C: “Doomed Queens” by Kris Waldherr (another fun history book!)

  My sister and brother-in-law struck again this past Christmas with a can’t-put-it-down history book.  That’s right, I said “history book!”  Walderr’s Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends from Cleopatra to Princess Di is just the ticket for the multi-tasking of enjoyable read and a history lesson.

This book is informative but fun and cheeky.  I found it to be the perfect bubble bath book.  The chapters are about two pages, average, just right for a couple of chapters per bath…and I laughed most of the way through the admittedly woeful stories of Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette and other royal women who met bad ends—all the way up to Princess Diana.

Not only does the author give us factual accounts of the influential women, she gives fascinating vocabulary words.  For example, did all you students of the Holy Bible realize that Jezebel, wife of Ahab, was killed by defenestration??!!  I love it!  According to Merriam-Webster, defenestration is “the act of throwing someone or something out a window!”  Who knew?  I am so delighted with this that I am just waiting on a chance to use it: “Do Not defenestrate that Coke can…we must keep America beautiful!”  or “He was so poor he did not have a pot to______ in or a window to defenestrate it!”

Each ill-fated queen’s chapter has a “Cautionary Moral” at the end.  Cleopatra’s is “Choose your allies well or they will come back to bite you in the asp.”

And, yes, the subject matter is a bit depressive when you think about what these poor women actually went through but, on the other hand, you’ll find that many of them had a hand in their own fate…lots of gossipy tidbits on royal machinations.  Just like little soap-opera vignettes. 

The author has a website that features a little video. You’ll see some of the same campy approach in this that makes the book so readable:

Heartily recommended!! - C

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

Christmas 2008 my sister and brother-in-law gave me a for-me-totally-unheard-of book, The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell. They had browsed the bookstore and noticed a display of this book on the Puritans in early America. (That’s “Puritans,” folks, not “the Pilgrims”) Knowing of my penchant for history, they bought it on a hunch. Boy, did they strike gold!! This is right up my alley.

For me, Vowell’s book is one of the most entertaining history books I have ever read. She has researched this subject, drawing heavily and quoting from the Puritans’ copious journals of their early-New-World life. Vowell makes the point that one thing the Puritans did to excess was write—hence her title reference to them being “Wordy.” It is to our great benefit that they did.

This author writes with such humor that I found myself smiling throughout the book at her clever turns of phrase and, on occasion, I chuckled out loud. This is an oddity for a history book—at least for me. But her humor does not impede her depth. I have read others’ reviews that her sarcasm was an annoyance; I did not find it so. But be warned: she’s a little edgy. Nevertheless, I think, she is effective as she teaches about:

Puritan theology and religious practice;

Puritan – Indian relations (tenuous at best!). The wars and treaties with the native peoples….amazing!!

Puritan – Mother-Country-England Relations (also tenuous at best). It was interesting to see the beginnings of the American revolution in the Puritan desire for self-government; at such an early stage!

Puritans fighting amongst themselves. Oh, yes, lots of petty fighting. Earliest Boston was not especially harmonious. Puritan punishment for sin included outright banishment from the settlement. This was not small thing. Think of being kicked out of known circles into wilderness where there were no other people except for those native Americans!

Banishment happened to Roger Williams, who was resourceful enough to turn lemons into lemonade and become (through his VERY close association with them because of his exile) the leading authority on native folk for his fellow countrymen. He even wrote a native American translation dictionary! So useful in the wilds of the New World!

Vowell is an unabashed atheist, so her assessment of the Puritans and their outlook is through that lens. She is careful to reveal her own stance, and I, for one, found her once-removed-from religion-assessment helpful.

Once I started it, I could not put this book down. And I’m a lot wiser about early America for it! C