To Read Or Not To Read...

A few weeks ago, I went on a field trip to an Armory with my son's kindergarten class. There was armor from the 3rd century up to the 16th century. Now, this Armory was started by a man that had devoted his life to collecting antique and unique weapons and armor. Fascinating! It made me feel like I had stepped back in time...viewing armor that looked more like art pieces than used for fighting, and seeing armor from different countries, also...

So, of course, I immediately thought...."wow, I need to read about this era..."

Now,......you have to understand... I go through periods of "research" where I get into this "exploratory" mode. My children can tell you that I have had some very strange ones....reading about every mass murderer, and trying to find information on "castrati's" being several of them...

But,...as I got onto www.half.com, one of my favorite sites to find used books, I felt that thrill and rush of the search...trying to find books that I can read up on the era or person or event that I don't yet know that much about. I realized at that moment how much I LOVE books and how they have changed my life...

It sounds crazy, I know, but I spent my early childhood buried deep in books...
My mom threatened to take them away for punishment for not doing my chores....and I don't remember very much of the actual junior high and high school days, as I wandered in a daze, still totally absorbed in the book that I was reading at the time...

During my first marriage, I found that I looked forward to when my husband would travel, so I could stay up and read almost all night. People ask me what my favorite authors or types of books are, and I have to say that it depends on my interest and my mood. I'll read about anything, and if it interests me, I will enjoy it immensely! It's so wonderful that we have so many to choose from and that someone has done the research for us to learn about history, events, the mind of others, people's lives, other parts of the world, science and even the arts.

As for SOME of my favorites:
(and believe me, it was very hard to decide, as I have so many favorites...)

*"Cold Mountain" by Charles Frazier
-----Great writing...I still re-read the paragraph where Inman lies dying on the cold ground....the writing is so beautiful...
*"The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje
------love this book...so mysterious, tragic, but a fantastic story...
*"Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens
----still my favorite of his books...
*Good Night, Mr. Tom" by Michelle Magorian
-----actually a teen book, but so worthwhile...gives insight to the British "rail" children during WWII...
*"A Passage to India" by E.M. Forster
-----this story is so fascinating, bridging the gaps between class and country...
*"Alias Grace" by Margeret Atwood
----a mystery, but most of all, this book delves into human nature, and the history of psychcology...amazing...
*"The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck
----awesome story about depression life in normal middle America....
*"The Crucible" by Arthur Miller
----such a great story about human paranoia, and how far some would go to protect themselves...
*" Drowning Ruth" by Cristina Schwartz
----delves into the psychcological mind of women...also, a mysterious death...
*"To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
-----one of my early favorites and still such a great story!...
*"Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
-----still one of my all time favorites....so tragic...
*"The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton
-----the story touched me so deeply when I was a pre-teen and still has a strong message today...
*"Nectar From a Stone" by Jane Guill
----a Welsh story about a young woman's exodus after murdering her husband in self defense----in the 14th century...
*"An Indecent Obsession" by Colleen McCollough
-----a love story, but also tragic...
*"The Weight of Water" by Anita Shreve
----she has written many great books, but this is my all time favorite, love the parallels between the past and the present....brilliant!
*"The Music of the Spheres" by Elizabeth Redfern
----a marvelous book about astrology and music,....so good....
*"Rose" by Martin Cruz Smith
----mining in the 1800's...great!...
*"Enemy Women" Paulette Giles
----neat story from a womans point of view of the Civil War as it was ending....
*"Life and Death in Shanghai" by Nien Cheng
----I've read many biographies and autobiographies, but this was supreme!...
*"Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl" by Kate McCafferty
----such an interesting page in history...never knew that the Irish were sent to Barbados in the 1600's to be slaves....
*"Fingersmith" by Sarah Waters
--- riveting look at the classes and pickpockets in London, with a mystery to boot...
*"Five Mile House" by Karen Novak
-----a haunted house, and several twists and turns...scary....
*"Stones From the River" by Ursula Hegi
----WWII from the vantage point of the Germans....not the Nazi's...
*Resistence" by Anita Shreve
----another great book by this author...WWII Germany again...
*"Sweet Thames" by Matthew Kneale
----about the history of cleaning up the Thames, and how it coincided with a major cholera epidemic in England...
*Year of Wonders" by Geraldine Brooks
----a riveting book that takes place during the black plague...
*"How to Murder a Man" by Matthew Kneale
-----explores the history of even further Irish intimidations, during the 1800's as they fear the "Ribbonmen"....

Ok, ok....so I have gone on further than I should have...

I have so many more, and get so excited when I find a new one....

But, for now, this will have to do.... As for what I found to read after I looked for medieval books....I'm reading "The Illuminator" by Brenda Rickman Vantrease...a novel about the Oxford cleric John Wycliffe, who first translated the bible into a language for the common man in the 14th century....

What is an illuminator?....you may ask....
Well....its a man who uses art to....hmmmm....maybe you should go found out for yourself....