As promised, Laurie King is guest blogging here today on a topic and period that for a while now has been of endless fascination to me.  I'm a relatively new convert to the Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes mysteries, but trust me, it only takes one book to become addicted.  S...

After I finished Helen of Troy two weeks ago, I went to the library. I was following up two excellent suggestions from my sister, but as neither of them were in stock, I proceded to rampage through the stacks like a drunken sailor (or drunken English major at least), checking out books as lofty as T...

First the bad news.  You might already know that I work in a university library.  Earlier this week there was a story in the local newspaper where the president of the university was quoted on the sad state of economic affairs concerning the state'...

The sheriff's department in Chicago's Cook County is suing Cralgslist, claiming the site is the largest source of prostitution in the United States. Um, yeah? [SunTimes] Dare we pick up Jonathan Littell's 1,000-page Nazi-centered novel "The Kindly Ones" which "manages to b...

In modern genre terms, the Arthur stories straddle two categories. With the magic, the Grail Quest and the Lady in the Lake, there are clearly elements of fantasy. With the semi-historical roots, there is also a basis in historical fiction. In her soon to be re-released Kingmaking, Helen Hollick shi...

Jasper Kent’s Twelve (US, UK, Canada) combines the tragic history of the Napoleonic Wars in Russia with an Eastern European vampire tale. This approach has been received with much fanfare – dozens of glowing reviews can be found with ease, the book has already had multiple reprints and the buzz ...

I finished the wonderful Helen of Troy by Margaret George a couple of days ago. Reading the afterword was pretty embarrassing, though. Did you know that there's no evidence that any of that really happened? That's right, all my concerns about the story not being historically accurate were misplaced....

  What I'm reading now?  Apparently everything I can get my hands on, if this photo is anything to go by.  I think books are filling some deep inner need at the moment, since the weather is doing nothing to make me feel happy (see yesterday's post).  I'v e just ha...

I was attracted to The Archivist's Story by Travis Holland because of the title. Museum and archive people are invisible to the average person. Most people who visit museums and archives aren't aware that the institution's entire collection is not on display, nor that there's a tracking and storage ...

I've talked before about how difficult it can be to pull off a good historical novel. It's even harder when the novel has a broad scope: when you're talking an entire lifetime, for example. It's easy to contort your characters into trying to hit all the major newsworthy events. So, it's to Laurie Gr...