Medieval English Monarchy

The Lady of the Rivers

Philippa Gregory

Narrated by Bianca Amato

Historical Fiction

To buy Amazon - Barnes & Noble

I checked this audio-book out from the library thinking that I probably would not even end up listening to it. Usually I tend to lean more towards shorter books, and this one was 15 discs, and it sounded like an old medieval/fantasy story, something I normally wouldn't read. I'm not sure what compelled me to check it out ultimately. And it was sheer laziness that led me to renew it twice (that's six weeks for my library district), before ever popping a disc into my computer at work to give a listen. I'm grateful now that I did.

The book captivated me from the beginning. A young noble girl from France crosses paths with Joan of Arc before she is tried and burned at the stake for heresy. This girl possess 'gifts' from being of the line of a water goddess, Melucina (Mel-You-See-Nah. The worst part about reviewing audio-books is not being able to spell the odd words/names. I try!), and realizes very early, from her exposure to Joan, that powerful women are not welcome in the world of men. The girl, Jacquetta, is married off to a Duke of England who is occupying France, the Duke of Bedford. He is an old man, whose wife had died, and marries Jacquetta because he has heard of her gifts, not for love. He is a man who has hired herbalists, scholars, and alchemist on his quest for the Philosopher's Stone, and thinks marrying a young virgin with gifts of foresight will be the key to his quest. War takes up most of the Duke's time, and Jacquetta is left mostly in the care of his most trusted squire, Richard Woodville (real name Richard Wydeville), with whom she eventually falls in love with and marries (after her old man of a husband dies, of course). Easily the most enjoyable part of the story - Jacquetta and Richard had fourteen children together, they obviously loved each other very much! Because Richard is so far below her station, they have to marry in secret before notifying the English court, because the noble men were planning another arranged marriage for Jaquetta. In those times people were always married in order to ensure allies or strengthen bonds between families/countries, which is why Jacquetta married the Duke in the first place. At this point the young King of England, Henry VI, is arranged to marry Jacquetta's cousin from France, Margaret of Anjou, and Jacquetta is called to court to be her lady in waiting. This is where the story really starts.

The most fascinating part of this story, to me, is that every character in this book is based off of real history, real lords and ladies of 1400s England (here is the wiki page, we're looking at Henry VI in the 1400s). It is highly fictionalized, for in fact, there is no way to know exactly what happened so far back, especially because so much was hidden from the common knowledge of the people, but Philippa Gregory does a fantastic job weaving the characters in and out of each other's stories, and filling in the gaps. I even looked up these old English monarch's on Wikipedia, just to see how much of the story were actual events. Turns out, all the major plot points are absolutely in the historical record. All of Jacquetta's and Richard's fourteen children, the territories won and lost, and even the rumor that Queen Margaret's only son was not born of the King, but of a Duke, and advisor to the King.

The narrating was excellent. Amato did a wonderful job of changing the pitch and tambre of her voice for each character, none of which were too garishly overdone. I consider it a good thing when I sit here at my keyboard unable to think of anything that really stood out about the narration; Amato allowed the story to be the story, which is the best thing a narrator can accomplish. There were very few instances of foreign words in the text, but where they were they were perfectly done. The only thing at all I can think is that the entire book was done in an English accent, where the main character, Jacquetta, and the Queen, who plays a huge role in the book, were both French. But honestly, that is only a technicality.

For some reason, this book captivated me more than most. I was sucked wholeheartedly into this story, and these characters, and this bit of history (no matter how embellished). I think I especially liked it because the history is so old, and so generally unknown (by me anyway, I know nothing about medieval monarchy). Frankly, I cannot wait to read another of Philippa Gregory's books, I'm just uncertain which to turn to next. That reminds me! This book is actually part of a series called The Cousin's War, and The Lady of the Rivers is book three in that series. I'm almost scared to go back and read The Red Queen and The White Queen, the first two books of the series, because from what I understand, they both deal with events after where The Lady of the Rivers leaves off, and also, I'm afraid I won't be able to stay quite as interested if I am reading words like "Duke of Bedford", "Dower to Duchess", and "Edmund, Duke of Sommerset" over and over again all over the pages. I think having this book read to me was half of the magic. At folks, it was magic.

Happy Reading Everyone!

Book Vs Movie: A Steampunk Adventure

The Golden Compass

Philip Pullman

Young Adult

Fantasy Adventure

(movie information below)

The Golden Compass is part one of a young adult trilogy (The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass are the titles of the other two installments). I first began my journey with this story in middle school, when my best friend, also an avid reader, suggested I read an old scruffy paperback copy of hers.

The story gripped me immediately: a young tomboy orphan girl, Lyra, who resides in a renowned college in Oxford but runs the streets as a gypsy, is longing to go on an adventure to the North, a land of ice bears and mystery. She gets a chance when a beautiful and sophisticated woman comes to visit the college, Mrs. Coulter. Coulter recruits the young girl to be her assistant, reasoning with the master of the college that a young girl simply cannot be raised by a bunch of old men. Meanwhile, children all over Lyra’s world have been disappearing unexpectedly, never to be seen again. Before Lyra departs with Mrs. Coulter, the master of Jordan College gives her a valuable relic, the Golden Compass (also referred to as an Aletheometer), with instructions never to tell anyone she has it – he also mentioned that it had belonged to Lyra’s uncle, Lord Asriel, who was absent, exploring in the North.  After a whirlwind of makeovers and shopping, Lyra’s sense of adventure rears it's head, and she decides to sneak away from Mrs. Coulter and take the Golden Compass to Lord Asriel.

In between the lines of this simple seeming adventure are heavy themes that can either be taken at face value as part of the story, or as a sort of commentary on humanity, religion, and science in our own world. The plot is riddled with interesting characters that keeps excitement up, and keeps kids interested. Things like Armored Bears, Gyptians who reside on longboats, Witches who age very slowly and do not feel the cold (well, they feel it, but can ignore it), and a feisty aeronaut (what we would call a Hot Air Balloon man) fill the pages with endearing and sometimes freighting eccentricities. I highly recommend this series to anyone middle school level and older. I'm talking full grown men could enjoy this series, because as I said, the themes resonate throughout humanity.

A movie was made of The Golden Compass in 2007 based on the novel, directed by Chris Weitz and starring Nicole Kidman (Mrs. Coulter), Daniel Craig (Lord Asriel), and Dakota Blue Richards (who plays Lyra).

I was excited to see the movie as soon as I heard it was coming out (I think I first saw the preview in the theater when I went to see the remake of The Poseidon Adventure, called simply Poseidon), since I cherished the books so much growing up. On the part of Hollywood, I think it was a good idea to make the first installment of this adventure into a movie; not only is this book a great foundation for a larger adventure spanning the universe and many creatures, but it is well rounded enough to be able to stand alone and still make a great movie. There were many changes, and a lot cut out, but the movie, in my opinion, doesn't suffer much from it.


The biggest sort of difference I felt between the two, is the demographic they were made for. The movie felt like a kids/family movie, while I never really got that impression by the books. Obviously they were not written for adult readers, but the books didn't necessarily read as children's, or even young adult. When I first read them in middle school, it was a challenge to adjust to the type of words Pullman used. For example, he used a special character 'æ' in a word that appeared very often throughout all three books. If I decided to read them again tomorrow or even five years from now, I wouldn't feel like I was reading a children's book, but I will always feel that The Golden Compass movie is geared towards younger kids, even though (while played down) there re some scary occurrences.


I think one thing the movie sacrificed is a lot of the prominent themes that make this series (especially this first book) enjoyable for adults. The story is jam packed with commentary about the treatment of children, the over protectiveness of establishments of power over citizens, religious commentary, and the metaphysical. The movie barely scratches the surface of half of these, and doesn't convey the urgency of understanding the concepts. What does shine through from the book are the themes of loyalty, friendship, and the warning of having blind faith/trust in something/someone (I am using a lot of slashes in this review!), which are more childish. I can understand why the movie makers had to choose which themes to include, and which to enhance further...it's just simply something you have to do when adapting novel to screenplay.


One thing the movie did very well was the steampunk aspect. Gyrocopters, Zeppelins, clockwork spies...it gives you the impression of the differences between our world and Lyra's. With a movie you get a lot of chances to get more creative and literally show the audience they're in another world. I thought it was very well done, and not over the top, which could be tricky. Also I'd like to say that I LOVE the steampunk concept and I'm very excited that it's becoming bigger and more popular in today's market (though not too popular I hope, vampire romance fiction anyone??).


Of course, if you are reading this trying to decipher whether or not it will be worth your time to read the book(s), or if the movie will suffice, I beg you to do the reading. I think I like the second two books better than the first, which doesn't always happen with a trilogy. I don't think they are planning on making The Subtle Knife or The Amber Spyglass into movies, in fact, they changed the ending of the first book in the movie, and I'm not sure how they'd recover that for a sequel...but never mind that! It doesn't matter because you are all going to go read the books instead!


Winner: Book!


Until next time,
Happy Reading Everyone!

Update, and What I'm Reading

It seems a lot has been going on lately. I haven't blogged as much as usual lately, and I feel bad about it!

I've been hoping for early snow this year, as I've been more excited for the fall/winter seasons this year. Last week, my wish was granted. After weather in the 70s all week, temperatures plummeted Tuesday night, and it snowed 14 inches by Wednesday mid-morning. The next day it was 50 and then back up to 70s again, until this last Tuesday night the exact same thing happened, except not as heavy and destructive. Welcome to Colorado! Generally when we have a forecast of 3-6 inches of snow, we are lucky to get enough to cover the grass and sticks around past the afternoon. This time, we got double or three times more than expected. It was wet and heavy with incredible packing power (perfect for making forts and snowball ammo for kid snow days), but unfortunately the trees and power lines couldn't handle this massive dumping of powder from above. A third of the town was without power for more than a day (some places up to three days), and our phone line was cut. We (and about everyone else in town) lost huge branches and entire trees, because they hadn't yet lost their leaves, and the weight was just too much. The second snow didn't do much damage, but a few more branches fell. All the havoc out there happened, but it was covered in a beautiful blanket of snow :-)

Also, I was sick. It had been coming on a few days before the first snow, but I thought it would pass. Instead, about 11:30 on snow day central, I went back to bed and could not muster the energy to do anything until after 7, when my fever finally broke. I didn't even want to get up to look for medicine, so when my boyfriend got home to take care of me, he scrounged around for some. All we had is some Dayquil that expired in 2003. EIGHT YEARS AGO. I think it's time to go shopping, yikes!

We also had a busy weekend that week. Bar Friday, hockey game Saturday (GO EAGLES), and a movie on Sunday night. Which film, you ask? The Three Musketeers.

A brief history:

Once upon a time a movie came out about a book. It had a man who'd played Jesus in it (Jim Cavezel, if anyone was curious), and The Time Machine Guy (Guy Pearce), so a girl's mother bought it and took it home. The movie was The Count of Monte Cristo, and though neither of them knew it was based on a book at the time, they both loved it. Fast forward several years. The girl grows up and becomes a book blogger/enthusiest, and finds out a bit about Alexandre Dumas. Although she has wanted to read his work, she has been intimidated by the size and length of his books. The Count of Monte Cristo was always at the top of her list, with the Musketeers a scant second. Though she found an adorable edition one day she couldn't pass up. Then, she saw the movie.

All in all, I liked the film. Seemed much more steampunk that it probably should have been, and it was a typical modern action movie (think Sherlock Holmes esque). But I didn't believe the movie had the story right AT ALL. I mean, it's called the THREE Musketeers for a reason, right? This conundrum running through my mind-the sabotage (I thought) of a great story, motivated me to finally pick it up.

So far I'm about 200 pages in, but I realized as soon as I picked it up that I was wrong.

I LOVE this book. I'm telling you guys, I didn't expect to. Nothing about the story or description or times ever really interested me. So I'm glad I saw the movie - otherwise I don't' think I'd have caught on quite as fast (which is grounds to quit reading early on for me, in big books such as these). Also, I'd have NEVER pronounced D'Artagnan correctly, I took Spanish, not a lick of French.

One drawback, I know NOTHING of French history. I will try to read a bit of that on the side, but I plan on doing more than one post on this book, since it will take me awhile to read (it's only a few pages less than a thousand). I think finishing a book of this length (which I can't actually remember ever doing), will boost my confidence to tackle more larger books. Believe me, I have enough door-stops on my shelves to fuel my reading for probably two years (if that is all I read...and even then, maybe up to five years! I have a lot of books!).

Hope you guys will bear with me while I digest this one, and maybe next time read a big 'un with me :-)

Hope you are all well, keep reading, and I'll see ya next time :-)

Reread: This Book Is My Best Friend

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

Historical Fiction

To Buy Amazon - Barnes & Noble

The fact that I went back and read this book for a second time is significant for me. I'm not usually a big re-reader. Though I think that is changing. I've started getting 'cravings' for good books I've read. Some stories are just magical. 

Each time I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I took my time. The book is a collection of letters, and each one stands alone as something special, something to treasure. In a time of instant communication, reading a book told entirely through letters is incredibly refreshing and reminiscent of a slower (seemingly) more meaningful time. Very sentimental. While I cherished reading the letters, I mourned after I finished each one, because I knew that the book does eventually end...and while it has a complete and lovely ending, I still find myself wanting more. There were several dramatic points in the story, and 'plot twists' per-se, though I never found myself truly surprised by anything that happened (except perhaps by Isola's mysterious letters *wink*wink*)

The story captured me immediately and completely. We follow a woman of thirty-ish, Juliet Ashton, who has worked as a journalist during WWII in London. Now that the war is over, she wrote a book, and is at a loss now, of what to write for her second one. Scrambling for ideas, and feeling terribly war weary, she receives an unexpected letter in the post. The letter is from a man, Dawsey Adams, from Guernsey who has happened to end up with a book that used to be hers. He is writing explaining his love for the book and the author, asking her politely if she would be able to get him in touch with a bookstore where he may order more books by Charles Lamb. Juliet is delighted and sets to work right away, but their friendship has already started. She is intrigued by something he mentioned in his letter, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and asks how in the world something as such came about. The letters fly back and forth between Dawsey and Juliet, Juliet and her dear friend Sophie, Juliet and her publisher, Sidney, and various members of the literary society, as she becomes acquainted with them. Juliet decides she is going to write an article about the occupation of the channel islands by the German's, using her new friends in Guernsey as sources of real facts and little known events. Without realizing it at first, the letters serve as Juliet's beacon of light that help her pull out of her war weary slump. She finds herself falling in love with the people through their correspondence, and you can't help but fall for them yourself. 

The author's splash vivid personalities and humorous situations against the backdrop of post WWII England. Each and every character in this book has a personal and devastating experience directly related to the horrors of the war, though they have tried desperately to bring out the best in things and keep their spirits shining brightly. 

This book is about and between good friends, it makes you feel good to read it. You feel like one of them (hence the title of this post). When I finished, I almost turned to the beginning of the book to read it again. Seriously. It's been about a month since I read it (I know, it's taken me forever to get around to this review), and writing about it again makes me want to read it. It's an absolutely perfect book to read if you're feeling lonely - while you read it, I promise you won't be anymore!

This book is no-question one of my favorites. I think it is a 'modern' classic, in it's own right. Not only does it capture the mood and some lesser known events of World War II in England, it lets you in to some beautiful character's hearts and minds. I've read this book twice so far, but I'll be reading it again...and again and again.

Not to Mention the AWESOME Cover...

When you are Engulfed in Flames

David Sedaris

Collection of Essays

To Buy Amazon - Barnes & Noble

This is my second experience with Sedaris, having previously read Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk last year on new years eve. I enjoyed both. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk is a parody on real life situations and their absurdity, anthropomorphized. When you are Engulfed in Flames was much more personal, and relatable - to me, at least.

I wasn't sure, when I started reading, if these were all true essays about situations in his life, or another parody, or short stories put together to mock a collection of essays (Palo Alto, anyone?). It is the first, and it is excellent.

I can relate to David Sedaris, only I'm less funny, less rich, and less daring (drugs are mentioned more than once). Many things that made me laugh about this book - were like little inside jokes that I was in on, where someone else - more charismatic, less worried, and less interesting - wouldn't understand.

Here is an excerpt that perhaps we can all relate to:

"I will walk out the door and never look back, never return his calls, never even open his letters. The pots and pans, all the things that we acquired together, he can have them, that’s how unfeeling I will be.

…

Thirty minutes of pure rage, and when I finally spot him I realize that I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

“There you are,” I say. And when he asks where I have been, I answer honestly and tell him I was lost."

It is the text in between those lines that I found so much of myself in. Finding yourself completely reliant on a person after so many years - perhaps everyone has that, but It felt especially resonant with me. 

After I got through a bit of the book and started seeing characters returning after a few essays, I decided I loved that effect. Since these are real people, they are more beautiful to me - and by seeing them in many stories, you really get a better feel about who they are. Seeing them in this situation, and then this one -- it's more like real life. When you meet someone, you don't follow them around inside their head all day, you see them in the little situations you find yourselves in when you happen to be hanging out. 

Reading this book made me finally pick up a blank notebook (as I'd been meaning to do for quite awhile) and begin chronicling my life - in thoughts, events, and emotions - as a journal. 

I find in the end, this is a top contender on my shelf for re-read. Sedaris is so (brutally at times) honest, and you can rely on him as your narrator through these tidbits of life. Since I started with his most recently published book, and then his second more recently published book (which happened completely on accident), I think I will continue this pattern and read Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim next.