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Cabinet of Curiosities: Taxidermy by Sarah Gristwood
Other people have friends who take up tennis or tatting. I have friends who take up taxidermy. (Also skull collection: ‘Can I call you back? I’m beheading a badger’, has to be one of the best...
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To win one of five copies of Lucy Coats' YA novel Cleo, just answer the following question:"Who is your favourite female character from ancient history or mythology - and why?"Put your answers in the...
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"Here lyeth Quene Kateryn" by Ann Turnbull
From Cleeve Hill in the Cotswolds you can look down and see Sudeley Castle, close to the small town of Winchcombe.Sudeley has been restored, but some of the ruins of earlier buildings remain - notably...
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Historical Sources for Historical Fiction - Gillian Polack
Last month I made a rash promise. I promised I’d talk about sources. Now that my mind is on other things, I’ll still talk about sources, but not in the way I originally intended. I’m writing a book on...
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Nona Baker, by Y S Lee
Hello, friends. I'm currently time-travelling in the colony formerly known as Malaya. I'm interested, specifically, in the Japanese occupation of Malaya during the Second World War and how different...
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Refugee Tales: new Canterbury Tales for our time - Katherine Langrish
Canterbury Pilgrims by Paul HardyREFUGEE TALES'When April with his sweet showers has penetrated the drought of March to the root, and bathed every vein in the moisture whose virtue brings out the...
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A Word I Don't Have by Joan Lennon
English is a rich and wonderful resource, but it has gaps that other languages have managed to fill. Words for things we feel but haven't a term for. Like akihi in Hawaiian, which means that thing...
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Welcome to the Marx Memorial Library: Lydia Syson talks to archivist Meirian...
In April I wrote about the Conscience and Conflict exhibition of British artists' responses to the Spanish Civil War, which closes tomorrow. If you've been were lucky enough to see it, either in...
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THREADS: the delicate life of John Craske by Adèle Geras
There are many kinds of books in the world. Some, you quite fancy when you hear about them. Others you know you have no interest in at all. With a few you think: I'll wait for the paperback. And then...
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'Know The Meaning By The Mumping' by Karen Maitland
Research for novels takes you into some odd nooks and crannies of history as you try to uncover all kinds of details from what type of false-teeth were in use in that century, to the shape and flavour...
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The Orange Balloon of Success
by Caroline LawrenceJP, me & Anthony McGowan with Roland Chambers behindOn Thursday 9 May 2015, I went to an upstairs room next to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London to meet a bunch of other...
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Five and a Half Inches - Michelle Lovric
Some measure their lives in teaspoons, but I measure mine in cat litter.My cats perform their piccoli bisogni in an air-conditioned stainless steel chamber accessed via a Venetian arch copied from John...
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Master Kelley's Big Joke? by Laurie Graham
If you love books and you enjoy a mystery the Voynich manuscript is right up your street. It’s a delicious little book, part herbal, part guide to the cosmos, and lavishly illustrated. The only problem...
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Stagecoach Mary by Tanya Landman
One of the great pleasures of researching a book like Buffalo Soldier is coming across the real-life stories of extraordinary people. They don’t get much more extraordinary than Mary Fields.This...
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A FAIR WOMAN WITH A BLACK SOUL – Elizabeth Fremantle
'Stella, star of heavenly fireStella, lodestar of desire.'Sir Philip Sidney – Astrophil and StellaWhen the Earl of Devonshire married the divorced Penelope Devereux, James I is said to have told him...
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Lies and the Lying Liars that Tell Them Catherine Johnson
The gorgeous cover by Laura Bird and Bella OtakIt was three years ago in a post for this Blog that I mentioned Princess Caraboo as one of my favourite people from history. I mentioned I'd been writing...
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Vik and The Night Raider
by Marie-Louise JensenOne of the first questions I tend to ask myself, once a story has formed in my mind, is where is it set? I need to be able to see it. I've mentioned this in connection with...
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'Liberty's Fire', by Lydia Syson: review by Sue Purkiss
Like Lydia Syson's previous books, A World Between Us and That Burning Summer, this novel has as its subject love in a time of conflict. The first was set in the Spanish Civil War - about which...
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DR MERRYWEATHER’S UN-MERRY WEATHER by Penny Dolan.
The Pitt Rivers Collection may be more reputable, but if you’re ever in Yorkshire, do visit Whitby Museum & Art Gallery in Pannett Park. It’s a delightfully impressive oddity, belonging to the...
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Waterloo - Celia Rees
Every History Girl posts on an allotted date. Mine is the 18th. I have to admit to having sometimes suffered from Date Envy. Other days are Special. New Year's Day, Christmas Day, Valentine's,...
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