Shakespeare’s Wife, by Germaine Greer

I think I’m going to have to conclude that this was a good book, just not the right book for me. The premise is fabulous: most scholars have assumed that William Shakespeare had a terrible relationship with his wife and they completely discount her as an influence on his work.  Germaine Greer promises to re-examine [...]

The Last Concubine, by Lesley Downer

This historical novel, like the Pauline Gedge series on Egypt I read lately, had both the advantage and the drawback of being set in a world I know almost nothing about.  Unlike, say, Vanora Bennett’s Wars-of-the-Roses England in Figures of Silk, where I already know the setting and the major players and I just have [...]

Churched, by Matthew Paul Turner

I discovered the existence of Matthew Paul Turner via a link to his blog, Jesus Needs New PR, on someone else’s blog, and immediately knew that churched was a book I had to read.  This is a fast-paced, funny, bittersweet look at growing up fundamentalist, and from the moment I picked it up I couldn’t put [...]

Figures in Silk, by Vanora Bennett

This was an absolutely captivating historical novel, set in the Wars of the Roses era but featuring behind-the-scenes middle class characters rather than the royalty and nobility whose stories are so familiar from that era (although they do make a appearances as well).
The main character in Figures in Silk is Isabel Shore, sister of Edward [...]

Incident at Badamya, by Dorothy Gilman

I love serendipitous books, as I’ve mentioned before — those unexpected discoveries you’d never pick up unless you saw them on a library display or heard someone recommend them.  Or were in an online book club where people suggest books they’ve liked, as was the case with Incident at Badamya.  I wouldn’t have come across [...]