What Are You Reading? January 2012

Vanessa · Post by **Vanessa** » Tue January 17th, 2012, 10:34 pm

I've just started The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It's set in the 1870s but I'm not sure whether it's classed as historical fiction or not!

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Wed January 18th, 2012, 2:46 am

The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak, I just had to read this one because I was at the Winter Palace this past summer. It was amazing! Here I am!

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Wed January 18th, 2012, 3:11 am

Nice shot Susan, and lucky girl to have visited such an amazing place.

annis · Post by **annis** » Wed January 18th, 2012, 6:37 am

Interested to note that Winter Palace is just the first in a series- I hadn't realised that till I read the interview Margaret did with Eva Stachniak on her Historical Novels Info website.

Currently reading the first in Talbot Mundy's recently re-released Tros of Samothrace series- Wolves of the Tiber, set around Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain. I'm enjoying it a lot and will probably hunt down the rest in the series.

LoobyG · Post by **LoobyG** » Wed January 18th, 2012, 10:59 am

What a lovely photo Susan, I long to go there! One day, hopefully in the not too distant future

Currently reading 'We are at War - the diaries of five ordinary people in extraordinary times' by Simon Garfield. Pretty good so far.

fljustice · Post by **fljustice** » Wed January 18th, 2012, 5:02 pm

Finished ARC of Conqueror: A Novel of Kublai Khan by Conn Iggulden. Blood, battles and hardly any women at all. Thought it was fine, but liked the earlier one better. Haven't decided what to read next.

sweetpotatoboy · Post by **sweetpotatoboy** » Wed January 18th, 2012, 5:56 pm

[quote=""fljustice""]Loved that book! Will have to reread again someday soon.[/quote]

I read it (Mists of Avalon) twice in my teens and completely fell in love with it. I've held it up on a pedestal ever since and have been a little bit scared to re-read it in case it didn't match my memories. It's been (cough) just a few years since then, but we discussed King Arthur at our last HNS chapter meeting, so I put it on my Kindle and have started a re-read. So far, it's good but doesn't seem as wonderful as I remembered. But I've just so much more since then that it doesn't feel so unique. That kind of book was all completely new to me then, and now I'm seeing the similarities with other works that I didn't see before.

boswellbaxter · Post by **boswellbaxter** » Wed January 18th, 2012, 6:28 pm

The Winter King by Thomas Penn. NF about Henry VII.

Chris Little · Post by **Chris Little** » Wed January 18th, 2012, 9:22 pm

Thanks for the lead to Talbot Mundy, Annis. On Wikisource, searching for info about his work, I found an online copy of "King of the Khyber Rifles" and a couple shorter works.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Talbot_Mundy

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Wed January 18th, 2012, 11:03 pm

[quote=""Misfit""]Nice shot Susan, and lucky girl to have visited such an amazing place.[/quote]

[quote=""LoobyG""]What a lovely photo Susan, I long to go there! One day, hopefully in the not too distant future

[/quote]

I never ever thought I would ever go to St. Petersburg. We went to Copenhagen and Stockholm and took a five day cruise out of Stockholm to Helsinki and St. Petersburg. The ship stayed two days in St. Petersburg and we went on two tours. The first day we went to the Winter Palace/Hermitage and St. Peter and Paul Fortress where all the Romanovs are buried. On the second day we went to Catherine Palace (which is also magnificient) at Tsarskoe Selo, outside of St. Petersburg, and then had a boat tour on the Neva River. I was almost in tears as I waited to enter the cathedral at St. Peter and Paul Fortress. I had read about it for years and years and to actually be there was thrilling! My only wish is that the weather had not been rainy and cool.

[quote=""annis""]Interested to note that Winter Palace is just the first in a series- I hadn't realised that till I read the interview Margaret did with Eva Stachniak on her Historical Novels Info website.[/quote]

I didn't realize this either. Thanks for the information!