European Royalty discussion

I've added some Fiction and non-fiction titles to the group book shelves. Since the Valois dukes are the royal cousins of the French Valois kings, I've placed them under French Royalty.

Margaret of York is the sister of King Edward IV and Richard III; married to Charles the Bold in 1468, so I've placed her under both British Royalty and French Royalty.

Awesome! It's great to get some more books that aren't just British added to the shelves. Good call on placing Margaret of York under both British and French - I know I tried to do that with other royal women who crossed country borders (that I was aware of).

I've just found The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet by Edith Pargeter about medieval Welsh princes. Has anyone read any of them, Sunrise in the West, The Dragon at Noonday, the Hounds of Sunset and Afterglow and Nightfall? I'm curious as I know next to nothing about Wales, although the name Llewelyn does ring a bell, I can't say why.

Hi Angie, I have read The Brothers of G and found it a bit dry. Part of it was that it was written in the first person POV and really limited some of the telling of the story, part being I read them one after the other instead of four separate books so there was some back tracking of the story and lastly I read these shortly after Penman's Welsh Trilogy and it paled in comparison to that. Pargeter also wrote The Heaven Tree Trilogy which though slow paced, the story and prose is so gorgeous it makes up for it. She also writes a medieval mystery series under another name, but I'm drawing a blank on it right now.

For reading about Wales and the two Llewlyn (The Great and his grandson The Last) I highly recommend Penman's Welsh trilogy, although for those who don't like spoilers stay off the internet and Wik until you're done with the three. In order,

Here Be Dragons
Falls the Shadow
The Reckoning

Question about the book shelf -- I'm new here and I'm wondering about the process and who puts them there or can anyone put a book on the shelf? Thanks.

Misfit,

Pargeter's other name is Ellis Peters, under which she wrote the Brother Cadfael mysteries. Sadly, she died in 1995.

I've read most of the Cadfael books and adored them, although I think their view of the 12th century is rather sentimental. I haven't tried her non-mystery historical fiction yet.

Thanks Cera, that's the author. I'm not big on historical mysteries so I haven't tried those yet.

Anyone can put books on the shelf, so feel free! Make up new shelf labels as well if you don't find one that you need. You don't have to label them "French royalty", "British royalty", etc., but it would help other people find the books easier.

The only shelves I really try to control myself are the nomination shelf, read-w-group shelf and currently reading shelf. Other than that, knock yourself out (the read shelf and to read shelf don't really mean much here)!

Thanks Sara, careful what you've asked for you might get it :)

Although Penman's Devils Brood should keep me busy enough at least this weekend (scary, I had to take vacations days so I could get into reading the book faster).

Very cools. Thanks, Sara!

Holly
http://www.wondersandmarvels.com

Thanks very much for the tip. I'll keep an eye out for the Penman books. This just seemed like an easy option as the books are only 200 pages each. I'll take your recommendation. Thanks again!

Ha ha, I'm just glad people are interested in the shelves! I loved when Goodreads finally allowed us to label the shelves in the groups. I went a little crazy at first adding shelves, and I went through the posts and started to add books people had talked about. I should start doing that again when I have time (although this group has gotten so active it'll be hard to keep up with it!).

And if you feel something is mislabelled or should have multiple labels (say, French and British for Eleanor of Aquitaine) when you are going through the shelves, feel free to make changes or add additional labels to a book.

I was playing around with this today and I thought I imported some books from a couple of Listmanias of mine and then had a **duh** moment as I realized while HF they aren't all European royalty. I can't find them on the shelf here so I don't quite know where they went....

Anyway, apologies if I've put a book here in appropriately, direct me there and I'll try to make it go away :-)

I'm a new member and noticed that there aren't enough books on the bookshelf about Austrian royalty (probably because there just haven't been many members so far who are particularly interested in Austrian royalty), so I added a few on the Empress Elisabeth and the Crown Prince Rudolf. Maybe I'll add more when I can think of suitable titles - though unfortunately there aren't many really good books which are comparatively easy to find and available in English.

Welcome Katri! Thanks for the additions! I've been wanting to read a book about the Empress Elisabeth (she's the one who also went by Sissi, right, or am I mixing two people up?).

Yes, that's her. Although the correct form is actually "Sisi" - that's the nickname she was actually called by, and Sissi has later been popularized by certain less-than-historically-accurate movies and such because it was the more common form of Elisabeth. But most people don't know that because the form Sissi comes up more often, at least outside German-speaking countries. I'm glad if my additions are useful to someone wanting to know more about her!