Hello everyone,
best news first: Downton Abbey is in the house again!We have a new set of Season 1-3, including the Christmas Special that completes Season 2.
Season 1 – Who is who in this family and what is an entailed estate???
Season 2 – First World War and the Dowager Duchess is not amused...
Christmas Special – Finally, a resolved love interest!
Season 3 – The naughty relatives from the States show up! Everyone gets married, or do they????!!
Season 1 – Who is who in this family and what is an entailed estate???
Season 2 – First World War and the Dowager Duchess is not amused...
Christmas Special – Finally, a resolved love interest!
Season 3 – The naughty relatives from the States show up! Everyone gets married, or do they????!!
And for those of you entertained by the Shakespeare presentation last week, but who prefer some lighter entertainment that King Lear by their bedside.....
We have Karen Harper's Shakespeare's Mistress.
When Queen Elizabeth's men come looking for William Shakespeare - a rumoured Catholic in a time of Catholic-Protestant intrigue and insurrection - they first question a beautiful, dark-haired woman who seems to know the famous playwright very well. Too well. She is Anne Whateley, born in Temple Grafton, a small town just up the river from Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. And as church records show - were anyone to look for them - Anne Whateley was wed to William Shakespeare in a small country church just days before he married another woman, Anne Hathaway, who has lived as his wife for decades.
And if you're not too fussy about historical accuracy and allow for flights of fancy, then this little piece of juicy escapism will lull you lovingly to sleep in these mid-winter nights....
Or try more sardonic Mr.Robert Nye's book Late Mr.Shakespeare.
'By the time I have finished I think you will have to admit it. There is no man or woman alive in the world who knows more than old Pickleherring about the late Mr Shakespeare.' From a dingy attic above a brothel in Restoration London, aged actor Pickleherring tells all that's fit to know, and much that's not, about the life of the Bard. A child actor in Shakespeare's troupe, Pickleherring has heard every salacious story about the playwright's life, and is generous-spirited enough to repeat them all. Was Shakespeare ever 'in love'? Did he write his own plays? Might he have had royal blood? Upon whom did he base the character of Falstaff? What were his last words? And who was the Dark Lady of the sonnets? Pickleherring has the answers to every question ever asked about his mentor. Audacious, bawdy and jaw-droppingly ingenious, The Late Mr Shakespeare deserves a place on the same shelf as Shakespeare's plays. And not just as a handy book-end!
'By the time I have finished I think you will have to admit it. There is no man or woman alive in the world who knows more than old Pickleherring about the late Mr Shakespeare.' From a dingy attic above a brothel in Restoration London, aged actor Pickleherring tells all that's fit to know, and much that's not, about the life of the Bard. A child actor in Shakespeare's troupe, Pickleherring has heard every salacious story about the playwright's life, and is generous-spirited enough to repeat them all. Was Shakespeare ever 'in love'? Did he write his own plays? Might he have had royal blood? Upon whom did he base the character of Falstaff? What were his last words? And who was the Dark Lady of the sonnets? Pickleherring has the answers to every question ever asked about his mentor. Audacious, bawdy and jaw-droppingly ingenious, The Late Mr Shakespeare deserves a place on the same shelf as Shakespeare's plays. And not just as a handy book-end!
And for a real treat, trusty A.S.Byatt The Virgin In The Garden.
Set in Yorkshire in 1952 as the inhabitants of the area set about celebrating the accession of a new Queen Elizabeth I, this is the tale of a brilliant and eccentric family fatefully divided. An entertaining novel, in which enlightenment and sexuality, Elizabethan drama and comedy intersect richly and unpredictably.
And as an infamous Scott once said, Let every man (and woman) be master of his (her) time!Set in Yorkshire in 1952 as the inhabitants of the area set about celebrating the accession of a new Queen Elizabeth I, this is the tale of a brilliant and eccentric family fatefully divided. An entertaining novel, in which enlightenment and sexuality, Elizabethan drama and comedy intersect richly and unpredictably.
Your faithful Librarian
Anna
