Last night I just finished the fourth book of the Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell. He is one of my favorite authors. The books that I have read chronicle English history at significant points in time; Stonehenge; King Arthur and the Saxon Invasion; Alfred the Great and the Danish Invasion; the 100 years war; etc. I love historical fiction….it’s so easy to get lost in. Great stories as well as a means of learning a little history (or at least gleaning some historical backgrounds)
The Starbuck books take place in the American Civil War…Nate is a confederate officer under Stonewall Jackson. The last few pages of the last book end at the end of the Battle of Antietam. I was exhausted by the end of the book…Cornwell has a knack of making you feel what the characters are feeling, the horror of a civil war battle; the heat and thirst; the exhaustion after hours of fighting for your life…whew!! I couldn’t put it down, and yet I had to at one point, just to get a break and relax a bit.
So now, after 4 - 400+/- page books, we are in the midst of the American Civil War (1862) and the next installment is 11 years late in the coming. Aaaahh!!!
Last summer, I read Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. Another awesome book and again historical fiction set in medieval England. I got the sequel World without End, which I’ll probably start this weekend.
I am also wading through El amor en los tiempos del cólera by Gabriel García Márquez in Spanish. Some pages I can zip through, but some I ending up looking up a lot of vocabulary, but I am still enjoying it. I love the descriptions!
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