False Light (Art History Mystery #2)
Book
Academic sleuths Erika Shawn, art magazine editor, and Harrison Wheatley, a more seasoned art...
Mystery
Major Works
Book
This authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the...
500+ Afrikaans flitskaarte met klank
Education and Catalogs
App
This application is the perfect application to help you to assist your children to improve their...
Sago Mini Doodlecast
Education and Photo & Video
App
App Store Best of 2013! Sago Mini Doodlecast is a unique drawing app that records your voice as you...
Every Family Has One
Book
Fourteen-year-old Kathleen is walking home from a concert on a dark Liverpool night in 1974 when...
Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World
Book
Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy...
Marked for Life
Book
When a high-ranking head of the migration board is found shot to death in his living room, there is...
Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion
Book
Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion,...
ClareR (5874 KP) rated Love Orange in Books
Jan 23, 2023
I can see why Jenny becomes increasingly frustrated with Hank - from his constant references to his Viking heritage, to his Mindfulness - he has little time for her.
Jenny hates her job, and decides to do something meaningful by writing to a prison inmate. She looks forward to receiving his letters that smell of oranges and taste rather too nice when she licks them. To be fair, it seems reasonable to lick an envelope (yes, I know how this sounds!) if it helps her though the daily drudgery and having to put up with in-laws who clearly dislike her.
Jenny’s life may look perfect on the outside, but it’s anything but that.
There’s a rather sizeable reference to the opioid crisis in the US that I found interesting, but what I found MOST interesting was how Jenny appeared to be completely hollowed out by her boring life, the lack of attention and care she gets from her husband and children, and what’s expected of her from society. I’d want to escape her life too.
There’s some seriously dark humour in this, and it does come across as bleak. But I thoroughly enjoyed it.
ClareR (5874 KP) rated Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power in Books
May 31, 2023
This book is about the lives of Catherine de’ Medici (married to the French Henry II), Elisabeth of Spain and Mary, Queen of Scots and how their lives wove together.
There are some really interesting facts here (Mary was nearly 6 feet tall - now THIS is the kind of fact I live for!). But it was the personal side that really interested me. Catherine loved her children fiercely even though she had little time with them. She wanted to know every detail of their lives. Her letters to Elisabeth when she went to Spain were filled with family gossip and instructions. Just the kind of stuff that any mother would send their daughter, and Elisabeth appeared to want to always make her mother proud.
Mary and Elisabeth were like sisters, so when Mary needed Elizabeth’s and Spain’s support when the Scottish Lords turned against her, it must have hurt her greatly when they refused to help.
What I liked most was having the opportunity to dip my toes in to the history of France and Spain. It sounded as tumultuous as our own.
I do think that I’m going to have to follow up on Cathrine de’ Medici, though. Now she sounds fascinating!
I’m so glad that I read this - thanks to The Pigeonhole!