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As I mentioned in my post about books read in January, I am on a self-imposed book buying ban until I work my way through a good chunk of my "to be read" list.
I've made myself a list in the back of my planner and the opportunity to tick things off is proving to be a decent motivator. Some of the books are re-reads as I'm not sure if I want to keep them and at the very least I'm finding that this is a good way to make me read the new ones I haven't touched yet!
Despite this there is one re-read that wasn't done for decluttering purposes, but purely because I felt a need to have a little brain reset. Sometimes after reading a bunch of new books I need to read something familiar and that I enjoy in order to dive back into the pile of the unknown!
Queen Victoria's Matchmaking
This was a birthday gift to myself back in November. I had £10 on a Waterstones loyalty card and after some internal debate I finally spent it on this book.
I have a similar book on five of Queen Victoria's granddaughters and the royal marriages they made. Several of them also featured in this book so I was glad to have a bit more of a background and insight into the futures of the women mentioned.
I particularly liked this book as it took a really good look at Victoria's grandson and the planned heir to the British throne, Prince Albert Victor. I've actually written a history blog post on Albert Victor for my "Almost Kings" series, as sadly the prince died weeks before his wedding and years before the death of both his grandmother and his father.
I would have liked more about the arrangements made for the wedding of "Bertie", the Prince of Wales, to Alexandra of Denmark. More attention was paid to Bertie's older sister "Vicky", the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm. The book finished with the end of the First World War and the collapse of several royal houses, so naturally the Kaiser had a prominent place.
This was a really interesting read and would be great as a starting place if you want to read more about Victoria's children and grandchildren, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Fall of the House of Byron
"Fall of the House of Byron" looks at several generations of the famous Byron family. Starting with the acquisition of the family estate, Newland Abbey, by the underage heir George Gordon Byron (the poet), the book examines how earlier generations changed the reputation of the Byron name forever and ultimately came to impact and reflect the life of the poet.
This book was absolutely fascinating and I struggled to put it down. From the dissolute William Byron to his brother John (known as "Foul Weather Jack"), and their sister Isabella, who travelled around Europe with a lover no one liked, we get a real feel for how the name changed from one of stolid respectability to profligacy and poor decision making, even before the poet himself was born.
The only thing I felt was missing was a bit more about William, John and Isabella's two other brothers; George and Richard. Both had quieter, slightly more respectable lives, and so they only get the occasional mention in passing. It would have been good to know a bit more about them, but I suspect their quiet lives meant there was far less material about them.
Regardless, this is a brilliant read and should definitely be picked up even if, like me, you don't actually like Byron's poetry.
We Are At War
This was the re-read that I mentioned indulging in to jazz my brain back up before diving in to something new.
We Are At War is one of a series of three books by Simon Garfield that use personal diaries written in the Second World War for the Mass Observation project. These diaries, and others like them, are now held at the Mass Observation Archive and several books have been written using exerpts from them.
We Are At War looks at the month before the start of the Second World War and runs up to October 1940. The diaries exerpts used are from four women across the UK; Pam Ashford in Glasgow, Tilly Rice in Cornwall and then Surry, Eileen Potter in London and Maggie Joy Blunt near Windsor, and one man - Christopher Tomlin in Preston. Through these five regular people we see opinions, thoughts and feelings as they witness their country enter a massive European war just two decades after "the war to end all wars".
I really like this book as you get a real insight into how individual people experienced the war. Most of what I learned at school was about people as a collective. But in this you see real people and their thoughts and feelings, as well as the thoughts of those around them.
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