We didn't have a thread yet to chat about what we're reading and ordering from PBS, so I thought I'd start one for the month.

I will finish Perfume: The Story of a Murderer this weekend. I just ordered Tulip Fever and Wise and Foolish Kings: The First House of Valois (about the medieval French kings who ruled during the Wars of the Roses and beyond).

Is anyone else ordering WAY too many books? I have three requested and 17 on the way. (Hubby is going to kill me! Even with my talent for double and triple-stacking on bookshelves, we have very little shelf space left.)

I am getting a lot of ideas for books and authors from this board, plus I check the history and genre fiction listings every day. I keep telling myself I won't check anymore, but I can't resist!

Oh well, at least I'm having fun!

Yes, I'm ordering waaaaaay too much lately, plus a lot of wl books have come in lately as well.  Just finished My Father Had a Daughter by Grace Tiffany and am about to start The Secret Wife of George IV by Diane Haeger.

Felicia, you just ordered The Queen of Subleties from me...went out this morning!

I am definately ordering too many books!!    I think I like the thrill of the hunt.  But hey, at least it is inexpensive and there are worse things I could be spending money on. I have recently ordered On a Highland Shore (Scottish - hope it's not too romancey) and Carolly Erickson's biography on Elizabeth I. 

I'm currently reading The Sun in Splendor by Jean Plaidy - the last in the Plantagenet Series.

Oooh - I liked My Father Had a Daughter an awful lot.    I've got two of her other books, Will and The Turquoise Ring on Mt TBR, which I hope to get to by year's end.

Haven't been ordering too many - just a few Jean Plaidy books that I didn't have and some odds and ends.  If anyone's interested, I just posted Fidel Castro, a bio of the Cuban dictator, that I'm just finishing up.  It's quite interesting.

Yes, I have been ordering way too much!  :)  But it is so much fun.  Felicia, what did you think of Perfume?  I've been eyeing it for a while and finally put it on my WL.  It sounds really good.  I won't be starting any HF for a little bit.  I am trying to finish reading the Harry Potter series before the new one comes out because I want to read the new one before the ending gets spoiled!  LOL  My next HF will probably be The Boleyn Inheritence.  I can't wait to wrap myself up in that one!

I am ordering way to many books too.I am almost finish reading  Kingston by Starlight by Christopher John Farley.I have Tulip Fever here to read.One of the books I have on the way is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer .I am home sick.I have Bronchitis.I hope to get a lot of reading done but I am also sleeping a lot.

Hi Felicia!  I will be sending Tulip Fever out to you today!

Daphne, I have been following your reading blog and enjoying it. I'm hoping to get through the Plantagenet saga myself soon.

Get well wishes to Anne!

oooh oooh ---- I still need Sun and Splendor by Jean Plaidy!!!

Ditto the kudo's re: Daphne's blog.

Felicia, that Valois Kings book sounds good too. Please let us know how it is.

I can't wait to hear what you guys think of Perfume. Gosh that book was so intense!

I just started a new job this week so I've been very tired when I get home and will be going to bed early from now on in. I have almost a full month of marketing events already on my schedule but am working in the next 2 books on my TBR: Dear Heart How Like You This  and The Conquering Family.

 Edited to add... Some of my recently ordered books in our beloved genre are: The Innocent by Posie  Graeme Evans , Who Was the Man in the Iron Mask by Hugh Ross Williamson, Sunne in Splendor by Sharon Kay Penman, Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove, Green Darkness by Anya Seton, Below the Salt by Thomas Costain, Prince of Darkness  and The Goldsmith's Wife by Jean Plaidy, Nectar from a Stone by Jane Guill, The Whitechapel Conspiracy by Anne Perry and The Secret Wife of King George IV by Diane Haeger.

OMG I need a month of Sundays!!!

Everytime I get on the discussion boards I find at least one new book that I just have to have! the swaps have helped though, at least I get some of my books that way!

I just discovered Pamela Kaufman, her books look so good that I will probably put everything else on hold to read them! Then someone is getting Fires in the Dark for me, which I've wanted for a while, then there's The Wonder Years..... it's a good thing I have a little extra time to read right now.

Now, you all have given me some new books to look for! LOL :)

Marci: Thank you for the Get Well wishes .And Good Luck and Congrats on your new Job:)

Daphine: I like you Blog also:)

Thanks guys - I'm glad you enjoy the blog.  I really like working on it.

Marci  - Congratulations on your new job.  Hope it doesn't wear you out so much that you don't have time to read!!  I read Penman's Sunne in Splendor last year and it is really good.  It's a hefty one though (almost 900 pages if I'm remembering correctly).

Brenda - Let us know what you think of Kaufman.  I've read conflicting reviews of her books and so haven't gotten any of them yet.

Hooray! One of my WL books just became available:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Are-Thirsty-French-Revolution/dp/0879516720/ref=sr_11_1/002-9961007-8756856?ie=UTF8&qid=1183783120&sr=11-1

Marci, I enjoyed this one, mainly because of the charcter who was telling the story. It was told from a different perspective than most other books I've read about the French Revolution. But, remember, I told you that I thought it could use some editing! It was also a bit of a slow starter, and the last half of the book was much better. Once the action starts, it becomes hard to put down. There are some scenes that I thought were rather brutally told; a bit gruesome really! Of course, these were brutal, gruesome events, so it was honestly told, I guess. I'm really anxious to see what you think of this one!

It got some not so good reviews at Amazon, but I  think most of them were due to the fact that Lee is usually a S/F, Fantasy writer and they were expecting another similar book. Most of the reviewers seemed like they were disappointed because it wasn't written in Lee's usual style, so I took the reviews with a grain of salt and read it anyway. Even though it moved a bit slowly at times, I still think it is well worth reading, particularly if you are fascinated by the French Revolution.

I'm reading All the Drowning Seas (The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga, Book 3) by Alexander Fullerton. I just posted both the previous books plus the three WWI Everard books yesterday, and someone snapped them up immediately, so I suppose this one will go pretty fast when I post it.

I have ordered Love and Glory by Jeane Westin. The Pilots by James Spencer, Part of the Furniture by Mary Wesley, and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison by Charles Shaw are en route to me.

So, anyone have any WWII fiction recommendations?

Valli, I read the Amazon reviews and took it with a grain of salt as they all tied into the same thing -- Lee is generally a SciFi writer. Your receommendation held more weight so thank for the initial rec. It didn't take long for it to become available. Bonus!

Another WL book came available today too. I love this forum. Great books are always being discussed and thus get added to my WL. Thsi one isThe Escape of Alexei, Son of Tsar Nicholas II: What Happened the Night the Romanov Family Was Executed

Jessica, my husband practically inhales Len Deighton books. He's read and reread every one and he enjoys WWII and cold war fiction.

Marci: Oh no another book for my wishlist The Gods Are Thirsty : A Novel of the French Revolution by Tanith Lee:)I just added it to my wishlist:)

And another book added to Ann;s wishlist isThe Escape of Alexei, Son of Tsar Nicholas II: What Happened the Night the Romanov Family Was Executed

Well, I'm reading a Memoir right now.  Dear Senator by Essie Mae Washington Williams.  As you may know she was Strom Thurmond's daughter through a relationship he had with a Black woman who worked for his family.

I don't like biography much but I'm enjoying this.  Essie Mae is telling her story but she's giving information on the social history of the era she grew up in.  She grows up in a community in Pennsylvania.  Her school is integrated (this is 1938).  In 8th grade she learns her mother isn't her mother.  At 17, she is taken to South Carolina to see family and then is taken my her real mother to meet her real father who is the Judge Strom Thurmond.  Her world is put into a tailspin.  She's never really been to the South and here she is and finds her whole world turned upside down.  It takes her down a road of discovery of herself, race relations, and so forth. 

It's an amazing story.  I can't imagine what it would be like to know certain things to be true and then one day have your parents tell you it's all different.  It's also fascinating because before Thurmond became Governnor of South Carolina he had a completely different view of things--at least according to Essie Mae.  He was a supporter of improving the life of Blacks in his state.  I'm only to the part where he scuffles with Truman and then completely changes his politics.  So, I don't how their relationship goes the rest of the time.

Tulip Fever was really good.   Such insight into the Dutch masters - and a good story to boot!

I was almost going to say that I hadn't read any historical fiction recently, when I remembered that I just finished Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow, which is of course historical fiction!   Has anyone here read it?   The writing style is very different and took me a while to get used to.   It's supposed to actually simulate ragtime music.    It's set in turn of the century America and ties many of the famous people from that time into the story (Houdini, J.P. Morgan, etc.)      

Another novel I read recently set in the same time period was A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly.  It's a YA book, but I loved it.  The main character is an almost 18-year-old girl who really wants to be a writer.  She receives a scholarship to attend a collge in NYC, but is bound by a promise to her dead mother to take care of her father and siblings.   One really interesting element about the story is that she picks a new word out of the dictionary every day to learn - and actually makes an effort to USE that word.

Anne  - Hope you feel better soon!  You should check out both of these books - Ragtime is primarily set in NYC and it's burbs.   A Northern Light is set in upstate New York - around the Adirondacks.

Lynne: Thanks I am feeling a little bit better not back to normal yet.I had to come back to work.I am a nanny and the mom is away on a business trip.I have Tulip Fever and a Norhern Light.I will have to move them up on my TBR list:)  It is nice to see you here.

I've read a couple of historicals this month...well, sort of. One was a historical mystery, Death of a Colonial, which is one of the Sir John Fielding series set around the Bow Street Court of London in the late 1700's. Enjoyable as always! And the other is actually classified as sci-fi/fantasy, but time travel is involved and this book was firmly set in Kent, UK during the reign of Bloody Mary. (It was In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker and I enjoyed it very much!)

Cheryl

I recently finished Typhoid Mary by Anthony Bourdain. It's a short, but thoroughly enjoyable read. Bourdain portrayed Mary as a human instead of as a monster who deliberately infected people with typhoid. She really did infect people, but according to Bourdain, it was from ignorance and necessity; she had to work and cooking was really all she knew. It was a much more sympathetic look at Mary's life.

Is this the same Anthony Bourdain that has a show on the Travel Channel?