Nine ways to find good historical fiction books, movies, films
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Hildegard Bingen: Music for Your Ears, Beauty for Your Soul
Hildegard Bingen lived behind cloistered walls in the 12th century. But Hildegard Bingen’s music is still being played, music she composed more than 800 years ago. That fact alone should be enough to warrant a film about an extraordinary woman. But Hildegard is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church,…
Why Do Serial Killers Kill? I’ll Be Gone In the Dark Attempts to Answer That.
There is, of course, no easy answers to the question of why serial killers kill. Author Michelle McNamara pondered that for many years before her early death at age 46. Whether or not her research into the Golden State Killer played a role in her death is unanswered. But her…
That Churchill Woman Drags to a Conclusion
That Churchill Woman by Stephanie Barron is a bit of a slog — unless you enjoy reading multitudinous descriptions of nineteenth century clothing and all about the upper crust of Britain. It’s the story of Churchill’s mother, American Jennie Jerome, who moves to England and marries the son of a…
Five Things I Never Realized about Papillon
So I saw the new flick Papillon, and liked it so much I decided to reread the book, which I had read years before as a teenager. That didn’t disappoint either. So this is blog post about both the book and the recent film. An earlier edition of the film…
Becoming Marie Antoinette – A Stylized introduction to the Famous Queen
First off, she didn’t really say “Let Them Eat Cake.” Becoming Marie Antoinette is an insightful introduction to the life of the tragic queen. It covers the the time from when she was ten years old to her early 20s, after she became queen of France. And it appears to…
Ten Things I Learned from the Podcast “West Cork”
So I thought I’d try something new. I signed up for Audible and downloaded West Cork — the company’s first True Crime production. It’s a podcast, but more than a podcast. It has 13 chapters and is over seven hours in total, and . . . It was a revelation.…
Becoming Mrs. Lewis Sidesteps Christianity
Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis by Patti Callahan is a chronicle of a love story, and it works, to that extent. But somehow, the magic of C.S. Lewis is lost in the book. About two thirds of the way through the…
The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter: Historical, Windswept and Strange
The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter, by Hazel Gaynor, is two stories in one: one in 1838, the other in 1938. They are the stories of Grace and Mathilda. The first is the daughter of a lighthouse keeper on an island off Britain, the second is a pregnant Irish immigrant to the…