Author Gift | Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England

I received a free digital copy of this text from the author, Annie Whitehead, in exchanged for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was first introduced to the work of Annie Whitehead and many other fantastic authors in a wonderful little volume called 1066 Turned Upside Down. This absolute gem of a book explored all sorts of outcomes of the entire year of 1066 and what possibilities could have come true besides William the Bastard's victory. Most were grounded in reality and some were quite fantastical but I loved every single one - especially the one that saw Harold successful at Hastings. But I also have to remind myself that if we are altering British history that greatly, Eleanor of Aquitaine might never have become who she was, so I have to accept what happened and be fine with it.

My second encounter with the author's work came with a reading of Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom. You'll notice a theme here, in that when it comes to my beloved Anglo-Saxons, I will read any and everything I can get my hands on. This was another fantastic read for me and I eagerly awaited Whitehead's next offering.

I was NOT disappointed.

This text is incredibly well-researched, almost exhaustedly so. The author makes fantastic use of all the sources she is able to find - which was a surprising great number. I've read so much about the Anglo-Saxons, but never a book so wholly dedicated to restoring the women of the time back to their rightful places in history. And let's be realistic: when we do meet these women by chance or in passing, we usually don't get much information unless she was powerful or scandalous or both.

Yet here Whitehead is able to explore the lives of so many women in-depth, or at least as deep as we are able to go with what information exists. I was truly in awe of the number of primary sources that named so many women who, most often, I knew only scant facts about. To find that so many women were well-educated, literate, and powerful is thrilling. She uses a number of chronicles, annals, and charters to pull apart the many threads sometimes necessary to get to the truth. When necessary she also uses information from legends or gossip about certain figures that has come down to us through the ages. It was really interesting to see the comparisons of what chroniclers said about these women, vs. what records actually show. Such sniveling little men sometimes - something I know all to well in regards to my dear Eleanor of Aquitaine, centuries later.

Whitehead shows just how powerful some women became, and in a variety of roles: landowners, queens, consorts, dowager queens, abbesses, even a warrior (perhaps). Where she found contradictions in sources, Whitehead takes the best route possible in order to remain neutral and present her thoughts without stating that it is absolutely certain this way or that. I think that is was a good historian must do, choose what is most likely when considering the biases that many chroniclers held for women - especially powerful ones.

The book is divided by topic and each section within is mostly chronological, but not entirely. There is overlap from section to section but I feel that in a book like this that is helpful, as the reader is more able to place each woman in the proper context of her time and role. Some might find this bit repetitive, but I found it useful.

For dealing with these centuries when women were regularly written of only as footnotes in the lives of their fathers, sons, uncles, brothers, even cousins, Annie Whitehead has done a beautiful job restoring them to their rightful places in history.

Highly recommended.

NetGalley ARC | Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

 

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

(I complained on Twitter about not getting approved or denied so maybe Dan Jones told them to give me a copy just so I would shut up about it.)

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I know, I know.

I obviously can't be objective because it's Dan Jones, is what you're all thinking.

Well, I CAN!

This book is just THAT GOOD.

Literally all of my favorite people, places, and things from history, in one ginormous volume, covering roughly 1,000 years of everything that happened from the Fall of Rome to those Tudors coming in and shaking things up.

We're talking this one might be rivalling The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England as my most fave Dan Jones book. That's HUGE. I first learned about Eleanor of Aquitaine from The Plantagenets so Dan Jones basically named my baby. (Side note: I always remind Eleanor that she is so lucky that I learned about Eleanor of Aquitaine BEFORE Boudicca, or she might have a very different name.)

BUT THIS ONE IS SO GOOD.

You also might be thinking, "Do we need ANOTHER book about the Middle Ages?"

Again, the answer is yes.

What Jones has managed to do once again is combine his massive amount of knowledge, tying it all together across place and time, and present it in a highly informative yet highly readable way.

I was lucky to have teachers who really made history come alive for me, even going back to middle school. History has been my love for as long as I can remember. I get that non-fiction is not for everyone. A lot of people don't even give it a chance because history was taught to them in a boring recitation of facts and dates and names.

This book though, is something different; an extraordinary feat that Jones should 100% be proud of. (And I assure you he is, because who wouldn't be?)

He brings these historical figures to life and makes them real once more. It's hard sometimes to think about people this way, to imagine them living and working and dying in a world so different from our own. But Jones has the skill to share this knowledge and research in such an engaging way that you feel as though you could actually reach back in time and walk along Hadrian's Wall (which you actually can do if you're in the UK, which I am not and that is sad), to sit in a Great Hall and take in all the sights and sounds and smells of life at a royal court, to race along the Asian Steppes with Genghis Khan, watch as Rome is sacked time and again (six altogether in this span that Jones covers), and more.

SO MUCH MORE.

Really, truly. I was actually nervous about how I was even going to write up this review because there is so much material to address. Otherwise I would have had it up days ago.

Just for fun, let's take a look at all of my Goodreads shelves I added this book to, so you can get an idea of everything you'll find. I am selective in how I add non-fiction texts to my various shelves. If something is mentioned in passing and gets barely more than a paragraph, then no it does not qualify. If it is discussed in-depth or is used in a way that makes more clear the topic at hand, on the shelf it goes. They are as follows:

                        Ancient Rome    Medieval Europe    Middle Ages    Roman Britain    Asia   

Eastern Europe    Goths/Visigoths/Ostrogoths    Byzantium    Plague    Middle East    

Military History    Islam    France and the French    Carolingian Dynasty   

 Merovingian Dynasty    Vikings    Christian History    Plantagenets    King Arthur

    Wales    The Crusades    Eleanor of Aquitaine    Spain and the Spanish    

Mongols and Mongolia    Russia    Business and Leadership    Anglo-Saxon England

    Castles and Palaces    Christian Holy Places and Relics    Climate Change   

 Medicis    Joan of Arc    Architecture    Art    Explorers    Mexico    Popes   

 Germans and Germany    Tudors    Gauls and Franks

Quite a bit of information, no?

And if that's not enough, there are plenty more topics that would probably have justified the creation of a new shelf to accommodate it, but I chose not to. I couldn't even list all the labels on this post because there is a character limit.

I really love how Jones divided up each section. First there is Imperium, Latin for what amounts to absolute power, which Rome once had, which covers 410-750. Here we find chapters on the Romans, Barbarians, Byzantines, and Arabs.

Next comes Dominion, spanning 750-1215, with sections entitled Franks, Monks, Knights, and Crusades.

Third is Rebirth, 1215-1347, detailing the time as it related to the Mongols, Merchants, Scholars, and Builders.

Last comes Revolution, 1348-1527. We learn of Survivors, Renewers, Navigators, and Protestants.

As you might expect, there is an extensive section of notes and from Jones you should expect no less. The text ended at 77% in my advanced digital copy, with notes taking up the next 13% of the content. Primary sources cover another 4%, with journal articles and theses ending at 96%. The remainder right up to 100% is footnotes.

I can promise that if you pick this one up and settle in for a good bit of reading time, you will not be disappointed. Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages is the new standard against which to measure all other books covering the same topics.

Without a doubt, this is the best book of 2021 for me and I don't believe that anything the rest of the year can top it.

Highly, highly, highly recommended.

Mini Reviews | Hodge Podge

I feel a potential reviewing slump coming on so obviously the only way to stop it is to write lots of reviews about completely unrelated books. Here's hoping it works!

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I really enjoyed this book - but I am such a sucker for books about cities, city biographies so to speak. I love learning about how massive cities we now take for granted started out sometimes at tiny villages with futures no could have predicted.

The author does a fantastic job pulling together many threads - history, anthropology, archaeology, and our own modern observations. She is an archaeologists, so that level of expertise is welcome as she not only discusses the rise and fall of some major urban centers, but the process of discovering them.

We visit several fantastic locations around the world - Tenochtitlan, Pompeii, Tell Brak, and the like. In these city remains, and others as well, the author explains how over many thousands of years the city as we know it today emerged. As we journey through the ancient world, even through some of the author's own digs in India, we see that the world as we know it today has more in common with these cities of the past than we think. She makes a lot of comparisons between cities now vs then, and delves into the idea of cities impact the people who live there. I found this part particularly interesting; our environment impacts us as much as we impact it.

I also found her take on the future of cities to be of interest. The likelihood of all major cities simply collapsing over time is not necessarily a given. It's true that many cities in the ancient world came to an end at some point and were abandoned, otherwise archeological digs at these locations would not happen. However, for cities to simply end is not all that common. The citizens move elsewhere, taking the influence of their former cities with them when they move on to other cities, and the cycle continues.

Recommended.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have a fairly good working knowledge of the Kennedys as a whole, but the bulk of my deeper knowledge revolves around Jack, Jackie, and JFK, Jr. I know some about Bobby, but only as he functioned in relation to JFK in the White House years, and then later in regards to his assassination. I was sixteen when JFK Jr. died and was absolutely gutted. Even at that age I remembering wondering how much more one family could take, and that Caroline was now all alone.

Side note: If you are one of those crazies who thinks JFK Jr. secretly survived the plane crash that killed his wife and sister-in-law, and that he would ever in a million years support the former guy and run as his VP, you can kindly fuck all the way off into the sun. A) That would never happen, given the fact that he was a Democrat who many thought could win the party nomination and presidency someday and B) Shame on your for piling more hurt onto Caroline every time you spout this nonsense.

When I came across this book I was delighted, as I am trying to learn more about all of the Kennedys. I am not sure why, and there are many detractors who deride the obsession our nation has with the family, but so many of us still can not look away. Even as the generation after Caroline and JFK Jr. have not managed to capture our attention the way their predecessors did, there are still many who read books such as this, about the eight children of Joe and Rose.

Kathleen, called Kick by her family, was Joe's favorite child and Jack's favorite sister. It is easy to see why. She was adventurous, charming, clever, hilarious. She made her debut into London society in 1938 when Joe was appointed the US Ambassador. London fell in love with Kick as well, as did a specific young man named Billy - William Cavendish, heir to the Dukedom of Devonshire and Chatsworth. They married despite protests of her family over the religious divide, and Joe Jr was the only Kennedy to attend the civil ceremony. Unfortunately a long life together was not in the cards, as Cavendish was killed in action while fighting in Belgium just a few months later. Kick would not live much longer than her husband, dying in a plan crash four years later, at age 28.

Kick was in many ways ahead of her time. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and saw whomever she wanted - despite threats from her family that she would be cut-off on various occasions. Kick lived her life to the fullest, never minding a bit of scandal that came along with whatever she was up to.

Kick would become the second Kennedy child to die, but certainly not the last. Joe Jr was killed four years earlier in the war, around a month before Cavendish. Her beloved and favorite brother Jack would become the third in 1963, and from out of these family tragedies the so-called Kennedy Curse would emerge.

The author makes good use of sources, relying both on family stories and words by Kick's own in hand in the form of letters she wrote.

I would recommend this one to those with an interest in the Kennedy family dynamics and these 'forgotten' children who have been eclipsed by Jack, Bobby, and Ted.

Quick Thoughts | Kill All Your Darlings

Rating ⭐⭐

How does a book that started out strong end up being one of the most boring things I have read this year?? How?? HOW??

There was no twist, nor surprise, nothing. Just a plain old super obvious set of killers and the biggest letdown of the year.

How this book has garnered so much praise is beyond me.

Maybe because it tries to have themes of 'fuck the patriarchy' but that never really gets off the ground because the woman who would be the screaming that phrase over and over is the one who is dead and we only meet her in flashbacks or when others speak of her.

Also, one of the detectives tells the main character that they never released details about how Sophia actually died, but he was under suspicion because he used those exact details in "his" books. Yet when Madeline is speaking with another detective right after Sophia's death, she asks if it is true what people are saying online about Sophia being strangled and the detective CONFIRMS it. So how exactly were the details withheld?

I was looking forward to this one because I enjoyed The Plot, and the premises are similar in that they deal with stolen manuscripts and people taking credit for others' work. That is exactly where the similarities end and you are far better off picking that one up than this nonsense where you too will guess the killers within the first few chapters of this snoozefest and nothing is a surprise or twisty.

Top Ten Tuesday | Books I'd Want With Me While Stranded On A Deserted Island

 

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week's topic is not to be taken lightly. These are books that will be with you forever on whatever deserted island you find yourself on. Kindles will do us no good and we must think very carefully about what books we will spend the rest of our lives with, should we not be rescued.

Here are mine, in no particular order. Ten fiction and the single solitary non-fiction, which will surprise exactly no one.

Because OF COURSE I would never go anywhere without Dan Jones The Plantagenets. After all, this is the book that named my baby.

Life wouldn't be too terrible on a deserted island with these eleven books. However, I'd prefer to not be stranded and to just read them all at home.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Stacking the Shelves #156

     

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature hosted by Reading Reality. It is a chance to showcase all the goodies you've collected throughout the week, whether they're bought on-line or in-store, an ARC or a final copy, borrowed from a friend or the library, physical or digital, etc.

Library Treasures

Happy Reading!

Sarah

Mini Reviews | The Donner Party

I don't think I will ever get this story out of my head for as long as I live. I can't even imagine, no matter what books I read on the subject, what it was like. Truly horrifying.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sarah Graves is twenty one at the time that she and her family embark on what will prove to be a harrowing journey of unimaginable horror. She and her family, including her new husband, head west in search of a better life. Yet in a short seven months they find themselves trapped with other emigrants led by George Donner in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sarah joins a dozen other members of the party who attempt to make it out by snowshoe to get help for those they are leaving behind. Who knows what they will find when and if they even return.

Yet even before that heavy storm came in and barred their passage out, the journey was difficult. Covering many miles a day in a bumpy wagon over unforgiving terrain, there were accidents and people died. Animals were injured and sometimes whole wagons full of belongings had to be abandoned if they could not be repaired.

When the snow finally came, the oxen were so malnourished that they could not continue. This effectively trapped the members of the party who could not all make it out on foot. They killed some of the animals to have some food, but with the animals being underfed die to the conditions, it is easy to see why that plan didn't work out so well.

Sarah and those who attempted to seek help on foot had plenty of tragedy and horror of their own after leaving their makeshift camp. Even they could not escape the starvation, hypothermia, and death despite their best efforts.

I learned so much more about the Donner Party - for instance it was a massive group of extended families travelling together, and not only the Donners - obviously, since the author has chosen to focuses specifically on Sarah Graves and her family as part of the larger group. The group also consisted of several single men who had been hired to help the group on their way. Often the story is told that these were foolhardy people who had no idea what they were doing or what they were up against. Yet the Graves family had experience in travelling in this manner before. They were pioneers who knew what a difficult journey this would be, and unfortunately their party crossed paths with those who were ruled by greed, sending the massive party on a 'short cut' that was no such thing.

I never knew this before, but this route had never been travelled, ever. EVER. In my vague recollection of learning about the party, I always thought they simply left far too late in the year and were caught in a terrible snowstorm. While it is true they did leave Missouri about three weeks after the cut-off, that was not the only cause of their demise.

I appreciate the author's efforts to present a full and complete picture of the entire group, documenting to the best of his ability the route they took - though of course his transportation was a lot more comfortable, and there was a much less likely chance of him getting caught in a blinding storm and starving or freezing to death. He does not spare us any details in fact, about anything. The author is thorough in his research and reports on every aspect of the journey. The attention to detail is important and you can't help but feel you are right there with them, in the worst of it, wondering how anyone could possible come out of this alive.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

I read both of these books fairly close together and feel that both did an excellent job in recounting the devastation of this journey that only half the emigrants would survive.

The author uses numerous sources to tell the story of the party, not focusing on one particular woman or family, as the previous book did. This way works just as well, and I feel like reading both books would be helpful for anyone wanting to know more. He uses scientific data such a survival rates and snowfall totals, as well as journals and letters written by those who belonged to the Donner Party. Descendants of the doomed travelers made these documents available and one can not read through the writings without feeling such deep sadness for those who were once so full of hope at the prospect of starting a new life out West, to provide for their families.

One of the things the author does well is presenting the party as human beings forced to make extraordinarily difficult decisions when the time came to do so. There are not heroes and villains here, or at least the area is much more grey than black and white. I also appreciate that he does not dwell on the gruesome aspects of the story, when finally those who stayed behind at Donner Lake were driven to such madness by hunger, that they would take to eating the dead. It also must be remembered that most did not actually do so.

One thing the author does well is look at the contradictions in survivors' accounts later on. In his examination of this journey, he is seeking to find what went so wrong, what made this trek so vastly different from the hundreds of thousands of others that travelled West during that span when heading West was the thing to do? The author sets out to answer these questions and more in his analysis and does a thorough job with all the sources available to him. Aside from the sources mentioned previously, he also uses newspaper accounts, interviews, and diaries to complete his research.

Both texts are fantastic explorations of the doomed party and I recommend both for those who are interested.

NetGalley ARC | The Real Leonardo Da Vinci

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐

This is going to be pretty quick, because it became clear early on that there were lots of problems that still need to be ironed out in this one.

First, more editing. This reads like a college term paper at best and does not read as a professional author writing about easily the greatest polymath in history, his scores of interests, and unparalleled genius. Books posted to NetGalley are supposed to be decently close to a finished product, and I am hoping that this will see more editing before its August 31st publishing.

There are structural changes that would help the book flow better. Within chapters, information was further broken down into sometimes very short sections - for example, when discussing da Vinci's friends. This lead to the reading being very choppy and disjointed. This occurred in other chapters as well, such as that which explored (very surface-level only) da Vinci's own words on all manner of topics. I would much rather have seen his journals quoted than for the author to attempt to tell me what he thought or meant about any given subject.

We were given far more information than necessary about the Medicis, the Borgias, and the Templars even. I found the extra information about family members not needed. Really, the only figures necessary to talk about would be the ones da Vinci worked for. The author also addresses the issue of whether or not da Vinci was a Templar, and delved into The Da Vinci Code for a few pages.

The section on Freud analyzing da Vinci was super weird. I have said many times with historical figures that it is incredibly dangerous and also not really professional for someone from the modern era to attempt to diagnose or analyze someone so far removed from our world today. (Henry VIII is an excellent example, and everyone wants to to drop medical diagnoses on him and it doesn't matter, nor will we ever know for sure.) Plus, Freud is also dead, so any questions we might have about his thoughts/findings on da Vinci can't even be clarified.

There's a ton of repetition from section to section and chapter to chapter. There's also a lot of contradictions where there should not be, despite the fact that the author tells us eleventy bajillion times that da Vinci was a man of contradictions.

With major editing and polishing, I think this could be a decent contribution to texts on Leonardo da Vinci. At this time I can only recommend it with caution in this form as an ARC.

Tackling the TBR Week 27: July 15 - July 21, 2021

 

I am now entering year three of Tackling the TBR. Slowly but surely I have made big strides in getting by TBR under control. When I first started in 2019, my TBR was topping out at over 5,000 books. I don't know that I will ever get below 500, but a #BookDragon can dream!

I will be posting on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and the last day of the month. Feel free to join in if you'd like!

Previous Week's TBR Total: 2,864

Currently Reading

Books Added to TBR: 

Books Removed from TBR: 0

Books Read

Books DNF-ed

Duplicates Removed: 0

New TBR Total: 2,866

Any of these catch your eye? Have you already read any? Let me know!

Happy Reading!
Sarah

Mini Reviews | Cults

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

It always gets me when books like this show the authors as children (much like Jenna MisCavige Hill's book on escaping Scientology). They're so young and innocent and have no idea that what is happening to them is abuse, and they deserve so much better.

Rachel Jeffs is one of Warren Jeffs' 53 children whom he has with perhaps as many as 80 wives and in this she book recounts is excruciating detail what life was like living within the confines of the FLDS Church, run by her father and self-proclaimed Prophet. Jeffs' stranglehold on the cult is so strong that despite a life sentence plus twenty years, he still issues edicts from behind bars that his followers adhere to. Never doubt, he is still very much in control.

Yet Rachel found a way out and I deeply admire her courage and strength as she made her plans to escape. After years of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the hands of her father, she knew this was not okay, nothing about this was right, and she had to get away. Rachel was often punished for what the church viewed as transgressions by being isolated in a house by herself, and her children kept from her.

In 2015 though, Rachel pulled the trigger on her escape, fleeing with her children to her grandparents' home, finally safe from the only home she had ever known.

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I wish people would stop calling this a religion, it's a cult and we all know it.

That's really my only issue with the book - the subtitle.

Otherwise, this shit is bananas just like every other Scientology book I have read so far and I am HERE. FOR. IT.

It is so batshit insane that I can't stop picking up books about this cult. I mentioned above the memoir written by Jenna Miscavige Hill, but there are many others out there as well, and still more I want to read.

I was really surprised at just how cooperative the "church" was with Reitman. She was given access to current members and officials for interviews, as well as confidential documents that we might never know about otherwise. Yet still I wonder how much they also kept from her. She also interviewed numerous former members to keep the perspective balanced.

Reitman is a journalist and takes the approach of telling a factual story about Scientology. There are, of course, celebrity stories and Tom Cruise will forever be the couch-jumping poster boy, but there is tons of actual information here. Of course, a lot of those facts are ridiculous and terrible, so Scientologists still come off looking ridiculous and terrible, which a lot of them are.

For all the good the "church" claims it has done, such as volunteer ministers travelling to sites of devastation to render aid, whether natural or man-made disasters, all the negative can not be and must not be overlooked.

One need only to seek out interviews with former members, some of whom had previously dedicated their whole lives to the organization - not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And that right there is the root of it all - the money.

L. Ron Hubbard was a con man of the worst kind, bilking people out of their life savings for a chance at salvation. Yes, there is some level of personal responsibility that must be realized, but what about children born into Scientology, who never know any other way of life? Or those who are such outcasts, feel like they don't belong anywhere, and suddenly within the "church" they become someone?

It makes you wonder how much longer this can go on. How many more people have to come forward with the insane stories of being sent to far-flung outposts to 'plant a new church'? How many more will be harassed and see their lives destroyed because Miscavige is so rich, he's practically untouchable?