I haven't read any Phillipa Gregory so I can't compare, but yes, I really enjoyed it. I went thru my English royalty phase a good fifteen years ago so I was not excited about reading this book, a book club pick. Instead, I found myself wishing the ending could somehow be different and obsessively googling "the facts."

Comparing Alison Weir with Gregory is like comparing historian Daniel Boorstin with Dan Brown. Weir has written some excellent non fiction. I haven't read Traitor but I'd suspect its worth the try. If nothing else it will be very well researched.

I own many of her biographies-but I have to admit that I am disappointed that she and Carolly Erickson have both done a novel. I shouldn't be-they are, as you say, both consummate researchers.

Back to the topic:

I have just finished running 199 miles as part of the Relay, meant for twelve people to do in shifts, but I've just done it solo. I'm a bit tired, but ready for my next thing. I've already run a marathon in Antartica so where next?

IÂm in modern day Port Dundas, a remote town in Ontario. IÂm a 61-year-old female officer searching for a killer who murders terminally ill patients. (ItÂs nice to read a mystery where the female lead is not a sexy 20-something.)

I'm at Sudbrook Cottage in England, pondering where to place two enormous garden urns. Thank goodness I have two strong young men to help me, I could never move them myself.

I'm in Dublin in the 1990's meeting the characters who are attending Italian lessons. There is bound to be a happy ending.
Sheri, are the urns going to be filled with pink flowers? There were always strong and probably beautiful young men around your author. :-)

Vee, I suspect you're reading Maeve Binchy's Evening Class? And while I'm not yet sure what type of flowers may grace those urns, there are sure to be a number of young men about, though perhaps not as many as there used to be.

I'm cooking in the White House kitchen, waiting for my sercret service beau and beaning the odd murderer with my heaviest frying pan. Who needs the FBI when you have cast iron?

I just walked Boo Radley home in 1935... again. (I'm an English teacher.) :)

I've just come back from a very short visit to medieval Scotland-and I had quite a time of it.

I've been in Bonnie Scotland, too, in the 1700's. I've been near Culloden Battlefield, and traveling by boat to Skye, while hiding someone in desguise. Later in life, I tried my luck in the colony of North Carolina, but missed my native land too much and so returned home to the Highlands....

I am in St. Augustine, Florida with Pedro Memendez de Aviles. The year is 1565. We are celebrating the very first American Thanksgiving 56 years before the Pilgrims had their feast in Plymouth. I think cindydavid is at the table with me.

PAM

cc- Is the book "To Kill A Mockingbird"?

Thyrkas-I'm confused.

Oops! Sorry, cc! I should have said:

taliasmom - Is your book "To Kill A Mockingbird"?

I'm in Aberdeen in current times, mostly getting rained and snowed on while tracking a murderer.

astrokath, are your reading one of the Alexander McCall Smith books set in Scotland? ("The Right Attitude to Rain"?)

twobigdogs, would love to know exactly what you are reading, as it sounds like it is just to my taste....

Woodnymph2,
I am reading Tony Horwitz's new book A Voyage Long and Strange. He decided that while he knew that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, and the Pilgrims landed in 1620, he could barely remember anything that happened in between those two years. So, in typical Horwitz fashion, he sets out to rediscover the new world. It is not a humorous book as was his previous book Blue Latitudes was funny, but very informative. I just finished it last night. I recommend it - it makes American history fresh and interesting again.

PAM

PAM, thanks! I am definitely going to try to find the new Horwitz book.

At the moment, I am in Europe in the High Middle Ages, having just finished an account of the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine which ends with a photograph of her tomb beside her husband, Henry II. The carved figures on the tombs show Henry apparently trying to get some sleep while Eleanor is eternally reading a book. The scene seemed so familiar to me that I had to laugh. I bet Henry said just moments before, "Will you turn out that light!"

I'm in New York City, having been pulled from my holiday to investigate the murder of an Ambassador from Africa. I have no standing or authority-but the British ambassador thinks I can find out the truth. I do have a talent for asking the sticky questions-but my family will not be pleased.

I am in England, near a northern sea coast. I have a small brick house that I've purchased using most of my savings. And although people said I could never do it, I've just retired from the theater, and never looked back. Now, I spend my days by the sea, swimming, watching, enjoying, and I am writing, too. I write my thoughts, a bit of my life, I just sort things out on paper. And this morning, well, this morning, I think I saw a sea monster.

PAM

Florida...a lightweight break from the evil machinations of middle ages English royalty...wondering who done it, who is abducting and murdering these young girls.

Well, in one book I'm in London of the late 1800s -- 1880s to be exact. Prowling the streets of the Whitechapel area ..... with my hansom driver Netley.....

And in another book, I just left the domain of the dread Dormammu! I just beat him in a contest of dark magic. I've also just escaped from the crimson bands of Cyttorak where I was momentarily imprisoned by The Demon.

I'm now in a Europe of the late 1400's, dividing my time between Paris and Brussels. Between romantic distractions, I am bickering with various artists and craftsmen over a soon to be wrought, unique masterpiece. This work of art will be unlike anything ever seen before, in Europe, and involves a mythical beast....

I enjoy this thread and wish we could make it into a game....

dynomutt, that sounds so familiar but can't quite pull it out from the ol' brain...what book is your first one in London??

I'm in Tahiti with Charles Strickland and he looks pretty bad now.

I'm back in Arkensaw, Yorkshire, defending an actor who is accused of hiring a hit man to murder his ex-wife-who was about to marry a religious zealot who has a fervent dislike of the theater-and who was going to influence the ex-wife to stop the actor's parental visits with his son.

I have to say I am nearly to the end of the series and they haven't paled all that much.

wigardenerwannabe --

It's actually a "graphic novel" by Alan Moore. (Yes, I'm loath to call it a "comic book") It's called "From Hell" and it's the book that was the source material for the Johnny Depp movie of the same name. It's about the Ripper murders.... I've actually stopped reading it for now -- I got sidetracked by the OTHER book, a collection of Dr. Strange comics from the 60s. (Yes, THAT one is a comic book)

I am really wondering, where is PAM?

It's 1761 and I'm on Cape Cod trying to challenge the customs of the time and eek a living solo since my husband drowned at sea.

wigardenerwannabe - If you're have an Indian as a friend, and a fiendish son-in-law...I have trod those same paths about a year ago.

Siobhan, I am in the middle of Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea. It is a slow reading book in that every page is margin to margin full of type, but I am hooked. Now a poltergeist may have become a part of the cast. I love the style of this book.

And I am wondering.. where is woodnymph??
And I am thinking that this should be a regular thread much like the "what are you reading" thread!

PAM

PAM, hello. I am still in Renaissance France and Belgium, working with weavers on the renowned tapestry, "The Lady and the Unicorn." I'm hugely enjoying this evocative,well- researched novel by Tracey Chevalier.

(Prior to this I was in the Scotland of "Bonnie Prince Charlie", with his rebels, reading the life of Flora MacDonald, brave clanswoman who hid his Majesty, desguised as a woman, in a journey to the Isle of Skye....)

Pulling up in the hopes that Wig or Veronica will check in and see this and go to the "frustrated" thread and answer Deborah's question there.

Oh-and I am traveling in that strange unmapped place between books -I will either end up in China or Nottingham. Depends on my mood after shopping all day with DD. China if I am feeling strong, Nottingham if I need an easy restful read.

I have just left Central Africa with the Biafran Independence War going on (which was harrowing and wonderfully written) and now I am just about to be immersed in the funny (I hope) stories of a New Yorker woman just writing about life and hoping it includes cake.

Nottingham.

Venice, where a body has just been fished out of a canal.

Now on the train on my way to Overton College (for women) for my freshman year-I will be in the class of 1918.

I'm in the village of Ballybucklebo, Northern Ireland, trying to avoid a rather large, amorous dog.

I've been transported back to the England of the 1950's, this one filled with eccentric characters. Some of the women are quite nosy, mind everyone else's business, but there is a charming vicar and his maverick wife to laugh at. The men are all quite spoiled by the women, who give them endless "teas", with cakes and cucumber sandwiches, and "biscuits."

I am in Provence in the thirteenth century, watching the four daughters of the Count and Countess becoming the Queens of France, England, Germany and Sicily.

It's modern times and I am spending part of my time in a converted Georgian townhouse in Edinburgh. I spend my days working in an art gallery and occasionally hangong out at a local pub. Something mysterious is going on here,
and non-fiction characters pop up from time to time.

London, UK in between the wars. I'm trying to get a friend's rich uncle to give his blessing to my friend's projected engagement to a tea shop waitress. It's a brainstorm from my valet that my friend should read stories to his uncle to implant the idea that the upper classes should mingle/mix/intermarry with the middle and lower middle classes.

(Yeah, you guys know which book this is!)

I am in Ohio (I think) walking through the fields as the year progresses from month to month, with an old author who knows the most poetic way to describe the nature around him. It's a wonderful restful journey and I am really enjoying it. He makes a fascinating companion as he knows all the different birds.

Back in the present time, on an island off the Carolina coast, solving a mystery.

In Victorian London gathering information on my bitter enemy.

I'm back for a second outting to Ballybucklebo, but after I pick up my book at the library tomorrow, I'm going to The Burg!

I'm at a "public" boys school in England in 1960, but i will soon be tempted to indulge my hobby-investigating murders.