Happy Sunday to everyone! It's been a busy week here at The Burton Review!
I reviewed Elizabeth's Women by Tracy Borman, a non-fiction account of the ladies and family members that influenced Elizabeth I's character. I really enjoyed this book, and I think it belongs it everyone's Tudor book collection. The book is available through the links I provided on the post, but will be readily available in bookstores in the USA in September. What made my review of Tracy Borman's new book extra special is the fact that it was my first buddy read. Heather from The Maiden's Court and I interacted during our progress and you can see our own interviews on my review post and her review post. It was great fun. We've got some more fun stuff up our sleeves, but you'll have to wait and see!
The author Tracy Borman is expecting a baby any day now, so congratulations and best wishes are being sent her way. She is working on two more books now, as baby permits, but I am excited about both of the topics she has chosen. The first one is Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, for 2011; and the second is the Witches of Belvoir - a scandalous 17th century witchcraft trial event, for 2013. You can bet I'll be first in line for these reads as well!
I also read and reviewed Harriet and Isabella by Patricia O'Brien which was another fantastic read. I also did a special post on it here for Lyman Beecher's birthday. I definitely recommend this for anyone interested in late 1800's America, social issues of the times, and the Beecher story in general. I am looking for the author's historical fiction book, The Glory Cloak, as well. You may have missed my review because I decided to post it late on Friday night. It was one of those that I didn't want to spend too much more time on and turn it into a big mess!
I was going through my reviews for the year so far and posting them with their ratings on my Reviews page. It really looks like I've found a way to discern the not-great books from the better books, as I've received a lot of better books (in my opinion) lately. I have not had many doozy's, probably because I have learned to stick within my niche of historical fiction and not straying too far from that. I counted 54 books read and reviewed in 2009 so far. That is great for me! I had no idea how many it was because this is the first time I've attempted to count. I am happy with that total, considering there are 52 weeks in the year, and we are still in October. I hope I can keep up the pace for 2010, and wouldn't mind being a little quicker then since I have a lot more review opportunities now.
I chose a winner and she has responded gleefully already for the giveaway I ran for The Tudor Rose by Margaret Campbell Barnes:
Big Congratulations to Ms. Lucy, I am so excited you are the winner this time around! Canada misses out on some of our contests, so I am always happy to see US spreading the love ;)
I still have another week going for the giveaway for Monica Fairview's The Other Mr. Darcy. If you enjoyed Pride and Prejudice at all, you are really going to like this one, as I did. I enjoyed this version of Caroline Bingley very much and there was a lot of regency flair to this read. Enter for the book giveaway here at The Burton Review!
I am working on some facelift/bloggiesta type improvements for the blog, which include a graphic navigation menu bar for underneath the header picture, and composing the obligatory About Me post etc. I did update my Email Me button that is on my left sidebar. The graphics are there, (obviously) but I'm working on some of the corresponding posts they link to. I also killed the bazillion awards that cluttered up my sidebar. My blog takes awhile to load because of the header, the background, the widgets, the 15 posts, the Amazon Associates links, and everything else, so the awards were just cluttering my brain up. And I have a music player on there as well. Which I realize you guys don't use, but believe it or not, I have my blog page up all day at work to look at my sheepish header for sanity, and I listen to the music player. For 8 hours a day. And now that I have the menu bar up, the page will probably load slow because of linking the graphics from photobucket. So we'll see how it goes. I added a TweetMeme thing that shows below the header of the posts. I also configured my google friends gadget. I was bored.
Then I found this on google books.. they have uploaded LIFE magazine to their database, so now you can browse back issues of LIFE magazine.Check it out here! I was looking at a 1972 issue wher Margaret Truman talks about the book about her dad that she wrote, which I just got from Paperbackswap last month. And there are these awesome Panasonic ads with an 8 track and a system that looks similar to my dad's.. so awesome.
And then I googled all issues, and searched Harriet Beecher.. I can be here ALL night!
I completed 125/250 points for Virginie's Four month challenge, and she started another Four Month Challenge here on her blog. I've completed three of the six books for The Everything Austen Challenge but I might have to substitute one or two on the list I had originally posted. We'll see how far we get. More than likely I will get 50% on this one as well. I am not that good at these Challenges, I always end up changing my priority reads to coincide with newer review requests.
My goal for next week is to get my husband to construct another bookcase. I've got some categorizing to do and I need some more space. I'll let you know how that works out. I'm about to start Delilah by India Edghill, and I hope to get somewhere with it this weekend, but I would have to get off the computer in order to do that.
I've been busy working, kids, reading/reviewing, so I haven't been commenting much on your sites and I apologize for that. I do keep up with google reader on my iPhone when things settle enough for me to take a peek at what is going on. So I am making it up to you with two more giveaways! One starts Monday, and the other starts Friday! I will also have one more review for you this week, The Wildest Heart, by Rosemary Rogers. See you then!
.JPG)