History: Actual, Fictional and Legendary discussion

I have begun The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. I am so tired of reading short kindalized books! This one is long, interesting and something to sink into, I hope.

I recently discovered a new and delightful historical mystery author, Lexie Conyngham, who writes about Scotland in the early 1800s. She has two novels out, Death in a Scarlet Gown and Knowledge of Sins Past, both self-published through Amazon. They were cheap so I tried them, and I'm really pleased. Fun reads.

Gunnar

Thanks, J., I can never get enough mysteries.

I want to fall into a story and learn about a different time. Now I am reading Children of Tantalus: Niobe and Pelops, with the hope that I will get total immersion. I very much enjoyed Jocasta: The Mother-Wife of Oedipus. I hope I will be similarly pleased.

I know, I know....... I do not read books in a series. Children of Tantalus is just that, but there is always a first for everything. Each book can be read alone. With this in mind, I am willing to try. Now I hope to fall into the Bronze Age, ie 1350 BC in what is today the region around Greece and Turkey. I will also learn some ancient myths. I hope. I want to empathize with the characters. All of this is what I want from this book. Given the reviews I have read, I think all this may be achieved.

Today I started Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana.

Tim

Anne wrote: "Dena, I've had Five Germanys I Have Known for years. Don't know why I haven't read it. I'd like to hear how you like it. Thanks."

I just finished reading Five Germanys I Have Known and I wanted to report on it because I really enjoyed it but it's after midnight and I need to get up before 6 a.m. More later.

Dena wrote: "Anne wrote: "Dena, I've had Five Germanys I Have Known for years. Don't know why I haven't read it. I'd like to hear how you like it. Thanks."

I just finished reading [book:Five Germanys I Have..."

Look forward to hearing.

I just finished Children of Tantalus: Niobe and Pelops and have already begun the next in the tilogy entitled The Road to Thebes: Niobe and Amphion. Who should read these books? those intersted in escaping into another world. That is exactly what I was looking for and got! The third book in the trilogy is entitled Arrows of Artemis: Niobe and Chloris. Here follows my spoiler-free GR review:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I will now start On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood. I bought it. My husband grabbed it first, and he said I would like it. He even confirmed that the historical facts were accurate. :0)

Chrissie wrote: "I will now start On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood. I bought it. My husband grabbed it first, and he said I would like it. He even confirmed that the hist..."

I've put this one on my wish list. It sounds very interesting.

I have now downloaded Gyula Krudy's Sunflower. I read the beginning and was terribly intriqued by the author's prose style. I felt that what I read was dreamy, macabre, and erotic all rolled together, just as the book description describes the writing. And I do like reading a story that takes place in Hungary. I just hope it is as good as others have said!

I'm now reading As Time Goes by by Ted Allbeury



It's an espionage thriller centered around Britain's Special Operation Executive (SOE) and their activities in German-occupied Europe during the Second World War.

Dena, I finished On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood this morning and put a link to my review on the group thread for members' reviews. It was an excellent book which I highly recommend. I gave it four stars.

Chrissie wrote: "Dena, I finished On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood this morning and put a link to my review on the group thread for members' reviews. It was an excellent ..."

It's not available on Kindle here until Aug. 30, but I'm looking forward to it. A friend who lives in Berlin went to kindergarten with one of Goebbel's daughters. She has a funny story about it that probably wasn't funny at the time to her parents.

Dena, I in fact read a paperback. I have to read the piles of books I have already bought before I got my Kindle. I hope you get the pictures in the Kindle version. They are very interesting.

Dena, I in fact read a paperback. I have to read the piles of books I have already bought before I got my Kindle. I hope you get the pictures in the Kindle version. They are very interesting.

Dena, I in fact read a paperback. I have to read the piles of books I have already bought before I got my Kindle. I hope you get the pictures in the Kindle version. They are very interesting.

Dena, I in fact read a paperback. I have to read the piles of books I have already bought before I got my Kindle. I hope you get the pictures in the Kindle version. They are very interesting.

Dena, I in fact read a paperback. I have to read the piles of books I have already bought before I got my Kindle. I hope you get the pictures in the Kindle version. They are very interesting.

Chrissie wrote: "Dena, I in fact read a paperback. I have to read the piles of books I have already bought before I got my Kindle. I hope you get the pictures in the Kindle version. They are very interesting."

That is sometimes a problem. Even if there are maps they're sometimes small and fuzzy when enlarged. I didn't know about the maps until I read your review. I'll look to see how available it is in paper.

Dena, you can get an atlas out, so the pictures are more important than the maps. I do think in this case the paperback is a better idea if it doesn't get you super crabby b/c it is hard to read....... I had a few temper tantrums.

Chrissie wrote: "Dena, you can get an atlas out, so the pictures are more important than the maps. I do think in this case the paperback is a better idea if it doesn't get you super crabby b/c it is hard to read......"

I can read the paperbacks I just really like the speed of getting ebooks. I really have to discipline myself with Kindle because it's so easy to push one button and have a new book to read. Since I joined Goodreads in April I've found several very compatible readers who have suggested numerous good books and authors. None of the readers I know in person have similar reading tastes so meeting several has been a severe threat to my bank account.

I just checked and the Barnes&Noble I'm planning to take my grand-daughter to tomorrow has it.
We're visiting here in Long Beach CA where my oldest son and his family live. My 8 year old grand-daughter reads like a fiend like I did at that age. I'm so enjoying talking books with her.

Dena, you will have so much fun with your grand-daughter!!! It is so wonderful when kids go through such periods of intensive book reading.

Yes, it is so dangerously simple to get a book onto your Kindle in a few seconds! And I adore the sampling. I still make mistakes. I have dumped the book I was reading. I will put a review up on the appropriate thread.

That will be fun you can look into OHM to check out the pictures. Maybe one would think I am overdoing the pictures, but they really did add to the book. You see pictures of her village, of Hitler's retreat, of the family members, of the destruction after the war, of the author and her sister Ingrid now, of so much.

I'm now enjoying reading Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn.



Kitty Norville, radio talk show host and werewolf, "has agreed to appear on TV's first all-supernatural reality show" set in a large, spacious lodge in the Montana hinterlands. In the process, she gets into a lot more stuff than she bargained for. Fantastic novel.

Having dumped Sunflower, I have now started Far to Go by Alison Pick.

KOMET wrote: "I'm now enjoying reading Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn.



Kitty Norville, radio talk show host and werewolf..."
Trying some serious escapist literature after the tension of WWII spies?

Dena and KOMET, Variation is important :0)

Chrissie wrote: "Dena and KOMET, Variation is important :0)"

Amen!

I will now start W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz. Just as Far to Go was about a child who left Czechoslovakia via Kindertransport to Britain, this book too has the same theme. It too is about our need to remember, understand and not forget the past. It will be intereting to compare the two. I hope I like the style of writing. The book description put me off a bit, but I have the book, so I will give it a try.

I finished reading both As Time Goes by by Ted Allbeury and Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn yesterday. Smile.

Now I've embarked upon reading ---

1) Legacy by Jeanne C. Stein



Anna Strong, a vampire and bounty hunter, finds that she's entitled to the vast estate of Avery, now dead, a vampire leader who helped her come to terms with being a vampire shortly after she was bitten and had hovered in the hospital between life and death.

What Anna hasn't reckoned on, however, is a female werewolf claiming to be Avery's widow. She insists that Anna abandon her claim to the estate or else she and her pack will kill Anna and all who are dear to her.


2) A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin



I bought this book in December 2001 and had begun to read it at the time and then I put it aside for reasons now obscure to me.

Now, with a greater interest in the First World War, I am eager to return to this novel today.

Hope you enjoy the Helprin. That was a five star book for me and a favorite.

A Soldier of the Great War is fabulous, KOMET! I gave it five stars. I wonder why you put it down.......but I din't like another I read by the author.

KOMET wrote: "I finished reading both As Time Goes by by Ted Allbeury and Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn yesterday. Smile.

Now I've embar..."

Just looked up the description of A Soldier of the Great War. I'm putting it on my wish list, looks interesting.
I finished On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi
Childhood and want to comment on it but tonight is our last night here in California and we need to get up and be ready to catch the airport shuttle by 5:00am. So i'll comment more later.

I will start Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

I will now start Swedish Tango: A Novel. I am drawn to read this because the characters come from different cultures: Chilean, French and Finnish . They live in Sweden as foreign exiles, so Swedish customs will alos be part of the picture. The status of foreign exiles in Sweden is sure to be an interesting subject. Furthermore it concerns the overthrow of Allende in Chile, and Pinochet's subsequent rule. Finally, I simply very much liked that style of writing found in the sample.

I have just started re-reading Master and Commander. I first read it several years ago. I think I will get more out of it this time because, having read the entire 20-novel series the first time, I should now have a better understanding of the terminology.

Hi All,

I couldn't find a 'coming soon' discussion but I had to shout about these two upcoming crackers:

Handbook to Roman Legionary Fortresses:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Handbook-Roma...

Manzikert 1071:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Manzikert-107...

I'm in the mid stages of writing a novel that pivots around the lead-up to Manzikert and this looks like a perfect research gem to me. Anyone know when it comes out?

Cheers,
Gordon

I recently finished and reviewed Selene of Alexandria which I liked very much.

Now I am reading The Maligned Monarch: A life of King John of Englandwhich takes a more positive viewpoint of King John. So far I am finding it very readable and occasionally provocative. Certainly I agree very much that Richard the Lion Hearted does not deserve his reputation for being a noble and just king of England as he's portrayed in legend. He was an absentee monarch. I also appreciate that Lloyd acknowledges John's faults. This isn't an attempt to glorify John. Lloyd is just trying to give us a more balanced picture of John and his times.

I am, slowly but surely, making my way through A Soldier of the Great War. Now that Alessandro is in the war (with the Italian Navy, albeit landlocked in the trenches with a special unit), the story is becoming a bit more interesting.



For the past decade and a half, I've developed an ongoing interest in the First World War, especially in terms of how people (from all walks of life) of the time coped with it. (Now that the last veteran who was a combatant from that war is gone - Mr. Claude Choules passed away last May 5th - we are without that living link to that distant era.)

Now I am reading The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Stegner really has an ability to depict his characters! I am almost done.

I just finished re-reading Master and Commander and started re-reading Post Captain

Tim

Tim
Just read Master and Commander for the first time, really enjoyed it but I'm fascinated by tall ships. Any chance to visit these beautiful vessels and I'm there, my favourite is H.M.S Victory and a ship from the period the books are set. Just the size of these ships, knowing how many were on board and what the conditions were like, plus Dad was in the R.N.

I have begun Blessed by Thunder: Memoir of a Cuban Girlhood. I was hooked when I read a bit of the text at Barnes & Noble! I loved Allende's The House of the Spirits, and I think that perhaps there really will be similarities between the two books. It is a memoir about a girl's childhood growing up under the guidance of her grandmothers and the mystical stories that were an integral part of her experiences. History too - as Cuba falls to Castro's regime. Having read about 40 pages, I am thoroughly enjoying myself. I am being given Cuban vernacular, customs and "mystical" beliefs all rolled up into a personal story.

I'm currently reading Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War by Hal Vaughan.



The author has set out to prove beyond doubt that Coco Chanel collaborated with the Germans during their occupation of France (1940-1944) and was also a spy for them. It is an intriguing book.

I will now start The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year. I will next year attempt to read 52 books from 52 different countries. I have too many "must read" books for the Russian Federation, so I will take one from the list now. Doesn't it look interesting?!

Yesterday, I finished reading Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War, which for me, created more questions than the answers it had set out to provide. (Feel free to read my review of the book if you're curious.)


Now I'm reading Washington Shadow by Aly Monroe, who is also a Goodreads author (and on my friends list). So far, I'm really enjoying this one. I'm especially keen to find out exactly what Peter Cotton (an intelligence officer in the guise of an army colonel) will be doing on behalf of the British government in DC now that the Second World War has been freshly concluded and Lend Lease to Britain discontinued.

I am currently readingA False Dawn: Volume 16: My Life as a Gypsy Woman in Slovakiaby Ilona Lackova. It's a printed oral history. This means that the author was recorded in the Romany language by Milena Hubschmannova who translated it into Czech. It was then translated into English by Carleton Bulkin. What I'm trying to say when I call it an oral history is that there is no effort to organize it chronologically or by topic. It's presented exactly as Ilona Lackova spoke it. I've had to do research for this book. There are terms that are used with no explanation which aren't listed in the glossary. She uses two names for the village where she came from. My research confirms that they are the same place. I feel like I'm peeling the layers of an onion in order to discover Ilona Lackova's background. It's interesting, but since the book lacks organization, you have to organize it in your own mind.

Shomeret; thank you for explaining. :0) Then I know what I can expect.

Actually, A False Dawn improves in the second half of the book. Beginning with World War II, events start being presented chronologically and after World War II, Lackova goes into much more depth about her experiences.