Cool enough to sit outside

A lovely day Sunday, cool enough, in the eighties, to sit out and read. No sound but bees in the butterfly bush.

And to read in Kindle, love my Kindle, which is so old it's just called a Kindle. It was the first on the market, withdrawn after a few months and replaced by the next shiny thing. 

Latecomers to Kindle insist on asking the model and are baffled when I explain there wasn't a model name, since there was nothing else on the Kindle market. 

I won this as a prize in a library summer reading program years ago. Funny to get a prize for doing what you liked all summer.

Here are the current two selections. 

Lucy Worsley, Doctor that is, is a personable historian on tv and YouTube, terrific researcher and an accessible writer. Also a lot of fun to watch.

She has a conversational style that makes history really what it is -- a story. She's devoted to Jane Austen's work and life and this book is one of the results. She's also the joint Chief Curator of the Historic  Royal palaces in England, big job, and I wonder when she manages to write. Or maybe when she manages to curate.

E. Nesbit, famous for The Railway Children, beloved of BBC children's drama programming, also wrote fantasy, and I'm not sure if I like this one or not. It's a weird mixture of real life and magic, with children who talk as if they're on a permanent stage. I won't give up on it too soon though.

There was more work on the beaded head, but it can wait to show you till I've done more.

Lucy Worsley, recommended reading

Her latest, seen here with a handwoven bookmark. Stick weaving, done as a demo for a summer class I taught township kids, if you're interested, where was I.

Oh yes, she's an excellent historian and researcher, and writes exactly like her tv scripts, accurate, readable and funny.

She also points out which events and actions, originated with Victoria, have come down to the present day. White wedding dresses, public events, balcony appearances, photoshopping, Victorian style, of unflattering pix of royals.

Well worth your time if you like the nineteenth century, its quirks and foibles, as well as its history.

I'm a Worsley fan, any period of time. She shows how to be a fine scholar and researcher without being self important. And she's not above dressing the part, and having fun at work, a big point.