Tanzanite's Castle Full of Books

This week's Booking Through Thursday:


Do you read e-Books?
If so, how? On your computer, or a PDA?
Or are you a paper purist? Why?

I've never gotten into e-Books for several reasons. The biggest one is that I already spend so much time on the computer for work that I don't want to spend my "free" time there as well (although I do spend a considerable amount of free time online reading blogs!!). Plus, for me, there is nothing like the feel of a book in your hands - it's a little hard to curl up on the couch with a nice laptop. They are totally portable and I can put one in my purse, take one on a plane, read in the car etc.

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

Today seems like Monday, so here is this week's mosaic. Since I just finished Courtesan by Diane Haeger, I found a picture of Diane de Poitiers to work with this week.



Here is the "original" picture from which the mosaic was made so you can get an idea of what she looked like.

I first read about Diane de Poitiers while reading Jean Plaidy's Catherine de Medici trilogy. I thought her long term relationship with Henri II of France sounded interesting and so I was excited when I found out there was a book that focused on her.

Henri is the second son of King Francois ("brother" to Henry VIII) and was held prisoner as a small boy for 6 years by the Holy Roman Emperor as a hostage for his father's good faith. Those years took a toll on Henri and he hates and resents his father as a result. For his part, Francois finds Henri sullen and insolent and he despises his second son. Francois is also preocupied with regaining Milan and all of its fine art and cultural influences.

As the story begins, Diane is just returning to court after her older husband has died and Francois tries to get her into bed. Francois' "official" mistress (that phrase cracks me up!) is Anne d'Heilly. She is young, pretty and insecure. She hates Diane and does everything she can to make her life miserable.

In this environment, Henri and Diane become friends - each the only one the other has. Diane sees anger and lonliness in Henri's eyes and he sees her as different from the other women at court. Despite their 15 year age difference (or perhaps because of it), Henri soon falls in love with Diane, but she is careful not to let their relationship go too far. But when Henri is made a pawn in Francois' plan to regain Milan (by marrying him to Catherine de Medici), Henri's despondent reaction leads him and Diane to finally becoming lovers. Following the wedding, Diane returns to her estate in the country.

Two years later, Diane returns to court and decides that she is tired of denying herself the one person she loves and who loves her in return. She spends several days with Henri and then they hear the news of his brother's death - an event which makes Henri the Dauphin of France. Catherine finds out about her husband's mistress; but it is Diane who insists that Henri do his duty and get an heir with his wife.

As the years pass, Henri remains committed to Diane. However, Catherine, the powerful Guise family and even one of Henri's oldest friends scheme to get rid of Diane and the influence she has over the young king. But their plans backfire and at one point, Catherine is forced to join forces with Diane in order to rid themselves of a new joint threat. It is Catherine however that gets the final victory as she refuses to allow Diane to see Henri as he lays dying following a jousting accident.

I really enjoyed this book and was amazed at how committed Henri remained to Diane for more than 25 years. Henri and Diane come alive as real people and the descriptions of life at the French court make you feel like you are there. I found myself feeling sorry for Catherine, but at the same time, wanting Henri and Diane to be happy. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone could find that kind of love??

Rating: Very Good

Here is today's Booking Through Thursday:

I had an idea for a BTT question when I was taking a peek at one of my bookcases yesterday and spotted my old copy of the Aeneid in Latin sitting there. Maybe this question has already been done—but if not… Do you have any foreign language books and if so can you (still) read them?

I have no foreign language books because sadly, I never learned a foreign language. I took a year of German in high school, but didn't really like it and I hated the teacher and back then, you only needed one year of foreign language for a "honors" type curriculum. By contrast, my daughter needs 4 years of foreign language. She is taking French - I am so jealous. I've thought about maybe trying to learn French or Italian but wonder if my brain is too old to learn something that complicated.

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

Here is today's Booking Through Thursday:

It happens even to the best readers from time to time… you close the cover on the book you’re reading and discover, to your horror, that there’s nothing else to read. Either there’s nothing in the house, or nothing you’re in the mood for. Just, nothing that “clicks.” What do you do?? How do you get the reading wheels turning again?

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

Well, so far that hasn't been a problem for me! I have a huge TBR pile and so my problem is that I have too many choices and sometimes have trouble picking which one to read next. Usually when that happens I try to read about a person/era I haven't read about before or at least one I haven't read about in a while.


Also, a few weeks ago I was tagged by Clare for a meme. I had to think about it for a while and had to put a little twist on it since all I have been reading is historical fiction (so there really aren't a lot of good ficitional characters for me to pick from).

Name 3 characters you wish you could meet:

• Richard III - I'd love to ask him what really happened to those cute little boys in the tower.
• Anne Boleyn - She just seems fascinating to me and I"m sure she could tell some stories.
• William Marshall - I have said it before - after reading The Greatest Knight, I am seriously in love with this guy! I got another book about him a few weeks ago (A Pride of Kings by Juliet Dymoke) and am curious to see how someone else portrays him.

Name 3 characters you would like to be:

• William Marshall's wife - see above!!
• Eleanor of Aquitaine - Another fascinating woman who married 2 kings, was the mother of 2 more, went on a crusade and lived a long life.
• Elizabeth I - Another fascinating woman.

Name 3 characters who scare you (I could really only think of 2):

• King John - What an evil, twisted guy. You definately didn't want to be on his bad side.
• Henry VIII in his later years - You really have to wonder about this guy and what really caused him to turn into such a tyrant. Sure he was frustrated over the whole male heir thing and it seems that he became increasingly paranoid as he got older. Did he have some kind of disease or mental health issue that lead to it or did he just become a really grumpy old man?

I'm not going to tag anyone specifically, but feel free to play along either with the original or with my historical fiction version!

Today's Booking Through Thursday is a follow up to last week:

So, judging by last week's answers, apparently the question I should have been asking was:
Where DON’T you read??
Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

Hmmmmm. I would say mostly the obvious places - not that I go to them very often: the office, the movies, a church service, a funeral, a party. I don't get out much!! I also don't read in bed.

The Exiled is the second installment of the trilogy that started with The Innocent about the fictional Anne de Bohn and her love affair with Edward IV. Anne is now living in Brugge as a ward of her friend Matthew Cuttifer. Her living "alone" (even though she has servants and other household staff) causes gossip among the local merchants and their wives who are not always friendly to her.

A late night attack leaves her wondering if someone might want her dead and prompts the merchant William Caxton to encourage her to marry. Anne would prefer to be independent and wants to build a business as a trader but the merchants refuse to admit her into their guild. When Anne learns that the king's sister Margaret will be marrying the Duke of Burgundy, she decides to gamble everything she owns (including the small estate in England left by her mother) on obtaining goods to sell. Her success does not go over well with the other merchants and some of them know who wants to see her dead. But they're not telling.

Due to tension between England's Queen, the King's mother and his sister, Edward finds it necessary to take Margaret to Brugge himself for her wedding. This of course excites Anne a great deal and she makes sure that Edward sees her. They are reunited, but it is short lived when Edward learns that Elizabeth has followed him to Brugge even though he left her in charge.

Anne then suffers through a series of misfortunes (as all heroines do) which ultimately leads to her rescue by Edward and his brother Richard. During this time, Edward shares Annes secrets with Richard making him realize why Anne is so important to thim. But once again, Anne decides it is best to leave and she returns to Brugge - after all, there is one more book in the trilogy.

I liked this book about the same as I did the first one in the series. Running through the story are the political intrigues of England at the time (and Edward's efforts to build key alliances) as well as the merchant community of Brugge - both of which were interesting. Some of the situations Anne finds herself in are a little outrageous and I thought Anne's supernatural visions were a little distracting at times. Edward still comes across rather flat but the petty bickering between Elizabeth and her inlaws was amusing. I will read the final book at some point to find out how the author ties up all the loose ends related to Anne's past.

Rating: Good

I meant to post this last night, but got busy doing other things and by the time I realized that I forgotten to post it, I was too tired to do it.

Still loving the Tudors on Showtime. My husband even likes watching it even though there is a lot he doesn't understand. But he asks questions which is a good thing. As the story progresses, Henry is no longer the charming, arrogant, lovable young king. He is starting to show his darker side and that he will stop at nothing to get what he really wants. I especially like the scenes between Charles Brandon and Margaret - I know they are not historically accurate, but I do like the idea that at least every once in a while, someone did marry for love (even if it was Henry's other sister!). I thought the expressions on Margaret's face during her marriage and bedding ceremonies were priceless and probably did reflect the face of many a young princess sent off to marry an ailing old man. Because the time line is about 1 year per episode, I've found that if I watch an episode more than once, there are things I pick up the second time that I missed.





My other new obsession is Paperback Swap. Since joining 2 weeks ago, I have mailed out 18 books - many of them were ones I was going to send to Goodwill but I took them out of the box and posted them. Who knew that people were looking for books about making your cat behave, decorating your house, dealing with grief and traveling. I have already received 3 books and have several others on the way. Here's a list:

• The Bronze Horseman and Tatiana and Alexander by Paullina Simons


• Catherine of Aragon by Julia Hamilton


• Courtesan by Diana Haeger


• Druids, The Wind From Hastings and The Last Prince of Ireland by Morgan Llwelyn (one of these I got free!)


• The White Rose by Jan Westcott


• White Rose Dark Summer by Eleanor Fairburn


• A Pride of Kings by Juliet Dymoke

I have about 60 books on my wish list and more credits to spend. Now I just need to find more time to read all of these books!

And finally, here is this week's mosiac - a day late. I have read The Boleyn Inheritance and have one other book about Anne of Cleves (by Margaret Campbell Barnes - haven't read it yet). Does anyone know of any others?

This is the second book in my Banned Books Challenge and since it is about a society which burns books, it certainly is more than appropriate. However, I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would object to the book and seek to ban it.

Fahrenheit 451 was written in the early 1950’s – a fact which creeped me out when I read this book. Exploring the extreme lengths to which censorship can ultimately lead, I found the story thought-provoking especially in light of the current tendency to “political correctness”. This book may be our future – and it is not pretty.

Set in some unknown point in the future (although after the 1990’s due to a reference to that date), books are against the law and houses have been fireproofed. This combination leads to a new purpose for firemen: to burn books. The title represents the temperature at which paper burns. Guy Montag has been a fireman for 10 years, but his seemingly happy existence is called into question when he meets a young girl, Clarisse. She questions what he does and talks to Guy about things that used to be: kids didn’t always kill each other, paintings used to have people in them, houses used to have front porches, firemen used to put out fires and people used to talk to each other. “No one has time anymore for anyone else,” she tells him.

But Guy has a secret stash of books that he has been stealing from fires and after a particularly difficult book burning, he seems to snap. He shows the books to his wife and before long is spouting poetry to her friends. Inevitably, someone turns him in and soon he is on the run. He meets up with a group of “outlaws” – writers, professors and other intellectuals who are dedicated to keeping the knowledge in books alive “for when civilization is in need of it again”.

Bradbury creates a world that is surprisingly similar to our own – huge TV’s on the wall with interactive programming and steady streams of music piped into a person’s ears by tiny earphones. Guy's wife is more interested in what is going on with her TV "family" than with her husband. There was something about his description of Guy’s wife lying on her bed listening to music that brought to mind my daughter and her iPod. Creepy.

But it is Bradbury’s explanation as to why/how this all happened that is most disturbing. As explained by Guy’s boss, Beatty, with the advent of radio and television things begin to have mass and had to be “dumbed” down in order to appeal to the masses. School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies and languages dropped, English and spelling almost completely ignored (think the "instant messaging" language that kids use). People are either workaholics or don't want to work at all. Sound familiar?

And then come the burnings. If a group is offended by a book, it must be bad. Remove the offending paragraph, page, or chapter. Eventually the book will be empty and useless. Burn it. The list of groups Beatty rattles off not to offend was probably funnier in the 50’s when it wasn’t so close to the truth. He lists for example, dog lovers, cat lovers, lawyers, Baptists, Mormans, people from Oregon, Mexico or Brooklyn, etc. Political correctness at it's most extreme. He points out that the banning of books did not come from the government, but rather from the people. Why read the book when you can get a condensed version of it or watch the movie.

Bradbury wrote two separate “Afterwards” that are included in the 50th Anniversary edition that I have. In one of them, he indicates that he discovered that over the years, editors had “bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections”. Nothing like a little reality to illustrate his point! He also addresses criticism that he has received over the years that the book should be changed to include more women, minorities, etc. noting, “There is more than one way to burn a book”. Now there's some food for thought.

This was not always an easy book to read. But it certainly got me to thinking.

Rating: Very Good

This week's Booking Through Thursday:

No, not that kind of R.I.P.
Reading. In. Public.
Do you do it? Why or why not?

I read a lot in public -

• doctor's office
• hair salon
• on the metro (when I'm in DC)
• restaurants (if I'm by myself - it would be rude to read if I was with someone else!)
• during my daughter's gymastics practice
• and any place else where I have to wait

I'm an impatient person and reading helps to pass the time. I would much rather read a good book while I wait than flip through some meaningless magazine.

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!