To Read & To Write

"In the Land of Giants: A Journey Through the Dark Ages" by Max Adams (2016) is exemplar of how I wish history would always be written. Adams, an archaeologist, writer, and traveller has a profound understanding of Great Britain's history, and uses its architecture, landscapes, metalwork, books, and other geological sites to explain and theoretically dissect the events of its past in order to understand the present historical - and moreover - social - conjuncture. In this book, Adams unpacks one of the most ambiguous times in Great Britain's long history, what is known as the Dark Ages, using artifacts, pathways, and geological markers that still, unbeknownst to the majority, stand (either above or underground) to this day. Furthermore, to make his work all the more visceral, Adams avoids traveling by anything other than his own two feet, and in doing so falls into the landscape and its horizons as his predecessors would have.  Though there have been recent e...

This is exactly the kind of book about London, England that I didn't know I was looking for. I've been avoiding travel books for the most part and have instead been mapping out places on my own that I'd like to go (during my honeymoon this May!) based off of books I've read and movies I've seen. For example, the Hundred Acre Wood that A.A. Milne based his Winnie-the-Pooh tales off of (it's a real place) and Merlin's cave (real too). I scoped out some venues where my husband and I can try falconry, as I was inspired by Helen MacDonald's nonfiction book on the subject, "H is for Hawk" (and her love for her hawk Mable). I'm thrilled to visit as many castles as possible, particularly because of Queen Victoria and the Victorian Era, after having read Daisy Goodwin's biography and then watching the PBS series (Kensington Palace, here I come!). Wilkie Collins' "The Woman in White" makes me excited to see large residential En...