Space Station Mir

7. The White Princess by Philippa Gregory My commutes with Philippa Gregory's "Cousin's War" books have come to an end, at least for now. Apparently, there's going to be a new book about Margaret Pole , and there are the auxiliary books about Elizabeth Woodeville's mother, Jacquetta, and Richard III's wife Anne Neville that I haven't yet read. I've said before that Gregory makes some unusual and spurious choices vis-a-vis historical evidence, but the world that she creates in her books is amazingly cohesive. She also continues to focus on lesser known events, infusing them with dramatic tension even for the well-informed reader. A book on Elizabeth of York has inherent frustrations, because after her marriage, she was effectively walled from influencing public policy or exercising almost any kind of agency. The White Princess reflects that reality, and I wanted to bang my head against the wall every time Elizabeth nicely acts her husband for...

29. The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory. Narrated by Bianca Amato and Graeme Malcolm. When I first started listening, I was afraid I had gotten the wrong tape. The description was of a young woman begging for a cross, and receiving one from a hated Englishman. She was about to be burned at the stake, and a king whom she had saved would not save her--how did I accidentally get an audio about Joan of Arc? But it turns out that instead, Gregory uses Joan of Arc as a guiding narrative force in the life of Margaret Beaufort as she uses the water goddess Melusina as a narrative guide to Elizabeth Woodville's life in The White Queen . I found this devise less annoying, as it was evoked less often, and presented more as Margaret's imagination than a "true legend." I personally enjoyed The Red Queen far more than I did The White Queen . Gregory's true triumph here is the character of Margaret Beaufort. There are few deviations from her narration, and these are read ...

27. The White Queen by Philippa Gregory So with my two rather new jobs comes an awful lot of commuting. And what better way to pass the time than an audio book? Since I had such success with The Queen's Lover , I decided to pick up some more historical fiction, this time from an author I'm quite familiar with. Philippa Gregory creates tension in the details. Most of her books deal with well-known events in British history, but she focuses in on minor characters and minor events that pack more unexpected dramatic punches. In The White Queen , the first person protagonist is Elizabeth Woodeville, a minor noblewoman who famously beguiled (some say bewitched) Edward IV into marrying her. What I didn't know was that Elizabeth was already widowed with two young sons when she married the king, making her conquest even more extraordinary. I know the broad outlines of the story, that Edward became king through conquest, and after some years of rule died, leaving behind two son...