StephanieM said:

I am actually reading two back and forth…

 

Catherine of Aragon by: Giles Tremlett

The Time Traveller's Guide To Medieval England by: Ian Mortimer

 

Both are very good so far! : )

I own both of those but haven't tackled them yet. Regrettably, my reading has slowed down right through here. I'm not only training someone at work, but I'm trying to finish Gone with the Wind and I've promised myself not to start anything else until I'm done with it!

So not to steer the focus of this topic off course. I've posted a question about The Prince Tudor theory over at the Elizabeth Forums

http://www.elizabethfiles.com/…..ild/#p1123

DuchessofBrittany said:

Oh, I love that idea, MegC. PG could take a lot from Jennifer Lee Carrell's books. Ms. Carrell holds a PhD in English Literature and this training and education comes through in her books. I love The Shakespeare Secret and its sequal, The Shakespeare Curse. I wish the books would be made into a film or tv mini-series. I always imagine Ben Pearl (the main male character) looks like Henry Cavill! An added bonus for me!

As for the new Shakespeare film, “Anonymous.” I am eager to see it, but I fear how far the Oxfordian theories will be taken. I am suspecting the whole Earl of Oxford is Queen E's child with Thomas Seymour thing. Then, they (Oxford and Elizabeth) have an incesteous affair. Goodness I hope not. After reading Paul Streitz's book on Earl of Oxford and the Prince Tudor theory, I am skeptical of the whole Oxfordian theory.

J.L. Carrell does a great job of explaining the conflicting theories about who wrote Shakespeare. While I am glad someone wrote Skakespeare, and remain skeptical about any serious cache of evidence proving any theory correct surfacing, I've always thought the Earl of Derby was a better candidate than Oxford (who was a cruel and vile man), bu remains somewhat a dark horse in the Shakespeare authourship question.

I'm hoping “Anonymous” will come this way too, but with my schedule, I'll probably have to wait until it's out on DVD — which means I'm depending on all of you to send reviews our way. But if they do come up with the nonsense you speculated at Duchess, (and I know you were just stating that you HOPE they won't do such nonsense), then I won't give it the time of day. I'm tired of writers going the route of that woman  with her pretense at being a historian, especially if they think it'll make them a buck.

*slowly climbing down off soapbox *

Anyanka said:

MegC said:

He came and spoke at a book club that I wasn't really a member of, but that was run by one of my mom's friends and so my mom and I went.  He assured us that the best time to murder and bury someone is right before the leaves fall in the autumn.  But if it's fast decomposition you're looking for and it's East Tennessee or anywhere in the southeast for that matter, then you need to shoot for August.  He has the best sense of humor! 

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Mentally files under useful information….
 

A couple of years ago, the University of Tennessee Frank H. McClung Museum did an exposition on forensics and it had a lot of skulls and bones and described how scientists used them to determine age and cause of death, etc.  The more disturbing part was a full-color photo array that had been taken to show how quickly a human body can decompose at the height of summer in the southeast.  3 days and it was almost completely decomposed (not skeletonized, mind you.  Just decomposed).  It was simultaneously the most disturbing thing I've ever seen and the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

MegC said:

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As far as I know, it was his.  UT was getting rid of old furniture when a friend of mine was attending there.  They were either giving the furniture away or selling it extremely cheaply, but either way she managed to get her hands on it.  When she didn't need it anymore, she gave it to me (fun fact–public schools don't always supply their teachers with desks).  Alas, I just couldn't figure out how to bring it with me when I left, so the new teacher got a room very nicely furnished.  At least it's fitting that the desk remained in a science teacher's room.

He came and spoke at a book club that I wasn't really a member of, but that was run by one of my mom's friends and so my mom and I went.  He assured us that the best time to murder and bury someone is right before the leaves fall in the autumn.  But if it's fast decomposition you're looking for and it's East Tennessee or anywhere in the southeast for that matter, then you need to shoot for August.  He has the best sense of humor! 

You're right — he has such an incredible sense of humor, considering the type of work he does, and — yes, I know it seems weird — but we all owe him a great debt of respect when it comes to him developing the Body Farm and for pushing forensics and the study of bodies, decomposition, etc. as far as he has. A lot of what we've learned now in law enforcement is thanks to him. He would probably shake his head though and laugh — he seems very modest about those sort of things. But I consider the 2 days I spent at the Body Farm among the most memorable of my 10 weeks at the National Forensic Academy; they do good work there.
Two of our techs were there in JUNE of 2007 and were totally miserable when the time came to work along a hillside with the sun beating down on him. I did a bit better — my group was on the same hillside BUT IN OCTOBER of the same year, however Tennessee was in the midst of a drought and digging in the dirt was like digging through rock! It took us about 8 hours total to finally get results in our digging.

One of our groups had a fairly shaded area, but regrettably were digging in the wrong location for their “clandestine gravesite.” (The actual spot was about 2 feet or so next to where they had spent the better part of a day).

Anyway, if you want to read more about the real life Body Farm and how it became what it did, yes, most definitely read Dr. Bass' fictional collaborations with Jon Jefferson (which gets you Jefferson Bass ) — but preface it all (if you haven't already) with his true life stories in  Death's  Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab, The Body Farm, Where the Dead Do Tell Tales. Not for the faint of heart, but for any of you that want the real life stories and not the nonsense of garbage like CSI (for me, CSI is like The Other Boleyn Girl and some of PG's other stuff — take real things and glamorize them for a buck).

But this is why it always fascinates me when I hear people talking about exhuming Henry or Anne or some of the other Tudors. I'm not saying I want it to happen, but I know that if they did, I'd want Dr. Bass heading the examinations. He would not only be thorough, but detailed and respectful too. Which is another of the reasons why I respect him as much as I do!

I finished reading Lacey Baldwin Smith's Catherine Howard. It was an interesting take on CH's life. Baldwin Smith is far from sympathetic to Catherine, her life, affair, or death. But, I did get insight into some of the main players. I would recommend it. It was well-researched, written and argued. While there were many aspects I disagreed on, Baldwin Smith debunked some myths about Catherine (especially her scaffold speech), and effectively considered the events leading up to her death. The one short-fall (for me) was Thomas Culpeper still remains an elusive figure, but the author accounts for as well.

wreckmasterjay said:

Just started reading “The six wives of Henry VIII” by Antonia Fraser……a thick book but seems to be packed with info and lots of pics too!

 

Has anybody read this? Am I the only one who cant wait to get the the Anne Boleyn chapters?? Probably not!

I enjoyed Fraser's version of The Six Wives. It is not as good as Starkey (my opinion only), but I liked it better than Weir (again, my opinion). I did like Fraser's assertion that Anne was “curiously modern,” and that statement comes through in her analysis of the evidence.

Some of Fraser's books are better than others. But, The Six Wives of Henry VIII is a good read. I would recommend it!

Bella44 said:

I'm just about to start Margaret George's Elizabeth I.  Has anyone read it?  I haven't read any of her books before – what does everyone think of her?

I actually have it in my stack of to-be-read Tudor books. I think I asked on the list at an earlier date if anyone had read it. Actually, I bought it by mistake. I had thought I was buying the fictional biography I Elizabeth by Rosalind Miles. When I saw it was actually by Ms. George, I remembered that I did sort of/kind of like The Autobiography of Henry VIII so I figured I'd hold onto it and read it eventually. Okay, seeing that part of the book is interspersed with Lettice Knollys and her slimy son Robert Devereaux turns my stomach (Elizabeth, Lord knows, had her faults but I can't abide Lettice and I've always disliked Essex, which is something we've discussed before), but maybe I'll gain a better understanding of the *clears throat* “lady” when I've read the book.

I mentioned George's Henry VIII. I do have mixed feelings. I liked some of it and had to keep reminding myself that it is all from his point-of-view so naturally he sees himself as the total innocent in all matters, whether it's accusing Catherine of Aragon as having more loyalty to Spain than to him; or his sometimes graphic sex acts with Mary Boleyn; or seeing Anne Boleyn as a witch complete with bright red lips. One of the interesting parts of the book was the prologue, which is a short series of fictional correspondence between Will Somers the Fool and Catherine Carew, the daughter of Mary Boleyn (and purporte child of Henry). Will insists on Catherine and her brother accepting that they are the late King's children, while Catherine declares Will LOL a fool for thinking such things. That introduction alone was worth the price of the book IMO.