221. Sarah Webb, It Had to Be You. This is a Cambourne library chick-lit find and enormously enjoyable. It centres around Ireland's only specialised romantic bookshop and three friends connected to it. Molly works as shop manager but harbours secret ambitions to have her writing published; Molly's best friend Paige is combining her campaign to be ( Read more... )

220. Wendy K. Harris, The Sorrow of Sisters. I enjoyed this book and the unfolding of the inevitable truth about Jane/Virginia's origins. The evocation of Isle of Wight landscape is lovely ( Read more... )

I think I broke the Wishlist site. One minute it was there, then I tried to search for my NSS partner's list so I can go shopping for his/her gift, and the whole site disappeared...

Update: I did manage to get back into the site, and to copy down the whole of x's wishlist. Shopping time soon!

219. Nigel Williams, Hatchett and Lycett. How to describe this book? Hmmmm, think homage to the Golden Age of crime, plus comic novel, plus historical novel of the second world war, plus romance. It's an intoxicating and wonderful mixture. Set in Croydon in 1921 and 1939-40, it follows the friendship of 8 year olds Dennis Hatchett and Alec Lycett ( Read more... )

218. Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars. As an undergrad, I read this as preparation for my supervisions on Part 1, Paper 3. That was before Michaelmas term 2002, so it is definitely time for a refresher, especially since I was reading then to broaden my knowledge of Early Modern religion in England (Part 1, Paper 3 is the Renaissance paper) ( Read more... )

216. Gail McMurray Gibson, The Theater of Devotion: East Anglian Drama and Society in the Late Middle Ages. The first chapter on Fifteenth-century culture and the Incarnational Aesthetic is probably the most interesting, although the concluding one on Marian devotion in East Anglia is also fascinating. I was a bit disappointed by the middle ( Read more... )

Jo suggested that we post a poem for National Poetry Day. I thought I'd share one of my favourite short poems of Chaucer ( Read more... )

Which Disney Princess Are You?

( Read more... )

215. Three Middle English Sermons from the Worcester Chapter Manuscript F.10, ed. by D.M. Grisdale (Kendal: Titus Wilson for University of Leeds, 1939). A collection of sermons written by a scribe from the West Midlands but taken apparently from Northern preachers.

214. Pat McIntosh, The Nicholas Feast. This is the second in a series (I haven't read the first yet) of medieval mysteries. It's set in Glasgow in the last decade of the fifteenth century and is a very engaging read. I was a little unsure of the amount of paper discussed; I'm not sure that paper was really that readily available by 1490 despite the ( Read more... )