Hottie Monday

Another Miscellaneous Hottie Monday. Enjoy!

Book Giveaway!

I'm over at the Unusual Historical blog today, talking about The Winter Queen and giving away a signed copy! Come and join me...

A Sunday Thump On The Head

Publishers Weekly Top 10 of 2009---No Girl Cooties Allowed!

The list from Publishers Weekly
Why Weren't Any Women Invited to Publishers Weekly Weenie Roast?
STLToday Book Blog
BookNinja
New York Times Arts Beat
The Guardian
Huffington Post
Book Blips
Courtney Milan's Blog

And this is just a small sampling of the reaction out there....

Heroine of the Weekend

To celebrate the release of my Elizabethan-set book The Winter Queen this month, I've decided to spend November looking at some fascinating Tudor-era women! First up--Lettice Knollys, cousin of Elizabeth I, wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and mother of the Earl of Essex and Penelope Rich (and she outlived them all).

Lettice was born ca. November 1543 to Sir Francis Knollys and his wife Catherine Carey at their estate at Rotherfield Grays in Oxfordshire. (Catherine was the daughter of Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne, and thus Lettice was Elizabeth's first cousin once removed on the maternal side). Sir Francis was a Puritan in his convictions, and lived in Switzerland with his family during the reign of Queen Mary, only returning to England when Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558. Catherine was then made a senior Lady of the Bedchamber, Sir Francis a vice-chamberlain of the Household, and Lettice a Maid of the Privy Chamber. She was one of the prettiest, wittiest, and most sought-after ladies at Court.

She married Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford (later Earl of Essex), in 1560, and the couple went to live at the estate of Chartley in Staffordshire, where their first 2 children were born, daughters Penelope and Dorothy (who would resemble their mother in their beauty and willfulness, as well as their penchant for scandal!). Lettice sometimes returned to Court, and it was on one of these trips she started a flirtation with Robert Dudley, the Queen's favorite. When Elizabeth found out, Lettice was sent back to Staffordshire, where she gave birth to her first son Robert Walter (1569), and his brother Francis (1572). Francis died in infancy, and soon after in 1573 the earl joined the first Ulster Project, a plantation of Englishmen in Ireland. While he was gone, Lettice got involved with Dudley again amid great scandal. The earl died in Ireland of dysentery in September of 1576, and 2 years later Lettice married Dudley in a tiny, secret ceremony at Wanstead, their home near London. When the Queen learned of this, the results were predictable--Lettice was banished permanently from Court, and the Queen publicly called her a "she-wolf" and her husband a traitor and a cuckold. Their only child, Robert, Baron Denbigh, was born in 1581. Though they doted on their "Noble Imp" he died in 1584.

Lettice didn't let banishment from Court crimp her style. She held a glittering social life at Wanstead and a house in London, and was much sought-after. She was also very close to her grown children. Dudley died soon after the defeat of the Armada in 1588, and 10 months later Lettice married Sir Christopher Blount, who was 12 years her junior (though she was still called the Dowager Countess of Leicester). He got involved with his stepson Essex's ill-considered rebellion in 1601 and both of them were executed. Lettice, however, went on, indominitable. She lived at her fine estate of Drayton Bassett, raising her grandchildren and doing good deeds for the poor of the neighborhood. James I restored the title Earl of Essex to her grandson in 1603.

Lettice lived to be 91 years old, dying on Christmas Day 1634, and was buried next to Dudley in the Beauchamp Chapel of the Church of St. Mary in Warwick, near their little son. She's said to be an ancestor of many modern famous people, such as Darwin, Churchill, the Queen Mother, and Princess Diana.

I have a very battered copy of Judith Saxton's Cousin to the Queen: The Story of Lettice Knollys (1972) which I picked up at a library booksale once. There's also a great deal of information about her in bios of her daughter Penelope (who we will look at next week!), and in Derek Wilson's Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester. And I love the old Victoria Holt novel My Enemy the Queen!

Portrait Friday

All this month, to celebrate the release of my Elizabethan-set book The Winter Queen, we'll look at Tudor-era portraits! This week--Elizabeth Vernon, Countess of Southampton

Things I Love Thursday

What I love today--terrible high school musicals on YouTube! I guess it takes me back to my own terrible high school theater days. I waste far too much time on YouTube, I know, but sometimes it's hard to resist.

Like this gem from Les Mis....



And I'll be reading from my new book The Winter Queen on Blog Talk radio at noon CST today! Call in and listen!

What I'm Reading

Because I love stories of intrepid Victorian lady travelers!

(And I'm over at Risky Regencies talking about characters taking over my life!)

Hottie Monday Shakespeare Edition

I wasn't sure what to do for Hottie Monday this week, but I've been going through an Elizabethan phase lately with the release of my new book The Winter Queen, so I re-watched one of my favorite movies while I recovered from Halloween Sugar Sickness yesterday--Shakespeare in Love. (I did try to watch the new show Flash Forward, but after its bang-up pilot it went downhill fast! Plus I couldn't get rid of the feeling that Joseph Fiennes was a time-traveling Shakespeare disguised as an FBI agent...)

(BTW, who are some hotties you'd like to see on future Mondays?? I'm setting up a schedule for the next coupld or months!)

Happy first Monday of November!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was fabulous! Victoria the Turtle and Abigail the French Maid enjoyed it very much. :) Now we have to recover from the sugar shock...

Heroine of the Weekend Halloween Edition

First of all, I'm over at the Risky Regencies all weekend to launch my new book The Winter Queen! Comment on the posts there to win a signed copy...

And this week's heroine (in honor of my favorite holiday Halloween, bwahaha!) is Lucrezia Borgia. Now, the real Lucrezia might just be a victim of bad publicity (since not very much can actually be known about her historical story, and her complicity in her father's and brother's crimes are only rumored), but her name does evoke suitably shivery, Halloween-y vibes. :)

Lucrezia Borgia was born in April 1480 to Rodrigo Borgia, a Renaissance grandee who later became Pope Alexander VI, and his mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei, at Subiaco near Rome. Her brothers were the notorious Cesare, Giovanni, and Gioffre Borgia. By the time she was 13, she had been betrothed twice, only to have both engagements broken off by her father. After he became pope, he married her off to Giovanni Sforza in a very lavish ceremony to cement an alliance with that famous Milanese family. But before long the Borgias no longer needed the Sforzas; new, more advantageous political alliances were required, so the Pope is rumored to have ordered the murder of his superflous son-in-law. First he tried to persuade Giovanni to a divorce; he refused and accused Lucrezia of incest. Not a good move. The marriage was annulled on the basis of non-consumation (with Giovanni forced to sign papers confessing his impotence).

Rumors went around that during this long annulment process Lucrezia got to "consumating" with a lowly messenger (or maybe even with her brother!) and got pregnant. The child, Giovanni, was born secretly in 1498 before Lucrezia's second marriage to Alfonso of Aragon. (In 1501, two papal bulls were issued concerning the child Giovanni. One stated he was the son of Cesare from an affair before his marriage; one said he was the son of the Pope himself. Lucrezia isn't mentioned in either, and rumors of her motherhood have never been proven). Giovanni eventually became Duke of Camerino.

Things began promisingly with Alfonso. He was handsome and good-natured, and Lucrezia became fond of him, but Cesare (who was scarred after a bout of venereal disease, and had started wearing masks and always dressing in black) became jealous of his sister's regard for her husband. He had his men attack Alfonso one night; Alfonso's men then shot arrows at Cesare as he walked in a garden. Predictably this ended badly, when Alfonso ended up strangled to death. He and Lucrezia only had one child, Rodrigo, who died at age 13. (This second marriage probably ended not just because of jealousy, but because like marriage #1 it had become superflous and a new alliance was needed. But Lucrezia was said to be broken-hearted)

Her third marriage was to Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. They had a number of children together and Lucrezia eventually became a respectable Renaissance duchess, able to survive the fall of the Borgias after her father's death. Neither of them were faithful, of course; Lucrezia had a long relationship with her bisexual brother-in-law, the Marquis of Mantua (husband of the famous Isabella d'Este), as well as an affair with the poet Pietro Bembo.

She died in Ferrara on June 24, 1519 from complications of childbirth, and was buried in the convent of Corpus Domini. In 1816, Byron visited the Ambrosian Library of Milan and read the letters of Lucrezia and Bembo ("The prettiest love letters in the world," he declared) and claimed to have stolen a lock of her hair. All the stories of wild parties, poison rings, and incest are just that--very persistent stories!

Some good sources include:
Sarah Bradford, Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love, and Death in Renaissance Italy
Maria Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia
And the Lucrezia Borgia research page

Happy Halloween everyone!

Portrait Friday

Happy Halloween!

Things I Love Thursday

What I love this Thursday---reviews! Good ones, anyway. :)

Like this one of The Winter Queen!
Fresh Fiction

Plus my old Christmas novella, Upon a Midnight Clear, got a mention! Yay!

Join me at the Riskies this weekend as I launch TWQ on its way and give away a signed copy...

More new covers!

This just in! The cover for my December "Undone" short story, The Maid's Lover (connected to The Winter Queen, with yet more Elizabethan Christmas hijinks!) I love her purple velvet gown...

Bright Star

I finally took a break from the deadline last week to see Bright Star! What a gorgeous movie. I may have to see it again (and I know I need some new Regency gowns...)

I long to believe in immortality. . . . If I am destined to be happy with you here--how short is the longest life. I wish to believe in immortality--I wish to live with you forever.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever; Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more - I could be martyred for my religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that.

I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.

Heroine of the Weekend

Our heroine this weekend is Alexandra David-Neel, born on October 24, 1868. Her bio calls her "a Belgian-French explorer, anarchist, spiritualist, Buddhist, and writer," perhaps best known for her daring voyage into Tibet in 1924, when foreigners were forbidden to enter the country. She wrote over 30 books about Eastern religion, philosophy, and her travels.

She was born in Paris to rather strict parents, and found refuge in the books of Jules Verne, which made her dream of outdoing these heroes in adventures. (She also enjoyed running away from home on occasion, the first time being at the age of 5, right before a move to Brussels). At 15 she was a student of music, and secretly of occult books (especially an English journal published by the Society of the Supreme Gnosis). At 17 she left home again, traveling alone by train to Switzerland to hike over the Saint-Gotthard Pass through the Alps to the Italian lakes. (She was fetched home by her mother when she ran out of money at Lake Maggiore). The following year she entered the Royal Conservatory at Brussels, and 3 years later took first prize for her voice. In 1888 she went to study in London, staying at the Society of the Supreme Gnosis and meeting Madame Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society and a great early influence on Alexandra. She then went to study at the Sorbonne and join radical societies. In 1891, disguised in men's clothes, she joined a Paris cult led by Sri Ananda Saraswati (which used hashish as a prime means of obtaining visions!). By this time she was all of 23.

That same year she received a small inheritance from her godmother, which gave her the means to travel for more than a year through Ceylon and India. She studied Sanskrit, Yoga, and heard Tibetan music for the first time. But then the money ran out, and she was forced to return to Brussels. But she wasn't idle there. She finished an anarchist treatise. Publishers wouldn't print it, so her friends printed and distributed it themselves and eventually it was translated into 5 languages. From 1894 to 1900 she lived as an aspiring singer and actress, and in 1900 she accepted a job with the opera in Tunis. There she met Philip Neel, a 39-year-old railway engineer. They married in 1904 and moved into a villa at La Goulette, near the Mediterranean.

Marriage didn't slow her down for long. In 1911 she went again to India to study Sanskrit and Buddhism (she met the 13th Dalai Lama twice in 1912 and learned much from him--unprecedeneted for a European woman at the time). She also met the Gomchen (great hermit) of the monastery of Lachen. From 1914-16 she lived in a cave in Sikkim, near the border of Tibet, along with a young Sikkimese monk named Aphur Yongden, who became her lifelong traveling companion and later her adopted son. From their cave they snuck into Tibet (where they met the Panchen Lama), and were expelled from Sikkim. Unable to return to Europe because of World War I, they went to Japan and China. By traversing China from east to west, they were able to sneak into Tibet again and stayed there for 2 months.

She legally separated from her husband in 1928, but they corresponded and he supported her until his death in 1941. Alexandra settled in Provence in her middle age and wrote books, but she went on to travek again to China and the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 40s. They ended up back in Tibet, where they circled the holy mountain Amnye Machen. They returned to France in 1946, when Neel was 78. Yongden died in 1955, and Alexandra continued to study and write until her own death in 1969 at 101. Her ashes were scattered in the Ganges.

Of Tibet, she wrote, "Truthfully, I am 'homesick' for a land that is not mine. I am haunted by the steppes, the solitude, the everlasting snow and the great blue sky 'up there'! The difficult hours, the hunger, the cold, the wind slashing at my face..."

As well as her own books, some good sources on her life are:
Barbara and Michael Foster, Forbidden Journey: The Life of Alexandra David-Neel
Ruth Middleton, Alexandra David-Neel
And there is a great website with all sorts of info here

Next month, to celebrate the release of my Elizabethan Christmas book The Winter Queen, we're going to look at some fascinating Tudor-era women! (Lettice Knollys, her daughter Penelope Rich, the Countess of Pembroke, and the Grey sisters)

Portrait Friday

Judith Leyster (1609-1660), Self Portrait

Things I Love Thursday

(First, I'm at the Pink Heart Society blog today, talking about old book favorites! Drop in and see me there...)

What I love today--getting new covers!!! There is something so exciting about seeing that file in my Inbox or that envelope on my porch. Will it be gorgeous? Or hideous? Will I love it??? yesterday I got this one, and it's a love!

Scandalous Brides is the second of my two-in-one reissues from Signet Regencies, and will be out in March 2010. It includes my first 2 Regencies, Scandal in Venice and The Spanish Bride, and I'm so thrilled they will be on the shelves again. Especially in such a pretty package!




And my first reissue, Spirited Brides, with my 2 "ghostly" Regencies, is still on the shelves, just in time for a Halloween read...

Risky Tuesday

Over at the Riskies (it is Tuesday, after all!) talking about Pauline Bonaparte on her birthday. Come share stories of your favorite bad girls in history!

A Sunday Funny

Heroine of the Weekend

October 17, 1849 marks the date when Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive a medical degree! I remember when I was a kid, there was a series of old books in our school library about "heroic women" when they were children (Dolley Madison, Elizabeth I, and Marie Antoinette were my favorites, but I learned about a lot of lesser-known historical women as well). Elizabeth Blackwell was the subject of one of those books, and I loved the story of her journey to becoming a doctor and pioneer in women's rights.

She was born February 3, 1821 in Bristol, England, the 3rd of 19 (8 of them died in childhood) children of prosperous Quaker sugar refiner Samuel Blackwell and his wife Hannah. Their religious beliefs taught them that men and women are equal in the eyes of God, so their daughters were educated as well as their sons (the sons went to school, the daughters had tutors at home, but Elizabeth was encouraged in her interest in science and medicine). When Elizabeth was 11, disaster struck when her father's business was destroyed by fire. The family emigrated to the United States and started a new refinery in New York. Eventually they moved to Cincinnati to open another refinery, but Samuel died barely 3 months after they arrived.

After his death, Elizabeth had to find work, and she took up teaching in Kentucky in order to save money for medical school. She hated teaching, but managed to find lodgings in a doctor's home where she could study in the medical library. As a Quaker, she was also active in the abolition movement (as was her brother Henry, who married suffragist Lucy Stone, and her brother Samuel Charles, who married Antoinette Brown). In 1845 she moved to Asheville, NC, where she read medicine in the home of Dr. John Dickson and that of his brother Dr. Samuel Henry Dickson in Charleston, SC.

She managed to get admitted to Geneva College in New York (the story, possibly apocryphal, says the faculty put it to a student vote, and the students thought her application was a hoax), and braved a great deal of prejudice and ridicule to complete her training. Her persistence and intelligence did eventually win her much respect among her fellow students, and it was said they treated her as an older sister. She graduated first in her class.

Despite this high achievement, she was banned from practice in most hospitals, and went to Paris to gain further training at La Maternite. While there, she caught an eye infection and had to have one eye removed and replaced with a glass eye. It didn't slow her down, and in 1857, along with her sister Emily and Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, founded the Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children in New York in 1857. During the Civil War, Blackwell trained nurses for the Union Army. In 1868 she established a Women's Medical College to train women as physicians and nurses. In 1869, leaving Emily in charge of the Infirmary, she returned to England to open, with Florence Nightingale, to open the Women's Medical College. She retired a year later, but kept working by writing lectures for the women's rights movement on the importance of education for women along with writing books about hygiene and disease.

She had no children of her own, but in 1856 adopted Katherine "Kitty" Barry, an Irish orphan who was her companion for the rest of her life. She died May 31, 1910 at her home in Sussex after a stroke and was buried in St. Mun's Churchyard on Holy Loch near Scotland.

Blackwell wrote many medical volumes, but also a sort of autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medicial Profession to Women (1895)

Portrait Friday

Lucrezia de Medici

Things I Love Thursday

What I love this Thursday--getting flowers! Especially when a deadline looms nigh and encouragement is needed...

Pink roses are my favorites. What are yours?

Yes or no?

Is it or isn't it a DaVinci???

Guest Blog

I'm over at Dorchester author Emily Bryan's blog today, talking about Elizabethan Christmas traditions! Comment for a chance to win a copy of my November book, The Winter Queen...

When Photoshop Goes Bad

Risky Tuesday

Over at the Riskies today, talking about books, deadlines, and time wasters!

Award!

My lovely friend Kwana at Kwana Writes has gifted me with the Over the Top Blog Award, yay! With it comes a challenge--one-word answers to the following questions. Here goes:

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse

2. Your hair? Brown

3. Your mother? Nice

4. Your father? Nice too (oops, that's 2 words!)

5. Your favorite food? Chocolate

6. Your dream last night? Gone

7.Your favorite drink? Tea

8. Your dream/goal? Contentment

9. What room are you in? Office

10. Your hobby? Cross-stitch

11. Your fear? Loneliness

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Bestseller

13. Where were you last night? Party

14. Something that you aren't? Mathematical

15. Muffins? Blueberry

16. Wish list item? Louboutins

17. Where did you grow up? OKC

18. Last thing you did? Read

19. What are you wearing? Pajamas

20. Your TV? Color

21. Your pet? Spoiled

22. Friends? Yay!

23. Your life? Good

24. Your mood? Tired

25. Missing someone? Sometimes

26. Vehicle? Car-old

27. Something you're not wearing? Shoes

28. Your favorite store? TJ Maxx

29. Your favorite color? Pink

30. When was the last time you laughed? Today

31. Last time you cried? Recently

32. Your best friend? Loved

33. One place that I go to over and over? Work

34. One person who emails me regularly? Dad

35. Favorite place to eat? La Baguette

Now I have to pick six Over the Top bloggers and give them the award as well!

Carolyn Jewel
Keira Soleore
Megan Frampton
My Pride and Prejudice
Nicola Cornick
The Lady Novelist

Summer Reading

It's so cold today that I can tell summer is officially over. I do love autumn--in fact, it's my favorite season! I love the crisp air, snuggling by the fire in the chilly evenings, pumpkins, Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc, but it's sad to let go of long, sunny days, hammocks, and more time to read. I came across NPR's "100 Best Beach Reads Ever," and though some don't really meet my idea of a "beach read" (light, fun, you don't have to concentrate too hard on it, not exactly Anna Karenina, much as I love it--but then again, I took a massive bio of Bess of Hardwick with me to Hawaii once, and enjoyed it very much on the beach...)

To say good-bye to summer, I've highlighted the books I've read in red, the ones I want to red in blue, with a star by favorites. What are your faves from this list? What else would you add?

*1. The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling
*2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
*3. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
*4. Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding
*5. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
*6. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
*7. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
*8. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
*9. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg
*10. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

11. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
*12. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
*13. The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan
*14. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
15. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
*16. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
*17. Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett
18. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
*19. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
*20. Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen

21. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
*22. The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver
*23. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith
24. The World According to Garp, by John Irving
25. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
26. The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy
*27. Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel
28. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
29. The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler
*30. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

*31. A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
32. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
33. The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
34. Beach Music, by Pat Conroy
*35. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
36. Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier
37. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
38. Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
39. The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough
40. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

*41. Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett
*42. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
43. Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice
*44. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
45. Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
*46. Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes
*47. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
48. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins
49. I Know This Much Is True, by Wally Lamb
50. Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

*51. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
52. The Stand, by Stephen King
53. She's Come Undone, by Wally Lamb
54. Dune, by Frank Herbert
*55. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
*56. Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*57. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
58. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
59. The Godfather, by Mario Puzo
60. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith

*61. Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver
62. Jaws, by Peter Benchley
63. Good in Bed, by Jennifer Weiner
64. Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
65. Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson
66. The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
67. The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
68. Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut
69. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
70. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

71. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
72. The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy
73. Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns
74. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
74. Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe [tie]
*76. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
77. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
*78. The Shell Seekers, by Rosamunde Pilcher
79. Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver
80. Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follett

81. Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck
81. The Pilot's Wife, by Anita Shreve [tie]
83. All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy
84. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
85. The Little Prince, by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
86. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
*87. One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich
88. Shogun, by James Clavell
89. Dracula, by Bram Stoker
90. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera

91. Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow
92. Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger
93. The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
94. Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris
95. Summer Sisters, by Judy Blume
96. The Shining, by Stephen King
97. How Stella Got Her Groove Back, by Terry McMillan
98. Lamb, by Christopher Moore
99. Sick Puppy, by Carl Hiaasen
100. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Heroine of the Weekend, Movie Edition

This week's Heroine of the Weekend is a little different. A few weeks ago I couldn't sleep, so I turned on TCM late at night and found Wyler's Wuthering Heights, which I love. Yay!! The consolations of insomnia. Then, in a double feature, they played a movie I had never seen--Devotion, a nominal bip-pic of the Brontes. The Brontes are great heroines of mine, so that means the movie is our topic today.

From the very beginning, as the credits rolled, this film looked promisingly terrible, one of those incomprehnsibly bad-idea movies that are huge fun to watch, and it lived up to that promise. From bizarre casting (Ida Lupino as the eccentric, fragile Emily! Olivie de Havilland as Charlotte! Paul Heinreid--!!!--as Rev. Arthur Nicholls! With Austrian accent intact!), to strange scenes, (the impoverished clergymen's daughters showing up at a grand ball--!!!--in elaborate gowns it must have taken the costume department weeks to make; Emily bounding over the strangely sunny moors with her gorgeously groomed dog, her 1940s coif perfectly still in the breeze; tiny coughs to denote raging tuberculosis; Branwell looking terribly clean and neat as he lolls drunk in the gutter). I also loved the stilted, ridiculous dialogue (Emily pointing to a house and declaring portentously, "I call it---Wuthering Heights!). It. Was. Fabulous. One of the silliest movies I have ever seen. I laughed my head off.

It did have some redeeming features. Those gowns, though wildly inaccurate for the Brontes', were beautiful, and the sets were gorgeous and atmospheric, as was the Korngold score. You can see a review of it here.

This afternoon I'm taking a break from the deadline to see a bio-pic I hope is much better, Bright Star.

Portrait Friday

The statue of Hodge, Samuel Johnson's cat

Things I Love Thursday

What I love today--Nutella. I love it in crepes, on toast, and straight from the jar on a spoon. Smooth chocolate, hazelnut goodness. And I love the commercial that tried to convince us Nutella is a health food, too. I can totally get behind that idea.

New Emma!

Info on the BBC's new version of Emma, with Romola Garai (who was so good in and Daniel Deronda and Amazing Grace...)! I hope it comes to the US soon.

Halloween Costume

I was browsing the Halloween costumes at Target this weekend, and have narrowed it down to 3!

The first, a Moulin Rouge dancer, is cute, but maybe more than I want to spend...

Poison Fairy--very cute! And it comes with wings!
And Cleopatra. This presents some interesting makeup possibilities, AND comes with great beaded accessories (there's also a cool dagger sold separately)
What do you think? Which one do you like best?

I'm also over at Risky Regencies today, talking about royal brides! Go and vote for your favorite...

What I'm Reading Today

On the recommendation of Janet Mullany! This is a marvelous book that tells the exciting stories of Georgian/Regency scientists, explorers, and poets and how they both changed and were products of their times. Terrific.