The Name of the Rose – chunk the third…

Well, that’s that! I finished the NotR yesterday, just in time for this post to make my original aim to read and write about it through January. Do check out my posts on the first and middle thirds of the book here and here. The final part, days five to seven, begins with Eco giving Read More

A tale of two Richards …

Lion Heart by Justin Cartwright Richard I was a king I know very little about. The sum total of my knowledge comprises little more than knowing that he went on the crusades to the Holy Land, his mother was Eleanor of Acquitaine, and the minstrel Blondel was supposedly involved in his release from imprisonment in an Read More

Medieval Iceland – a place of cod wars even then…

On the Cold Coasts by Vilborg Davidsdottir Transl Alda Sigmundsdottir At the heart of this novel is the tale of Ragna, a young Icelandic woman from a family with property in Greenland which she will inherit. Still a young teenager, yet betrothed to Thorkell, Ragna becomes unmarriageable when she becomes pregnant by an English sailor Read More