My Bookshelf of Actual History with Little or No Smooching – The Brit Edition

I bought myself a few Mother’s Day presents. Because Santa didn’t bring me anything from my wish list.

These arrived on my doorstep this week….

The obsession started with watching the (wildly inaccurate) movie Elizabeth with Cate Blanchett. Then I found the book I, Elizabeth by Rosalind Miles at the library, and then I discovered Jean Plaidy, and the rest is…um…history (sorry, couldn’t resist).

The new additions will take their places of honor alongside….

  

  

And I read history without pretty pictures too!

Disclaimer: I’m not a trained historian, so I am in no way qualified to judge the veracity or scholarship of any of these books or authors. I’m just an average History Geek looking for great reads that tell (or show!) a great story and compel me to learn even more.

Must-reads….

• Our Tempestuous Day: A History of Regency England by Carolly Erickson
• Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders
• Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman
• Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser
• Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser
• Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration by Antonia Fraser
• God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicolson
• Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London by Liza Picard
• Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time by Dava Sobel [great movie, too!]
• Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne by David Starkey [I read all his books before I knew he was a raging misogynist and all-around crank, he’s now on my Never Again list]
• Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey
• Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery
• Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England by Alison Weir
• The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
• Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life by Alison Weir
• Henry VIII: The King and His Court by Alison Weir
• In the Lion’s Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII by Derek Wilson

 Worth reading…

• The Life of Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd
• Court Lady and Country Wife: Two Noble Sisters in Seventeenth-Century England by Lita-Rose Betcherman
• Lady Jane Grey by HesterW. Chapman
• The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser
• The Weaker Vessel by Antonia Fraser
• Georgette Heyer’s Regency World by Jennifer Kloester
• Edward VI by Jennifer Loach
• Bess of Hardwick: Empire Builder by Mary S. Lovell
• Mistress of the Elgin Marbles: A Biography of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin by Susan Nagel
• Broadmoor Revealed: Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum by Mark Stevens
• Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey
• The Life of Elizabeth I by Alison Weir
• The Princes in the Tower by Alison Weir
• The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
• The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir
• Mary Queen Of Scots: And The Murder Of Lord Darnley by Alison Weir
• All The King’s Women by Derek Wilson

 

Dog Heaven by Cynthia Rylant

Last week I had to make a phone call that I knew was inevitable, but one I desperately wanted to avoid.

Jackie (199?-2013)

Jackie was a mutt from the shelter. Dog Snobs might call her a “mixed breed,” but she was A Mutt. A bit of pointer, lab, some kind of terrier, maybe cocker spaniel, who the hell knows. No clue how old she was either, but we brought her home from the shelter in June 1998. I’d never had a dog before, and we didn’t have kids yet, so she was my first pet and my first baby.

We named her Jackie after baseball hero Jackie Robinson. “Dizzy,” for Cardinals pitcher/announcer Dizzy Dean, was a close second — and probably would have been a better choice, because Jackie the Mutt was a lot more cute than smart. We flunked two obedience courses because she never quite mastered the “don’t pull on the leash” thing. So I just kept buying every possible kind of collar and harness and leash until I finally resigned myself to being dragged around the neighborhood by my 25-pound dog.

Jackie adored kids, laid claim to all the blankets in the house, and could hear a cheese wrapper from approximately three miles away.

Cheese? Did somebody mention cheese?

She rarely barked, but possessed a remarkable ability to induce neighbors’ dogs into frenzies of growling and howling by simply ignoring them. We like to think she was gloating about her fabulous humans.

She traveled a circuit around the perimeter of the backyard to avoid the angry squirrels who threw things at her from the ginormous maple tree in the middle.

SQUIRREL!

Humans putting on shoes were GOOD because it meant either A Walk or A Treat, but a Human with a Suitcase was BAD. And she hated – HATED WITH A PASSION – pedicures. When I eventually gave up on trimming her Killer Claws myself, she would attempt to fling herself into traffic every time we walked up the sidewalk to the groomer and the Industrial-Strength Nail Clippers of Doom.

But, weirdly enough, Jackie never, ever — not even once — hung her head out the car window, so we still have doubts as to whether she was actually a real dog or not.

[This was going to be a paragraph about how Jackie became more than just a pet during my divorce, but I just can’t go there yet.]

ANYWAY…Over the past few days, I’ve been listening to, and telling my kids, and telling myself, all the usual stuff like “It was the right thing to do,” and “She’s no longer in pain.” But dammitall, my dog was DIFFERENT and all those generic platitudes JUST AREN’T GOOD ENOUGH.

So I bought a book.

Dog Heaven by Cynthia Rylant

My kids are too old for picture books, but no reader is EVER too old for a picture book like this. I put this on hold at Barnes & Noble after making The Call and picked it up on my way home from work. As soon as they saw the cover and title, both kids knew that it was time for The Talk About Jackie.

Title Pages

My 12-year-old daughter (aka Thing1), glanced through it, and then said, “I know what happens, Mom, I’ve seen Marley & Me,” in her snotty tween-age voice before erupting into ugly tears and wiping her snotty nose on my sweater. But she clutched the book in her arms as we had The Talk, and she read it to her little brother before bed that night.

“When a dog first arrives in heaven, he just runs.”

The nine-year-old little brother (Thing2), however, is A Questioner. Sweet Mother Of All That Is Holy, the QUESTIONS. And he never accepts “I. Don’t. Know.” as an answer — he’ll just keep asking the same question again in a dozen different ways. Uff da. I clearly did not not inherit whatever brilliant skill my dad had for Making Up Shit On The Fly That Trusting Children Believe Until They Graduate From College.

I answered Thing2’s eighty bajillion questions, most of which I’d answered 70 bajillion times before, as honestly as I could. The only questions that stumped me were the ones about cremation (managed to avoid direct answers on those), and of course, “But why does it have to be NOW? Why does it have to be TODAY?” Gah.

God wears a red bowtie and yellow pants.

Dog Heaven prompted even more questions, and it couldn’t help me answer the unanswerable questions, but this book did lead us to doing to some Canine World-Building of our own.

In Jackie’s Dog Heaven, there are no suitcases or nail clippers, and the Mean Squirrels will cower in her presence. There will be garbage cans full of Happy Meal remains for her to nose through and nobody will care if she makes a mess of it all over the kitchen. Grandpa Phil will take her for walks and give her pieces of cheese whenever she wants and they will watch all the March Madness basketball games together. She will have a whole couch to herself and she will sleep on ALL THE BLANKIES and never have to sigh over humans warming their toes under her tummy.

Goodbye, Jackie. We love you.

My 2012 Whatever Lists

I decided not to do a full-on Best of the Year list because there’s a bunch of 2012 stuff I haven’t read yet (sorry, Sherry Thomas, I have my entire New Year’s Day reserved for you) and I know many of those would be candidates.

So this is a Big Fat Disclaimer that these are books I read and reviewed in my inaugural nine months of blogging, but not necessarily published in 2012.

Permanent spots on my Desert Island Keepers list:

 

1. Contemporary: Ride With Me by Ruthie Knox
   By the time I got to the Red Bordello Motel Room Birthday Sex, I was a complete goner for this book. This is my standard for contemporary M/F romance, Tom Geiger is my Contemporary Fictional Boyfriend, I want Lexie to be my BFF and I have a huge Author Crush on Ms. Knox.
2. Historical: A Gentleman Undone by Cecilia Grant
   Grant’s writing exceeds any literary fiction I have ever read, and the complexity of her characters is incomparable. I loved A Lady Awakened, but A Gentleman Undone blew me away.
3. GLBTQ: Tigerland by Sean Kennedy
   This is totally cheating because I squeaked in a One-Quote Review a few hours ago just so I could put this on the list. I could never do a full review of this one or Tigers & Devils because I adore Simon and Declan sooooo much I would be squeeing fangirl goo all over the place and you’d lose all respect for me.
4. Inspirational: Stealing Home by Allison Pittman
   I purchased this on a whim for my World Series of Romance baseball theme, expecting it to be a bit of humorous fluff. But I was so, so wrong because this book gave me everything I look for in an inspirational romance AND it made me ugly-cry. I’ll re-read it once I recover, which may be a while.

I couldn’t pick just one short story/novella because there were so many damn good ones. Like this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one…. *~*happysigh*~*

My favorite reviews:

1. Lessons Learned: My Summer of Harlequin Experiment
   Let’s just say I learned a LOT about category romance and Romancelandia in general. I also added about 75 books to my TBR from all the recommendations I got.
2. Side by Side: Julia Quinn and Cecilia Grant
   This one took me forever to plan and format, but I love how it turned out, and it really helped me define my own view of what an author’s “voice” really means.
3. Stealing Home by Allison Pittman
   My one and only coherent A-grade review (I think my only A+), and I made Cecilia Grant cry. Need I say more?
4. Black Sheep Sheik and The Spy Who Saved Christmas
   Live-tweeting these was so much fun, and author Dana Marton single-handedly saved my Summer of Harlequin from an early demise.
5. Lord of the Shadows by Kathryn Le Veque
   I finally got to use all my Princess Bride quotes AND gratuitous-yet-historically-accurate phallic symbol images!
6. The Cowboy’s Princess Wife
   The Darts of Mockery were sharpened and aimed with deadly accuracy. But, admittedly, a target this ridiculous would be hard to miss.
7. Cowboy Heat by Sable Hunter
   Ah, the one that started it all. Sweet Jesus Honey Dews!

Dear Santa….

I have been a very good girl this year. Please bring me ALL THE BOOKS.

Vauxhall Gardens: A History
by David E. Coke and Alan Borg

The London Square:
Gardens in the Midst of Town
by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan

The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London
by Anthony Lejeune

The Eighteenth-Century Church in Britain
by Terry Friedman

London Hidden Interiors
Philip Davies

Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century
Fashion in Detail
by Avril Hart and Susan North

Eighteenth-Century Clothing at Williamsburg
by Linda Baumgarten

These are just a few highlights. My full list is available on Pinterest for your convenience. And in the interests of efficiency gift cards are welcome as well.

Love, Kelly

Medieval Mania: Cultural Appropriation, ca. 1960

View larger image

This is what you get when you do a Google search for “medieval maiden.” Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

A high-maintenance dog.

A monkey with a roll
of paper towels.

A bunny.

A pervy yet submissive goat-unicorn.

Nope, nothing offensive here. Move along.

In all this visual ecstasy, let’s not overlook the all-important ad copy:

I dreamed I was a medieval maiden in my maidenform® bra
The past was never quite this perfect! I’m a legendary figure in STAR FLOWER,
Maidenform’s newest work of art! Genius idea: petal-patterned circular-stitched cup,
underlined with twin elastic bands (upper band expands for
custom fitting cups; lower band expands for comfortable give-and-take).
White cotton broadcloth, A, B and C cups. A collector’s item at just 2.50!

Yeesh. Just the words “broadcloth bra” make my boobs itchy. Let us now praise the inventors of Lycra®, even though they were men.

The Holiday Haul of Half-Off Harlequins

I hate you people. This is ALL YOUR FAULT.

 

Hero count:

5 Mounties, 4 Vikings, 3 spies, 2 knights,
bodyguard, barbarian, mechanic, chieftain,
engineer, earl, farmer & Templar soldier

Let’s take a closer look at that last one, shall we?

Drawn Together By Destiny

Genevieve de Pereille’s music echoed in the hollows of Wolfram’s heart,
pulling him into an unfamiliar world where his knightly vows faded
to a distant murmur. The secret heir to an ancient legacy,
she held him fast with the timeless power of love.

With silver hair and fierce pale eyes, Wolfram stirred something raw
yet beautiful deep inside Genevieve’s very being.
Yet the handsome warrior was responsible for her brother’s death,
and she swore he would never escape her righteous vengeance.

And just in case you didn’t catch the subliminal messaging:

Not just a unicorn – a STARRY UNICORN

The Cyber Monday Damage Report

This has nothing to do with my OCD issues. NOTHING, I tell you.

All Romance eBooks….

Amazon….

For the daughter….

$1.99 each

For the son….

$1.32 each

Oh gawd, looking at all these on one page makes me a little nauseous – TBR-wise and bank-wise.

Happy Thanksgiving (Part 1)

Don’t ask – I have NO idea.

World Series of Romance: The Off Season

I’m avoiding finishing a baseball-hero-but-not-really-about-baseball book that just threw me a fucking curveball and I’m kinda pissed about it, so here’s what I’m doing to procrastinate, even though I really shouldn’t even still be reading because it’s almost midnight but insomnia SUCKS and NO I did not over-caffeinate and YES I took my meds today, WHY ARE YOU ASKING?

HERSTAR™ Women’s Baseball High Heel

Final Round of Fun with Fat Shaming: The Guys

As in “The Guys” brand of slacks.

Tight-fitting, polyester manly-man slacks — the “preferred profile pants.”

Read on or get a closer look for the full impact, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. And not just about the fat-shaming — there’s some sexual innuendo (of course) AND a lovely bit of racism in there too!

Random trivia you might need to know: “Best/Prest” = 65% polyester, 35% cotton.

From left to right….

If you are 40 or under — around the waist — The Guys are your slacks.

Being able to wear The Guys isn’t a matter of luck. If you’ve been wise enough to keep your chest bigger than your stomach – The Guys are for you. You look good, they look good on you. The Guys are lastingly Best/Prest. Get to wear The Guys!

Just 42 pounds away from wearing The Guys

It’s a worthwhile project — slimming down for The Guys. They’re made for guys 40 or under — around the waist. That way we tailor them to look good on people who look good. Naturally, The Guys are Best/Prest, handsomely finished and all those other details you’d expect in pants made only for trim people. Get to wear The Guys!

If your dad can wear The Guys slacks and you can’t — shame on you

The Guys slacks are made for special guys. Those whose chests are bigger than their stomachs. Guys 40 or under — around the waist. Guys who fit neatly into a sports car. Or slam a ball a mile down the middle. If you aren’t ready for The Guys — get ready.

The Guys don’t discriminate against fat people — just waistlines

It’s true. Not everyone can wear The Guys slacks. We make them to fit men whose chests are bigger than their stomachs. That way we tailor them to look best of guys we are 40 or under — around the waist! (Bigger sizes we leave to Omar and the other tent makers.) Naturally, The Guys are Best/Prest. Get to wear The Guys!

Preferred — by preferred profiles

Think of The Guys as a social asset. For elevation to preferred positions. If you are impressive — if your chest is bigger than your stomach — you can wear The Guys.

Oy. Uff da. Bloody hell. WHAT THE FUCK.

Let’s take a closer look at Mr. Prick McPedestal in all his Full Polyester Glory, shall we?

Mr. Prick McPedestal:
Spokesmodel for
SMUG WANKER INTERNATIONAL

You might think our friend Prick is wearing haute couture slacks designed by Halston or Bill Blass.

You’d wrong. Oh, sooooo wrong.

Little does Mr. McPedestal know, the behind-the-smoke-screen designer is a guy named Marv from Wisconsin. Specifically, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where Marv can be found smoking a cigar while sitting on his plastic chair inside the exalted fashion empire of Oshkosh B’gosh.

I made up the part about Marv and his chair and his cigar, but – I shit you not – this ad was commissioned and approved by the same company who built their reputation with branding like this:

This whole “The Guys” branding and sales pitch is just SCREAMING to be a Mad Men episode, isn’t it? Get on that, Matthew Weiner.

So, now what?

We now officially wrap up this five-part episode of Epic Mean Girl Rant of WTF Righteous Indignation. I plan on reading only GOOD books from now on, but we all know how well that’s worked out so far.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

If you’re joining this rant in progress, don’t miss the beginning and middle of all this WTFery:

1. World Series of Romance: Squeeze Play by Kate Angell
2. Follow-Up: Fun with Fat Shaming! (Part 1)
3. More Fun with Fat Shaming: Group Project!
4. Even MORE Fun with Fat Shaming: The Low-Fat/No-Fat Edition!
5. Final Round of Fun with Fat Shaming: The Guys