I love relearning history I learned way back in high school and looking at it with wiser eyes. I wanted to pay tribute to both the Founding Fathers and Mothers since it took quite a few brave, smart and determined people to figure out how the new nation of the United States of America would operate. After watching the musical, Hamilton, I was curious to discover more about some of the characters. That’s what’s so great about children’s books – they can be used to extend and deepen the learning process for kids and adults.
Here’s another take on America’s relationship with King George III. The story shows the differences between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson but despite their differences, they have a love of country and a hate for King George. They unite their strengths - John’s power of persuasion and Tom’s mighty pen - to formulate the Declaration of Independence. The endnotes are just as fascinating, talking about how their relationship continued - and almost ended. They both died on the same day, on July 4th.
A brilliant portrait of two American heroes from the award-winning creators of The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy)!
"Adams and Jefferson help bring forth the Declaration of Independence and... model successful collaboration. Their secret: Speak up and listen to the other guy. Good lessons for today's Washington." --San Francisco ChroniceAn NCTE Orbis Pictus Award Honor Book John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were very different. John Adams was short and stout. Thomas Jefferson was tall and lean. John was argumentative and blunt. Tom was soft-spoken and polite. But these two very different gentlemen did have two things in common: They…
Alexis Coe is a presidential historian and the New York Times bestselling author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, which was also Audible’s best history book of 2020 and Barnes and Nobel's nonfiction Book of the Month. She was a producer and appeared in Doris Kearns Goodwin's Washington series on the History Channel.
George Washington didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence because he was already too busy fighting for it. Americans have become so focused on 1776, but the American Revolution was a long time coming. Mary Beth Norton does an excellent job of focusing on a pivotal year.
From one of our most acclaimed and original colonial historians, a groundbreaking book tracing the critical "long year" of 1774 and the revolutionary change that took place from the Boston Tea Party and the First Continental Congress to the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
In this masterly work of history, the culmination of more than four decades of research and thought, Mary Beth Norton looks at the sixteen months leading up to the clashes at Lexington and Concord in mid-April 1775. This was the critical, and often overlooked, period when colonists…
When I was a little girl, my parents bought me a children’s edition of Pride and Prejudice. Ever since, I have loved Jane Austen’s works. As I grew older, I really enjoyed learning about her, and researching the history of her times. I hope you will enjoy reading these books as much as I did!
What were the lives of ordinary people like during Austen’s day?
They were far removed from the elegant folk depicted in her novels. The authors look at topics such as child miners, chimney sweeps, crime and punishment, personal hygiene, and how to do the laundry.
True stories look at the horrors of surgery and childbirth in those days of no anesthesia and little understanding of infection.
Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England explores the real England of Jane Austen's lifetime. It was a troubled period, with disturbing changes in industry and agriculture and a constant dread of invasion and revolution. The comfortable, tranquil country of her fiction is a complete contrast to the England in which she actually lived. From forced marriages and the sale of wives in marketplaces to boys and girls working down mines or as chimney sweeps, this enthralling social history reveals how our ancestors worked, played and struggled to survive. Taking in the horror of ghosts and witches, bull baiting, highwaymen and the…
I’m an Australian USA Today bestselling romance author who writes contemporary romance and uses the pen name Alyssa James to write medieval romance. I think the makeover trope resonates with me because although I’m no beauty queen now, I was definitely an ugly duckling in my teens. For reasons best known to him, my father insisted on close-cropped hair, and financial circumstances dictated out-of-style hand-me-down clothing. After university, I found my own style, but it wasn’t until I was accepted as an international flight attendant that I believed that I couldn’t be all that ugly if Qantas employed me!
Eloisa James has long been one of my favourite authors, and I love her witty stories in the Regency romance genre, as well as her friends-to-lovers and second-chance tropes in this story.
The hero, James, had always cared about the heroine, Theodora, who is known in London society as The Ugly Duchess. She wasn’t ugly–just “mannish” and dressed by her mother in a way that didn’t capitalize on her looks.
I liked the fact that she grew in herself and that her transition wasn’t instant. I also loved that James didn’t fall in love with her simply because of her looks but because of her capabilities and her growth in personal confidence.
'Nothing gets me to a bookstore faster than Eloisa James' - Julia Quinn
How can she dare to imagine he loves her... when all London calls her The Ugly Duchess?
Theodora Saxby is the last woman anyone expects the gorgeous James Ryburn, heir to the Duchy of Ashbrook, to marry. But after a romantic proposal before the prince himself, even practical Theo finds herself convinced of her soon-to-be duke's passion. Still, the tabloids give the marriage six months.
Theo would have given it a lifetime . . . until she discovers that James desires not her heart, and certainly not…
More than 40 years ago, I first started writing a book on great ‘Tory’ leaders throughout history, several of whom were inexorably tied to this Regency period. Having never lost interest in the topic I continued to study the period and its political life and found a way to parlay experience from my career in finance and international business into a biography of the most economically proficient Prime Minister Britain has ever had. Research for that biography as well as for future Industrial Revolution-related books on which I am currently working has resulted in a broad and fruitful list of books on the period's politics.
Jenny Uglow looks at the Napoleonic Wars period from the bottom up -- what life was like, how political issues affected the person in the street. Bankers, clergymen, working men and women, manufacturers, and statesmen all play roles in her narrative. Through the letters and diaries of ordinary people, she produces a vibrant picture of life in a period of unprecedented political, social, and economic turmoil. She still ends with the Battle of Waterloo, but Waterloo as experienced by the junior officers and enlisted men. A fascinating book, that shows how high politics and world events affected ordinary people and is highly accessible to general readers.
"The sharply-observed characters and constant pricks of humour make this book seem almost as if Jane Austen had written a history of her own times." (Lucy Worsley The Times). We know the thrilling, terrible stories of the battles of the Napoleonic wars - but what of those left behind? The people on a Norfolk farm, in a Yorkshire mill, a Welsh iron foundry, an Irish village, a London bank or a Scottish mountain? The aristocrats and paupers, old and young, butchers and bakers and candlestick makers - how did the war touch their lives? Every part of Britain felt the…
I grew up loving stories set in the 1800s. I read Little Women six times, determined to become a writer just like Jo March. Eventually, I became one, writing everything from newspaper articles to medical brochures, short stories, and nine mystery novels. I set my latest book in 1819 Regency England. The myriad rules governing every aspect of proper behavior for “gently bred women” meant that any female refusing to conform faced scandal and ostracism from society. Any woman who managed to forge a life of her own design had to be strong, determined, and feisty—just the kind of female I want to read and write about.
Unlike my other book choices, Why Kings Confess has a male protagonist, Sebastian St. Cyr. In my opinion, a very good historical mystery series got even better when Sebastian married Hero Jarvis, the brilliant and outspoken daughter of Sebastian’s mortal enemy, Lord Jarvis, a ruthless advisor to the crown. Hero writes searing investigative articles on societal injustice and, despite being heavily pregnant, participates actively in Sebastian’s work. In this book they investigate the brutal death of a man who was part of a secret delegation sent by Napoleon to determine the possibility of peace with Britain. The author is a historian who manages to seamlessly incorporate a lot of fascinating information about Regency England.
The gruesome murder of a young French physician draws aristocratic investigator Sebastian St. Cyr and his pregnant wife, Hero, into a dangerous, decades-old mystery as a wrenching piece of Sebastian’s past puts him to the ultimate test.
Regency England, January 1813: When a badly injured Frenchwoman is found beside the mutilated body of Dr. Damion Pelletan in one of London’s worst slums, Sebastian finds himself caught in a high-stakes tangle of murder and revenge. Although the woman, Alexi Sauvage, has no memory of the attack, Sebastian knows her all too well from an incident in his past—an act of wartime…
I love relearning history I learned way back in high school and looking at it with wiser eyes. I wanted to pay tribute to both the Founding Fathers and Mothers since it took quite a few brave, smart and determined people to figure out how the new nation of the United States of America would operate. After watching the musical, Hamilton, I was curious to discover more about some of the characters. That’s what’s so great about children’s books – they can be used to extend and deepen the learning process for kids and adults.
You’ve heard the saying, “There are two sides to every story.” Well, that’s what this author did. She presented both sides of the story of the American Revolution from George Washington’s side in America to King George III’s side in England. Real quotes used in speech balloons add another layer to the historic facts in this book. This is for older kids, 9-12. There are gory details of war (including rape) so just warning you. Kids will have a deeper understanding of what lengths the troops went through to carry on and win the Revolutionary War. Excellent afterward tells what each man did after the war.
There were once two enemies who were both named George - George Washington and George III. They were very much alike in some ways, and they were both beloved by their people. But wars alter perceptions of people and interpretations of events. Because the winners tend to tell the tale, very few people in the United States have ever considered the British side of the American Revolution. In George vs. George, Roz Schanzer deftly shifts her perspective and includes primary source quotes from people on both sides of the Atlantic and both sides of the conflict. (There were loyalists in…
I am an activist-politician, who’s been both militant anti-apartheid protestor and Cabinet Minister, someone who tries to convey sometimes complex issues in straightforward terms, impatient with taking refuge down academic rabbit holes, striving to see the wood-for-the-trees. With the exception of George Orwell, each of the books I have recommended is by an author I know personally. My new thriller, The Elephant Conspiracy, sequel to The Rhino Conspiracy, reflects dismay at the corrupt betrayal of Nelson Mandela’s freedom struggle and the values which inspired it, the main characters fighting to revive those values of social justice, liberty, equal opportunities, and integrity, as well as service to others not selfish enrichment.
I enjoyed commenting on early drafts of this dramatic Georgian historical fiction written by my wife Elizabeth about her great-great-great-grandmother: painstakingly researched and vividly portrayed, it’s about love, betrayal, and survival. Lucy, strong-willed daughter of English landed gentry, born in the late 18th century, married Sam Lord, a plantation owner and fortune hunter from Barbados, at a time when women were their husband’s chattels with no rights even over the children. Abused and imprisoned by him in Barbados, she escaped with the help of enslaved people after giving birth at sea, braving disease and cruelty, and witnessing the abject misery of slavery in her descent from a life of pampered luxury to a struggle for survival in a far-off land.
A dramatic and intriguing true Georgian tale of love, betrayal and survival. Lucy, a strong-willed girl from a wealthy family, was brought up on the English–Welsh border and married a Caribbean plantation owner, Sam Lord, for love, meanwhile he married her for her fortune, at a time when a woman was a chattel and everything she had, including her children, became her husband’s. Abused and imprisoned in Barbados, she escaped with the help of enslaved people. A vibrant intimate description of early 19th-century life – giving birth at sea, braving disease and cruelty, and witnessing the abject misery of slavery…
Ever since I stumbled across the story of May Dugas, who the Pinkertons described as “the most dangerous woman in the world,” I’ve been fascinated by women who were born into lowly circumstances and yearned to better themselves. How far were they willing to go to rise above their station? This question takes on added weight for women in earlier eras—when women’s choices and opportunities were limited. So I’ve long been attracted to historical fiction that examines just these questions. And I’ve enjoyed hearing readers’ reactions to May’s story when I visit book clubs. What reader isn’t fascinated by stories of transgression and daring?
Maybe it’s because of my working-class roots, but Mary Saunders, an obscure but very real historical figure, is the sort of woman I wanted to root for. After all, it takes initiative, ingenuity, and not a small dose of impetuosity to rise from a lower-class schoolgirl to, well, some higher station. I was saddened to see how Mary’s yearnings to free herself from the shackles of her class forced her into prostitution at a young age. But when she made a dangerous misstep that set her on the run and landed her a position of a household seamstress, I couldn’t help but fear the worst for her. I was glued to the page in Emma Donoghue’s rich and provocative tale of this young girl’s quest for a better life.
Set in London and Monmouth in the late 1700s, this is an extraordinary novel about Mary Saunders, the young daughter of a poor seamstress. Mary hungers greedily for fine clothes and ribbons, as people of her class do for food and warmth. It's a hunger that lures her into prostitution at the age of thirteen. Mary is thrown out by her distraught mother when she gets pregnant and almost dies on the dangerous streets of London. Her saviour is Doll - a prostitute. Mary roams London freely with Doll, selling her body to all manner of 'cullies', dressed whorishly in…
Andrew Miller doesn’t do conventional heroes. In his
most recent novel, Now We Shall Be Entirely Free (set during the Napoleonic
Wars), two soldiers are given the task of finding a suspected war criminal.
On
the subsequent manhunt from Portsmouth to the west coast of Scotland, my
expectations were repeatedly – and gloriously – upended.
The pursued doesn’t
know he’s being pursued. It isn’t even clear if he’s guilty. The question is
both pressing and increasingly irrelevant, except as a matter for his conscience
and as a matter of public relations for the British army.
More than anything, it’s this horror of objective
truth, shared by nearly every character, which propels the book – by turns (and
perfectly) a thriller, a romance, a comedy, and a novel of ideas.
The rapturously acclaimed new novel by the Costa Award-winning author of PURE, hailed as 'excellent', 'gripping', 'as suspenseful as any thriller', 'engrossing', 'moving' and 'magnificent'.
One rainswept winter's night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain's disastrous campaign against Napoleon's forces in Spain.
Gradually Lacroix recovers his health, but not his peace of mind. He will not - cannot - talk about the war or face the memory of what took…
