Hello!
I hope everyone has had a good weekend. I have had a busy weekend with family but I have also managed some good reading which has been lovely.
Blog Posts
Currently Reading
Really enjoying both of these reads so far. In fact I can’t put them down so I have to keep swapping between the two.
Happy Reading
Happy Friday Everyone!
I hope everyone has some fun plans for the weekend.
My chosen poem this week is by the American poet, essayist and translator Jane Hirshfield (1953).
August Day
You work with what you are given -
today I am blessed, today I am given luck.
It takes the shape of a dozen ripening fruit trees,
a curtain of pole beans, a thicket of berries.
It takes the shape of a dozen empty hours.
In them is neither love nor love's muster of losses,
in them is no chance for harm or for good.
Does even my humanness matter?
A bear would be equally happy, this August day,
fat on the simple sweetness plucked between thorns.
There are some who may think, "how pitiful, how
lonely."
Others must murmer, "How lazy."
I agree with them all: pitiful, lonely, lazy.
Lost to the earth and to heaven,
thoroughly drunk on its whiskeys, I wander my kingdom.
Jane Hirshfield
Happy Reading
Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati
Blurb
As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best . . .
Mother. Monarch. Murderer. Magnificent.
You are born to a king, but marry a tyrant. You stand helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore and comfort yourself with violent thoughts of your own.
You play the part, fooling enemies who deny you justice. Slowly, you plot.
You are Clytemnestra.
But when the husband who owns you returns in triumph, what then?
Acceptance or vengeance – infamy follows both. So you bide your time and wait, until you might force the gods’ hands and take revenge. Until you rise. For you understood something that the others don’t. If power isn’t given to you, you have to take it for yourself.
Review
I haven’t found many Greek retellings of Clytemnestra so I was really pleased to find this book as I think she gets rather a rough deal. She was a strong woman who decided to get revenge and be a queen where only kings have ruled and she was hated for it. Plus let’s face it people always remember her sister Helen more than Clytemnestra.
Clytemnestra was born a Spartan princess and she was brought up to be a fighter and to be the strongest she could be. She was brought up in a tough world where softness was frowned upon and she thrived. Her father listened to her when she spoke which he rarely did with his other children and he showed pride in her actions.
I loved how this book also showed Clytemnestra as a soft caring person who loved her sister Helen and wanted nothing but to protect her. She loved her first husband and child with a passion and would do anything for them. However, when Agamemnon comes into her life it all goes wrong and that softness disappears.
The thing I also loved about this book was how Casati brought in other well known characters from mythology. We see the intelligent and sensible Penelope, the cunning Odysseus, Castor and Pollux (although I would have liked to have seen more of Castor and Pollux) and we even see Timandra heavily featured.
Considering this is a debut novel I thought it was a brilliantly written book with a very sophisticated and mature writing style and at well over 400 pages I found it a fast paced read that I flew through. I really enjoyed this book and I hope to read more books by Casati soon. I give this book 4 out of 5 Dragons.
🐲🐲🐲🐲
Purchase Links
Bookshop.org | Waterstones | WH Smith
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About the author
Costanza Casati was born in Texas in 1995 and grew up in a village in Northern Italy, where she studied Ancient Greek, and Ancient Greek literature, under one of the country’s most rigorous academic programmes. She is a graduate of the prestigious Warwick Writing MA in the UK, and worked as a screenwriter and journalist. Clytemnestra is her debut novel. It has sold into 18 territories worldwide, is a Times bestseller, an Indie Next Pick, and was shortlisted for the HWA Debut Crown Award.
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a good week so far.
My chosen quote this week is by the American singer and actor Elvis Presley (1935-1977).
“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away.”
Elvis Presley
Happy Reading
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week. I have been busy in the library, what was meant to be a simple job is now a huge job and will take a long time before it is anywhere near a library.
My chosen book is one that I bought last year but sadly it got put away when work started on the house but now I have found it again and have put it back on the TBR pile.
The Princes in the Tower by Philippa Langley
In 1483, Edward V (age twelve) and his brother Richard, Duke of York (age nine), disappeared from the Tower of London. History has judged they were murdered on the orders of Richard III. The Princes in the Tower now reveals the truth behind the greatest unsolved mystery in English history.
Philippa Langley took the world by storm when, against all the odds and after a seven-year investigation, she discovered the grave of King Richard III (1452-1485) in a Leicester car park. A king finally laid to rest, the rediscovery and reburial of Richard III was watched by a global audience of over 366 million.
Now, in The Princes in the Tower, Langley reveals the findings of a remarkable new research “The Missing Princes Project.” In the summer of 1483, Edward V (age 12) and his brother Richard Duke of York (age 9), disappeared from the Tower of London. For over five hundred years, history has judged that they were murdered on the orders of their uncle, Richard III.
Following years of intensive research in British, American, and European archives, Philippa has uncovered astonishing new archival discoveries that radically change what we know about the fate of the princes in the Tower. Established by Langley in 2016, “The Missing Princes Project” employs the methods of a cold-case police inquiry. Using investigative methodology, it aims to place this most enduring of mysteries under a forensic microscope for the very first time.
In The Princes in the Tower, Langley narrates the painstaking investigative work and research of the project. By questioning received wisdom, she and her international team of researchers shed light upon one of history’s greatest miscarriages of justice, in turn revealing a surprising and phenomenal untold story.
Happy Reading
Hello!
I hope everyone has had a good weekend. We have been working hard on the library and we have no got all the carpet and underlay out and we have started stripping the wallpaper off. I can’t wait to get it all finished.
Blog Posts
Currently Reading
I’m still reading these two books but I have been focusing more on Lord of Chaos as I have been really enjoying it.
Happy Reading
Happy Friday!
I hope everyone has some fun plans for the weekend.
My chosen poem today is by the Anglo-Irish poet and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972, Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972). He also wrote mystery stories under the name Nicholas Blake.
Walking Away
It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day -
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled - since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take - the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay.
I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show -
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.
Cecil Day-Lewis
Happy Reading
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a good week so far. I thought it was time for a post which doesn’t involve books.
House and Garden
Our house is still covered in scaffolding and work on the roof and the rest of the house is progressing. We have been busy inside the house whilst the builders have been busy outside. We have been clearing the room that is going to be turned into the library. Yesterday I was taking tiles off the wall as the room has a bathroom sink in it from the previous owners. The library is proving to not be as simple as we originally thought but I’m still hoping to get it all finished before Christmas.
Garden wise we have now had two massive clear outs and filled nearly three skips! Now we have some space to lay slabs and create our new pond area.
Powis Castle
We managed to both get a Sunday off together which is something my husband and myself very rarely manage so we went to visit the pea fowl at Powis Castle. We love Powis Castle and always love seeing the peacocks so it was nice to visit the super cute peacock babies.
West Midlands Safari Park
This week we went on our annual visit to the safari park. We always go in the Summer and sometimes to the other events they run during the year. It was a super hot day so we were very grateful for the AC in the car and we got a little pink walking around during the afternoon but it was so nice to see all the animals. My personal favourites are the elephants and hippos.
Walking and Dining Out
We have also been trying to keep our walking going and thankfully we have had some good weather to help with this. We have also been treating ourselves to a few nice meals out, hence the need for so many walks. We haven’t managed a holiday this summer due to the work on the house so we are making sure we go for some nice treats instead.
Happy Reading Everyone
Hello!
My chosen quote today is Epictetus c. 50-c. 135 AD. Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher who was born into slavery. Epictetus spent his youth in Rome as a slave to Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman and secretary to Nero. His social position was a complicated thing because he had the low status of a slave but high status of someone connected to Imperial power.
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.”
Epictetus
Happy Reading
WWW Wednesday is a meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.
The rules are answer the questions below and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a good week so far. I haven’t done much reading so far this week but I have managed quite a few jobs around the house and work on the library is progressing well. Today I was chiseling tiles off the wall because the room has a bathroom sink in it.
What I am Currently Reading
I am really struggling with House of Odysseus the first 40 pages or so have just been random ramblings of Aphrodite. I’m really hoping it picks up as I enjoyed the first book in the series. Lord of Chaos is still plodding along and I’m still enjoying it but I really want to move on from it now and get it finished.
What I have Recently Finished Reading
I really enjoyed this and it is another book ticked off my 24 Books in 2024 list. Review will follow soon.
What I Think I will Read Next
As usual I have no idea what I will read next. One these may be a contender but I can’t be certain.
Please drop me a comment with your WWW Wednesday and I will head over for a visit.
Happy Reading
Lady Book Dragon 