Category Archives: historical

The Partenon by Mary Beard

Posted on April 26, 2019 by portiabridget

Product info: Oscar Wilde compared it to a white goddess, Evelyn Waugh to Stilton cheese. In observers from Lord Byron to Sigmund Freud to Virginia Woolf it met with astonishment, rapture, poetry, even tears–and, always, recognition. Twenty-five hundred years after … Continue reading →

Posted in book review, contemporary, historical, non-fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle 02) by Neal Stephenson

Posted on April 12, 2019 by portiabridget

Product info (from Goodreads): In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves — including one Jack Shaftoe, aka King of the Vagabonds, aka Half-Cocked Jack — devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure … Continue reading →

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Runa by Vera Buck

Posted on January 11, 2019 by portiabridget

Synopsis: Mental health clinic Salpêtrière in Paris. A young medicine student from Switzerland called Jori helps the powerful and famous director Charcot to prepare his famous lectures by collecting fresh batch of patients from their homes. Jori is doubly motivated … Continue reading →

Posted in book review, crime, grimdark, historical | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Spies of the Balkans (Nigth Soldiers 11) by Alan Furst

Posted on November 16, 2018 by portiabridget

Product info (from Goodreads): Greece, 1940. Not sunny vacation Greece: northern Greece, Macedonian Greece, Balkan Greece–the city of Salonika. In that ancient port, with its wharves and warehouses, dark lanes and Turkish mansions, brothels and tavernas, a tense political drama … Continue reading →

Posted in a total failure, book review, historical, rating | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler

Posted on October 26, 2018 by portiabridget

Product info (from Goodreads): Norman Ohler investigates the murky, chaotic world of drug use in the Third Reich. There have been other books on Dr Morell’s cocktail of treatments for Hitler and Goering’s reliance on drugs, but Ohler’s book is … Continue reading →

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Kingdom of Shadows (Night Soldiers 06) by Alan Furst

Posted on June 1, 2018 by portiabridget

Product info: Nicolas Morath is an ex-pat from Hungary residing in Paris right before WWII. He is enjoying an easy life, working as an ad executive and seeing an attractive Argentine heiress called Cara. As the big conflict approaches his … Continue reading →

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The Videssos Cycle 01-04 by Harry Turtledove

Posted on March 30, 2018 by portiabridget

The whole cycle, published in the 80s of previous century so rather old, consists of 12 primary and 17 total works. I read the first four od the primary works: The Misplaced Legion (01) An Emperor for the Legion (02) … Continue reading →

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The Root of His Evil by James M. Cain

Posted on September 15, 2017 by portiabridget

Synopsis (from Goodreads): While slinging hash in a diner, a would-be Cinderella meets her Prince Charming. Carrie Selden is not at all like the woman you’ve read about in the papers. Though she was raised in an orphanage, she isn’t … Continue reading →

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Azincourt by Bernard Cornwell

Posted on August 29, 2017 by portiabridget

Synopsis (from Goodreads): Agincourt is one of the epic battles of history. It was fought by two badly matched armies that met in atrocious conditions on St Crispin’s Day 1415, and resulted in an extraordinary victory that was celebrated in … Continue reading →

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The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer

Posted on March 7, 2017 by portiabridget

Synopsis (from Goodreads): When the Earl of Rule proposes marriage to her sister Lizzie, Horatia offers herself instead. Her sister is already in love with someone else, and Horatia is willing to sacrifice herself for her family’s happiness. Everyone knows … Continue reading →

Posted in book review, chicklit, classic, historical, romance | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments