed to like a single one of her books. I may have fallen behind with her epic fantasy (although I still own it all) and haven’t read Saints Astray yet, but that hasn’t stopped me craving this book too (also despite the cover, which I do not like).
This is another book I know virtually nothing about as it stands, but as I’ve mentioned, I like new releases that way.
 Finally, for the purposes of this list, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold is one book I will definitely be reading. I fell in love with the Vorkosigan saga recently and have been recommending it up and down to anyone I know who actually reads books, so resisting this book is an impossible feat. I’ve actually still not read Cryoburn because it’s the last and it hasn’t had the world’s greatest reviews, but having this book on the horizon makes me very excited.
I’ll still say, even if you think you don’t like science fiction, give Young Miles a try. You might be surprised.
This is only a short list, but my craving for urban fantasy here is really obvious. I’m glad the public craving for it seems to match my own, mainly because I generally find these books to be satisfying in so many different ways, and they’re much faster reading than epics. I still love epics, but I no longer have the time to sink into a huge series. I love all of the different worlds; though they’re usually based in cities in our world, the differences between them and the varying levels of darkness are fantastic. I love the fact that they can feel epic in a shorter space of time, that the main characters are often women who can kick butt and have feelings at the same time, and that they create long-lasting relationships between characters that really matter.
What new releases are you looking forward to this fall? Is there anything on the list above that’s new to me I simply must try?
July was a busy month, and in the most delightful of ways; I spent a lot of it travelling! Just over a week in Europe with a couple friends from home and another weekend camping a bit further up north in County Durham. We also spent last weekend with my husband’s family, which meant that I didn’t have a single quiet weekend all month. (I’m making up for it today).
As always happens, the reading and blogging have suffered somewhat for all this fun. I read just 9 books in July, which is only slightly over two a week, and not really enough to sustain the pace that I was hoping for in terms of reviews – not that I’ve had huge amounts of time to write those reviews, in actuality. I was also incredibly good about buying books and didn’t purchase a single print book in all of July. I’m making up for that now:
Atop this pile is the new second Kindle in our household; that’s right, my husband decided to purchase a Kindle. He has preferred mine to actual books for a while and I was personally hoping that Waterstone’s would get their own e-reader and supply a viable alternative to Amazon. Instead, they partnered with Amazon, and when a discount arrived in my email on Friday, the time had clearly arrived. I, on the other hand, made up for the purchase from the evil giant by buying four new books from my local bookstore, on the bottom there. I’ve been longing for three of those books for a long time and The Popes called out to me from the table as well.
Anyway! What did I read in July?
- Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
- The Way to a Duke’s Heart, Caroline Linden
- A Lady by Midnight, Tessa Dare
- The Making of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr
- The Wicked Ways of a Duke, Laura Lee Guhrke
- How to Survive the Titanic, Frances Wilson
- The Iron King, Julie Kagawa
- Unholy Ghosts, Stacia Kane
- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Winifred Watson
Favourites of the Month
 
Yes – unsurprisingly, the two books I actually managed to review, I appreciated the most. I had a lot to say about these two lovely books, completely different but appreciated all the same, and I am very happy that I read both of them.
How was your July?
Good evening Sunday Saloners! I’m a bit late today; we’ve had a busy weekend, as we went camping up in the Yorkshire Dales on Friday, and then came home and decided to be gardeners just today.
First, camping. This promised to be the first really nice weekend in a very long time, so we thought we’d take advantage of it. It’s been raining on and off in the UK this summer more than any other I’ve experienced here, with temperatures remaining disappointingly cool the whole time. I’m sure some of you in the United States would love relief from the heat, but I’d give almost anything just for a little bit of it one of these days.
Saturday morning, we woke up to clear skies, reasonable warmth, and went out to spend the day at Barnard Castle, which is both a castle and a delightful little town that grew up around it. Lovely visit to the castle, a reasonable walk in the sunshine, an abbey, and an amazing curry for dinner rounded out a really nice day.
Today wasn’t as nice to start out with, as we returned to clouds in the morning. But by the time we headed home, the weather had cleared up, and I was inspired to start some gardening with a lot of sales in our local garden centre – somewhere we hardly ever go, but felt compelled to this afternoon. As a result, we ended up taking home a standalone greenhouse, four vegetable plants (tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, and bell peppers) and three herbs (sage, oregano, and mint).
None of this has been particularly good for reading. I haven’t even finished a book since returning from my trip to Europe last Sunday, let alone found time to blog. I’m reading an excellent non-fiction book, How to Survive the Titanic: The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay by Frances Wilson, but I’ve just been doing too much else around the house and catching up to really devote enough time to it. I have an hour or so now and am going to aim to get some posts up this week and breathe a little life back into this blog. I hope to find some time to come visit you, too – let me know what I’ve missed in the last couple of weeks and I’d love to come say hi.
Have a great week!
We are now officially halfway through 2012 and well on our way to 2013. I’m already not 100% sure where the first half of the year has gone, but it’s been a busy one for me. Lots of work, lots of travelling for work (or so it felt to me), and even a trip to the United States to see my parents and their array of parrots. In 2012 I gave up my second, self-employed job, to give myself more free time, I got a computer that I can call my own again, and I got promoted at work. I’ve got my provisional driver’s license, and I’m planning to achieve my full UK driver’s license before 2012 is up. I’m about to go on what I hope is the first of two trips exploring a little bit more of the world this year, as well, which I cannot wait to do. Next weekend I’ll be heading to Munich to meet two of my friends from home, and we’ll be going through Munich, Berlin, and Prague before I have to return to the UK.
All this going on means I’ve not read nearly as much as I have in years previous. I’m up to 67 books for the year. This is, interestingly enough, about how many books I thought I’d be reading when I started working over 2 years ago. So I slowed down to my expectations eventually. Unfortunately, I’m still terrible at keeping up with reviews. Since I stopped reviewing urban fantasy except in large series reviews (expect one for the Elemental Assassin books shortly), there haven’t been as many to review, regardless.
This month, I read 11 books:
Fiction
- Fifty Shades of Grey, E. L. James
- The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes
- Venom, Jennifer Estep
- The Sister Queens, Sophie Perinot
- Deadline, Mira Grant
- Tangled Threads, Jennifer Estep
- Proven Guilty, Jim Butcher
- The Ugly Duchess, Eloisa James
- Spider’s Revenge, Jennifer Estep
- Wonder Girls, Catherine Jones
Non-fiction
Favorite of the Month
 
Much as I had my gripes with Deadline, I still had a fantastic time with it, and The Sister Queens was a terrific historical fiction read that reminded me just why I love the genre.
I also posted reviews for:
Right now, I’m reading 3 books. The first, which I’ve been reading the longest, is The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe, by Professor R.I. Moore, which is very interesting but slow going on my fragmented brain. I also started Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, my very first venture in “hard” science fiction as opposed to the space opera types I normally love. I’m close to halfway through this and I’m surprising myself by intensely enjoying it, to the degree of marking out passages of surprising beauty and meaning, something I hardly ever do. I made it a condition that I like the Mars trilogy before I purchased Robinson’s newest, 2312, but I think I’ll be getting that too. Finally, when I can’t really process either of those, I’m reading The Way to a Duke’s Heart by Caroline Linden. In short, a microcosm of my incredibly eclectic taste in books.
I’m also continuing with Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica, so I’m seriously indulging my science fiction obsession. We’ve just finished the first season of Babylon 5 and we’re very close to saying the same for BG, and I’m still loving both of them.
Have a fantastic July, all!
Good morning Saloners! It feels like a very long time since I last wrote a Sunday Salon post, and that’s because I last wrote one over a month ago. I’m at one of those points in life where time seems to simultaneously fly by and slow down, depending on where I am or what I’m doing. I haven’t been travelling too much recently, which has been a nice break, although my wanderlust has become overwhelming at times now that I’m used to being out and about.
Fortunately, I’m not going to stay bound at home for too long; next month I’ll be travelling with a couple of friends from college through Munich, Berlin, and Prague over the course of a week. I’m looking forward to adding on more cities to my ever-growing list of places I’ve visited, and I hope that I’m not finished for the year yet. I’d love to go to either Scotland, camping around various parts with my husband, or Istanbul later this year. But we’ll see how our financial situation pans out over the next couple of months first.
At home, I’ve applied for my provisional driving license; I can drive in the US, but I’ve never been licensed to drive in the UK, mainly because I don’t know how to drive a manual car. I’m about to change that, I just need the provisional license to come back to me first. I’m apprehensive about it, but at the same time driving myself will give me a lot more freedom and save my husband the tedium of taking me everywhere that’s not within walking distance.
I’m also catching up on my science fiction TV shows. Ever since I discovered that I actually enjoy science fiction, I’ve been addicted to it. Right now, we’re just starting both Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5, and I’m really looking forward to watching both of them. I haven’t seen enough of either to comment just yet, but I will soon.
I’ve even been reading a considerable amount – some of which actually won’t get reviewed here. But I’ve been addicted to Jennifer Estep’s Elemental Assassin books in particular. I’ve read four of them and while I don’t think I can give each an individual review, they are perfect after I’ve spent a long, stressful day at work. I also just finished the eighth Dresden Files book and am already clamoring for more. Hopefully, things at work should calm down in the next few weeks, and I’ll be able to devote more brain power to non-fiction. I’m obviously trying; I’ve got what looks to be a fascinating book on heresy in the Middle Ages ready for me to read it, but I’m a bit wary of how long it will take given the current mood. We’ll see!
What’s new with all of you? Have fantastic weeks!
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