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2009 books
Feb. 22nd, 2009 10:52 am4. Mistress of the Art of Death - Ariana Franklin
CSI-Medieval... Adelia of Salerno is a qualified doctor, a rarity in the late 12th century but allowed in Italy. She's not so common in Cambridge, UK but she's a specialist in finding out how people died. Not long after the death of Thomas A Beckett, several Christian children were horribly killed in Cambridge and King Henry asked the King of Salerno to supply some experts to help discover who the murderer is. The Jews of Cambridge have been accused and Henry needs the money the Jews provide. Adelia, Simon, a Jewish investigator, and Mansur, a Muslim arrive in Cambridge and proceed to try to figure out what happened to the children and who killed them. There are returned crusaders, Priors and Prioresses, the members of the Jewish community and everyday people in the town and they all play a part. There is an obligatory sub plot of a romance but it's not the main focus of the plot. I quite enjoyed it and discovered yesterday another book written by the same author about Adelia so that's going to be my next-read, I think.
More books! Mom and i hit the bookstores yesterday and i walked away with a handful of books, including the above mentioned, called The Serpent's Tale. I bought the book that was the basis for the movie Slumdog Millionaire, Conceit by Mary Novik, The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris which is a sort of sequel to Chocolat, and Step in the Dark by Judith Lennox. I also have three historical biographies from Amazon, Alison Weir's one on Eleanor of Aquitaine, one about the sisters of Henry VIII and one about Anne Boleyn. That's me set for reading material for awhile. All those books cost me next to nothing. I had two gift cards for the store, so i paid about 8 dollars and that was probably the Godiva Chocolate pearls i bought ;) Online gift voucher paid for the biographies though didn't end up covering the shipping but i did pretty well over all.
The trip to the bookstore was good, as Mom had i had been to a funeral out of town in the morning for an old family friend, a good friend of Mom's. It was quite sad, with two of her children speaking at the start of the service but the service itself was a full Catholic mass which seems to take away from it in a way. The service was more about the religious rites and things than it was about the person who died. I guess i've just been to more funerals that have less traditional religious content. Nothing really takes away from the sadness but in a way the mass was a bit distracting. One thing was, well not odd really, but not something you often see... someone at the reception in the church hall after was taking photos, getting groups of people together to pose. I know why they do it. There are a lot of friends and relatives you only seem to see at funerals so it would be an ideal time to take family photos but it seems out of place, too. People didn't seem to mind that i noticed, though, and as long as they don't, why not, i guess. I didn't notice if any of the immediate family was in any of the photos. I wouldn't have wanted a camera pointed at me at Dad's funeral.
Oh yeah... and... at one point, Mom had been speaking to the daughter of the woman that died and when she came back to me she was a bit emotional. She reached into her pocket for a kleenex and pulled out..... yep.... a dime. "Can you believe that??!!" Yep, I can.
CSI-Medieval... Adelia of Salerno is a qualified doctor, a rarity in the late 12th century but allowed in Italy. She's not so common in Cambridge, UK but she's a specialist in finding out how people died. Not long after the death of Thomas A Beckett, several Christian children were horribly killed in Cambridge and King Henry asked the King of Salerno to supply some experts to help discover who the murderer is. The Jews of Cambridge have been accused and Henry needs the money the Jews provide. Adelia, Simon, a Jewish investigator, and Mansur, a Muslim arrive in Cambridge and proceed to try to figure out what happened to the children and who killed them. There are returned crusaders, Priors and Prioresses, the members of the Jewish community and everyday people in the town and they all play a part. There is an obligatory sub plot of a romance but it's not the main focus of the plot. I quite enjoyed it and discovered yesterday another book written by the same author about Adelia so that's going to be my next-read, I think.
More books! Mom and i hit the bookstores yesterday and i walked away with a handful of books, including the above mentioned, called The Serpent's Tale. I bought the book that was the basis for the movie Slumdog Millionaire, Conceit by Mary Novik, The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris which is a sort of sequel to Chocolat, and Step in the Dark by Judith Lennox. I also have three historical biographies from Amazon, Alison Weir's one on Eleanor of Aquitaine, one about the sisters of Henry VIII and one about Anne Boleyn. That's me set for reading material for awhile. All those books cost me next to nothing. I had two gift cards for the store, so i paid about 8 dollars and that was probably the Godiva Chocolate pearls i bought ;) Online gift voucher paid for the biographies though didn't end up covering the shipping but i did pretty well over all.
The trip to the bookstore was good, as Mom had i had been to a funeral out of town in the morning for an old family friend, a good friend of Mom's. It was quite sad, with two of her children speaking at the start of the service but the service itself was a full Catholic mass which seems to take away from it in a way. The service was more about the religious rites and things than it was about the person who died. I guess i've just been to more funerals that have less traditional religious content. Nothing really takes away from the sadness but in a way the mass was a bit distracting. One thing was, well not odd really, but not something you often see... someone at the reception in the church hall after was taking photos, getting groups of people together to pose. I know why they do it. There are a lot of friends and relatives you only seem to see at funerals so it would be an ideal time to take family photos but it seems out of place, too. People didn't seem to mind that i noticed, though, and as long as they don't, why not, i guess. I didn't notice if any of the immediate family was in any of the photos. I wouldn't have wanted a camera pointed at me at Dad's funeral.
Oh yeah... and... at one point, Mom had been speaking to the daughter of the woman that died and when she came back to me she was a bit emotional. She reached into her pocket for a kleenex and pulled out..... yep.... a dime. "Can you believe that??!!" Yep, I can.
