Christine > Recent Status Updates

The Alexander McCall-Smith stories are quite good. Also really enjoyed the donkey/camel story

The idea of the powers (blessings of the god, but really mutant powers it seems) is a bit not needed. I do like the inclusion of Cleo's ability for language though. How Pompey went out is going to annoy historians though.

I predict I will either love this or hate it. Hopefully love it. If I hate it, it will most likely not be because of the author's writing style, just a different view of Cleopatra.

She seems to have confused Esme Lennox and Matthew Lennox. Esme was the favorite, possible lover of James VI and Matthew was the regnant, right.

FYI - Seven Stories Press is offering a different free ebook each day for seven days.

re-reading before the Hulu miniseries.

If he describes one more person as fit . . . . Also how many woman feel it necessary to tell people that their boyfriend thinks their best friend is hot? Like it proves, what she's a good friend or something?

I know I am supposed to, at the very least, be interested in Toby, but I rather wish this was Susanna's story. And why isn't Melissa a fully drawn character?

Lots of pretty birds I have never heard of before being mention. Thank god for the internet esp pinterest. Also I want an armoured catfish. Books is really good. He writes good women.

Richard Burton sure gave Liz Taylor a lot of nice jewels. A Ruby ring as a stocking stuffer!

was not expecting to be as moved by the death of his grandmother as I was.

Not bad, and like most Larsen compelling, yet I have some questions and criticism about some of the narrative choices and use of quoted material.

Lesbian Pride and Prejudice

A. S. Byatt has died. I am heartbroken.

Finished. Excellent follow up. Full review soon.

Really good. Review to follow after I finish grading papers.

Copy courtesy of Grove Atlantic. Not a dual biography, more of an influence and connection look.

whoever came up with the design of this deserves a raise.

There is a photo from Four Seasons Landscaping.

Infromation and comparsion is laid out via a chart.

Hendrix in top form with this one. Good start to the reading year.

starting a reread of the first two as the third comes out at the end of the month.

I might end up not liking this book -the book flap talks about Dresden so I am a bit wary of David Irving influence, but the Peaky Blinders charge is pure BS.

There is a review by Andrew Roberts that claims Ali cites Peaky Blinders as a source. The passage in question is where Ali is talking about how Churchill is portrayed in the media. He doesn't see Peaky Blinders is factual but that the show illustrates less than savory elements of Churchill's history.

Finish oh boy. I am very confused about the chapter with the granddaughter of the man they accuse. They change her name but say she is in her 50s, she says she never heard her grandparents talk about hiding, but if she is in her 50s, and her grandfather died in 1950, how would she know?

Sullivan was hired to write this. But I am really surprised, even in this first part, that some editor at some point didn't point out some of the issues with research

Additionally line from former police detective about any police being able to tell about the hidden annex from the outside was strange. It might be true, but the man saying it, says it as he looks at the house as a famous house, in modern Amsterdam; he knows what it is so that might influence how he sees it

Also some very strange lines and things. The line about it being hard to find a family in the Netherlands without a connection to WWII seems a slap to immigrants.

Questions 2

The team leaders seem surprised at the conflict between the Anne Frank House and the Anne Frank Fonds -something that appears in the news every so often as well as in many books

Questions

1. None of the historians listed so far seem to have background in Holocaust studies, just public history. Only one lists studying Amsterdam in the 1940s as an area study. The lack of a Holocaust or WW II historian is a strange omission.

Started this last night, before the news broke about the Dutch publisher stopping publication for review.

Not an expert but even in part 1 I have questions

R seems to be a Meghan fan! Awesome!