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Bookish (And Not So Bookish) Thoughts

1. After North and South, I've gone straight on to another Elizabeth Gaskell novel that's been on my TBR shelf, Mary Barton. Unfortunately, my puppy got to it before I did, but despite that, I've been enjoying it so far. It was the first written of the novels of hers I've read, and it feels like the most honest and--I think--the best.



2. I'm listening to the audiobook The Taming of the Queen by Philippa Gregory. It's about Henry VIII's sixth wife, Katherine Parr, the one who survived. However, I realized that the title makes it sound quite more salacious than it is, and I wonder what people passing by, who see the case on the seat in my car, think. So far, I'm enjoying it, but I dislike that Gregory credits Parr with giving Elizabeth the "woman with the heart and stomach of a king" line.

3. Also, it is hard to read historical fiction in a time period you've studied--so far, in Taming of the Queen, there's an inaccuracy when Parr talks about how she can't publish under her own name as a woman, but would proudly do so as a man--without getting too far into it, it wasn't seemly for a gentleman to publish either, and Parr did eventually publish religious texts under her own name, the main kind of text it was socially acceptable for anyone genteel to publish.

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