Gaps

Well, it appears what happens when Crumpetty gets really busy is...gaps. Big ones. Expect more. Never mind. Some things:

1) Attempting to read Rubin's The Hollow Crown was once more not successful (tried last year, too), and I'll probably give up. It's is not the best book about the Middle Ages, and made me a bit cross. Facts have a habit of being incredibly boring and unmemorable unless extremely carefully (and skilfully) presented, and that's unfortunately what happens in this book. I'm not one to shirk a challenge (unless it involves roller-coasters or shellfish), but I've decided there are better books about similar things. Such as...

2) ...Alison Weir's biography of Isabella, which is excellent. Weir has written a lot - on the bookshelves her output volume visually compares to that of Antonia Fraser (and they both write on very similar things, which might make for interesting comparison some time). Weir constructs biography and pieces together history very cleverly, and although her texts are laden with facts (with even brief endnotes coming close to 100 pages) the writing never feels heavy, confusing or dull. She weaves a good story; and although liberties are taken to bend [lack of] evidence to her will, it's not too annoying. I've just got hold of Eleanor of Aquitaine, too, and look forward to reading it. She's very recently branched out into historical fiction for the first time, with Innocent Traitor, centred around Lady Jane Grey - there's a possibility this might soon(ish) become a TV drama, so watch this space!

3) A week in very soggy Cambridge, hidden in cosy libraries and quiet spots. With endless thanks to LJJ for being a wonderful work companion, even (especially?) when we haven't a clue what each other is talking about! Some work needed a bit of a kick-start and that seemed a good place to do it. Lots of fun, and I managed to have An Idea - which so far has been resilient to crushing. It's probably only a matter of time until the Inevitable Problem occurs, but there is hope! A little grouse, though: people who write in library books. Little marks/comments/pictures in margins are fine, but one reader (and it was one) scribbled his (and it was most definitely a 'his') way through two entire volumes of a biography I was trying to read - this amounted to about 900 pages of MESS. Some paragraphs were unreadable because of his enthusiasm. Enough already.

4) I've come across an author who manages, quite uncannily, to write frighteningly relevant texts. The sentences seem to encapsulate everything that matters, and everything that doesn't. Not going to say who it is, or which books, because that would reveal more about my way of thinking about the world and myself than I will ever admit. I am curious to know if I feel the same way about the books in twenty years...Is this simply indicative of where I'm at now? Or what I fundamentally am? Presumably if the effect is indelible I'll remember to revisit the words to find out.