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allycryz · 2 months

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Back on my Strahd hyperfocus planning for a possible campaign this summer and am once again annoyed at Tracy Hickman's foreword to CoS 5e.

I'm going to paste it below in full under the cut so no one can say I'm taking it out of context, but I will bold the parts I find especially annoying:

----

We turned the corner, and there was a vampire.

I groaned and rolled my eyes.

It was 1978, and I was playing in one of my first dungeon adventures. It was being run by a friend I had known in high school, John Scott Clegg, and it was typical of the type of adventure that people played in those days. It was all about exploring a hodgepodge collection of rooms connected by dungeon corridors, beating up the monsters that we encountered, searching for treasure, and gaining experience points.

Now we were face to face with random encounter number thirty-four: a vampire. Not a Vampire with a capital V, but a so-many-Hit-Dice-with-such-and-such-an-Armor-Class lowercase vampire. Just another monster in the dungeon.

I remember thinking at the time, What are you doing here? This creature seemed completely out of place with the kobolds, orcs, and gelatinous cubes we had seen thus far. This was a creature who deserved his own setting and to be so much more than just a wandering monster. When I came home from that game, I told all these thoughts to Laura.

That was when Strahd von Zarovich was born.

Strahd would be no afterthought—he demanded his own setting, his own tragic history. Laura and I launched into researching the mythology and folklore surrounding the vampire. We started with the vague, black-and-white image of Bela Lugosi in 1931, but found so much more.

The first "modern" literary foundation of the vampire was penned by John William Polidori based on a fragment of a story by Lord Byron. It was while at the Villa Diodati—a rented house next to Lake Geneva, Switzerland—that Byron and Polidori met Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her husband-to-be, Percy Shelley. One night in June, Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Mary Shelley's contribution to the effort would later become Frankenstein. The short story "The Vampyre," published in 1819, was Polidori's contribution. He was Byron's personal physician, and the first of the so-called "romantic" vampires under Polidori's hand was actually modeled after Lord Byron.

Byron—like the fictional vampires that he inspired, from Polidori's Lord Ruthven down through the penultimate work of Bram Stoker—was a decadent predator, an abuser hidden behind a romantic veil. He was a comely and alluring monster—but a monster nevertheless. The romantic vampire of the earliest years of the genre was not just a spouse abuser but a spouse killer, the archetype of abuse in the worst kind of destructive codependency.

For Laura and me, those were the elements that truly defined Strahd von Zarovich—a selfish beast forever lurking behind a mask of tragic romance, the illusion of redemption that was ever only camouflage for his prey.

Initially we were going to title the adventure Vampyr—one of a series of games we called Nightventure that Laura and I were self-publishing back in 1978. The castle was called Ravenloft, and when Halloween came around each year, our friends asked us if we could play "that Ravenloft game" again... and so the better title won out. It was, in part, because of this design that I was hired by TSR, Inc., to write Dungeons & Dragons adventures in 1982. Soon thereafter, I6 Ravenloft was published.

Since then, fans of Ravenloft have seen many different creative perspectives on Barovia (a country which, by absolute coincidence, is featured in a 1947 Bob Hope movie called Where There's Life). It continues to be one of the most popular Dungeons & Dragons adventures of all time. In its various incarnations, each designer has endeavored to bring something new to the ancient legend of Strahd, and to each of them we are grateful.

But the vampire genre has taken a turn from its roots in recent years. The vampire we so often see today exemplifies the polar opposite of the original archetype: the lie that it's okay to enter into a romance with an abusive monster because if you love it enough, it will change.

When Laura and I got a call from Christopher Perkins about revisiting Ravenloft, we hoped we could bring the message of the vampire folktale back to its original cautionary roots. The talented team at Wizards of the Coast not only graciously took our suggestions but engaged us in a dialogue that delivered new insights on the nightmare beyond the gates of Barovia.

Now we invite you again as our guests to pass through the Svalich Woods if you dare. For here the romance is tragically dangerous... and a true monster smiles at your approach.

----

It's just so

Patronizing

It would be an entirely different post to talk about the meaning of the vampire figure in folklore and literature and what it represents; because you cannot pin it to simply one meaning. Vampiric folklore can speak of fears of disease and death and plague, Dracula can represent xenophobia AND classism AND sexuality, Polidori's Lord Ruthven can be a high society predator AND an emblem of repressed queerness

But even if Tracy was correct that the vampire has one specific meaning...so what? Why can people not subvert and change the stock characters of fiction? Is there really a problem if Interview with a Vampire turned tropes on their heads? I'm no fan of Twilight but its sin is absolutely not "it made Vampires hot and romantic"

This is especially galling because when you release a ttrpg story or system out into the world, it's going to be changed at every table. For every group that runs a module as is, there are dozens making it their own.

I do think Strahd as written, as a monster who cannot recognize his faults is fascinating. I also think there are a lot of possibilities to mine if you have a table who likes romance and intrigue. My most frequent table plays a lot of Good Society and they get very excited when similar options show up in other systems.

And, honestly, at the end of the day Tracy just sounds like every guy whining that they made vampires sparkly and those aren't reaaalll vampires and every internet user handwringing over oh no there are people who find villains hot

#curse of strahd

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beroli · 2 years

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...And Now

...For Laura and me, those were the elements that truly defined Strahd von Zarovich--a selfish beast forever lurking behind a mask of tragic romance, the illusion of redemption that was ever only camouflage for his prey. Initially we were going to title the adventure Vampyr one of a series of games we called Nightventure that Laura and I were self-publishing back in 1978. The castle was called Ravenloft, and when Halloween came around each year, our friends asked us if we could play "that Ravenloft game" again ... and so the better title won out. It was, in part, because of this design that I was hired by TSR, Inc., to write DUNGEONS & DRAGONS adventures in 1982. Soon thereafter, 16 Ravenloft was published. Since then, fans of Ravenloft have seen many different creative perspectives on Barovia (a country which, by absolute coincidence, is featured in a 1947 Bob Hope movie called Where There's Life). It continues to be one of the most popular DUNGEONS & DRAGONS adventures of all time. In its various incarnations, each designer has endeavored to bring something new to the ancient legend of Strahd, and to each of them we are grateful.

When Laura and I got a call from Christopher Perkins about revisiting Ravenloft, we hoped we could bring the message of the vampire folktale back to its original cautionary roots...

I would entirely sympathize with “people are treating or writing Strahd, this character we created, with a degree of sympathy that suggests they misunderstood the original character.” I roll my eyes at efforts to pretend that famous vampires like Dracula, Carmilla--and Strahd--can be divorced from sexual predation without ripping the core out of their myths. I have much less sympathy for “everyone must write vampires as one-dimensional monsters.” Twilight is, of course, the easiest of easy targets (and if there was any ambiguity in what Hickman was getting at, Tracy and Laura Hickman’s personal blog has an old post titled, “Will The Real Vampire Please Stay Dead?” with the caption, “VAMPIRES real ones don’t sparkle...The End”), but older works than that have presented vampires who are not simply one-dimensional monsters. However, staying focused on this one vampire as Hickman really should have, Strahd is still the epic villain he was since he was introduced, right? Well...

The nature of Strahd’s curse and his existence were described in my last post. Strahd tried to own Tatyana because that’s the sort of person he is, alive or undead. Strahd made a pact with a mysterious entity which causes Tatyana to be brought back to him again and again, so he can fail to win her love, which is his obsession.

Curse of Strahd, on page 25, explains that Barovia is a closed system. Anyone who dies there is reincarnated. Any time an infant is born there without a formerly-dead-person’s soul waiting to inhabit the new body, that person simply has no soul, because an infant only has a soul if that soul is reincarnated from someone who died there. Tatyana is not specifically brought back because of her ties to Strahd, but reincarnated like everyone who dies in Barovia. Strahd is not obsessed with causing her to feel things for him that she never could; rather, he will tell PCs who ask that Tatyana’s soul belongs to him, and if the adventure ends with the PCs’ defeat and Tatyana’s current reincarnation without Strahd’s reach, he simply turns her into a vampire spawn and puts her in one of the crypts below Castle Ravenloft. In Vampire of the Mists, Strahd yells at his murder victim, blaming his actions on Sergei, and protests at the denouement that he loved Tatyana. In Curse of Strahd, “He feels neither pity nor remorse, neither love nor hate. He doesn't suffer anguish or wallow in indignation. He believes, and has always believed, that he is the master of his own fate. When he was alive, Strahd could admit to letting his emotions get the better of him from time to time. Now, as a vampire, he is more monster than man, with barely a hint of emotion left. He is above the concerns of the living. The only event that occasionally haunts him is the death of Tatyana, but his view of the past is bereft of romance or regret. In his mind, her death couldn't have been prevented, and what is done cannot be undone.“

Curse of Strahd describes Strahd as having made a pact with “the Dark Powers of the Shadowfel,” but it also features a section, in the Amber Temple, where the PCs can discover a number of vestiges, each offering boons at a terrible price. One of them offers the “dark gift of the Vampyr” to any humanoid creature of evil alignment, requiring that person to kill someone who loves them and drink their blood, and then be killed by someone who hates them, requirements the module writer unambiguously based on Strahd’s murder of Sergei and subsequent death at the hates of the castle guards. Thus is all the mystery dispelled. This version of Strahd did not accept a pact he did not realize would not give him his heart’s desire: far more prosaically, he followed a recipe to become immortal, knowing exactly what the result of his actions would be.

What kind of man was Strahd in life? In previous works he repeatedly says that he was good and just, but of course he is always an unreliable narrator. In the Roots of Evil module, the PCs travel through time and briefly meet the living Strahd, whose listed stats describe him as Lawful Good, but this is only one interpretation. In Curse of Strahd, there is, again, no mystery: he is repeatedly described in omnipotent voice as a brutal conquerer, and, of course, his immortality recipe would never have been offered to him if he was not evil-aligned when he came to the Amber Temple.

The Fifth Edition D&D Monster Manual entry on vampires has this to say: “Whether or not a vampire retains any memories from its former life, its emotional attachments wither as once-pure feelings become twisted by undeath. Love turns into hungry obsession, while friendship becomes bitter jealousy. In place of emotion, vampires pursue physical symbols of what they crave, so that a vampire seeking love might fixate on a young beauty.”

So are all the pieces of Strahd’s dark fate separated and laid out. He is a vampire, because he followed a specific formula of which the result is becoming a vampire. Tatyana is reincarnated over and over, because people who die in Barovia are. He is incapable of love not because of the all-consuming selfishness of the choices he made previously and reaffirms every day, but because vampires are. It seems clear to me that the whole which exists in portrayals of Strahd prior to Curse of Strahd was far more than the sum of the parts which exists in Curse of Strahd. Annoyance at a vampire having too few motivations caused Tracy and Laura Hickman to turn Random Encounter #34 into an epic villain. Annoyance at other people writing vampires with too many motivations caused them to turn an epic villain into Dungeon Boss #34.

#vampire #d&d

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dinosrawr · 1 year

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I can't believe I'm actually doing a tag game on Tumblr, but I do be liking @ranger-kellyn so here goes:

3 ships: Benedikt Montagav & Marshall Seo from These Violent Delights (my boys! my sons! let them be happy!). Regina Mills & Robin Hood from Once Upon a Time (Regina's happy ending doesn't have a romance in it, but by the fairy, she's fucking WANTED one!). Holland Vosijk & A Damned Break from Shades of Magic (just let that poor man have a vacation, shit).

First ever ship: There's been couples I've liked together before this, but by season 3/4 I wanted nothing more than for poor FitzSimmons to have a moment of peace. Like. Let them FIND OUT if they want to be a romantic couple or remain platonic. Let them rest! And then the second the characters decided that "yes, I'd like to try," I was 110% on board. Cheering them on amidst disaster. (Wait. I'm sensing a theme. Do I like DOOMED relationships?! These all have someone who looks like they won't make it to the end of the series. Fuck...)

Last song: Looks like I paused in the middle of Stay (Faraway, So Close!) by U2, but the last full song I heard was the Zombie cover by Bad Wolves.

Last movie: It's a Wonderful Life. Yes, it was Christmas Eve.

Currently reading: Bro, I have.... A LIST. I'm on break and the ADHD can only handle like 10 pages at a time, but I want to read!!! So.... *ahem* Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, Her Majesty's Royal Coven (audio) by Juno Dawson, The Sword of Kaigen by ML Wang, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl, Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and four secrets

Currently watching: The Owl House with the besties and Agents of SHIELD with myself. Both of which are to lower my hella high anxiety levels right now.

Currently consuming: water, forced upon me by the aforementioned besties.

Tags for funsies if you wanna: @thedisassociation @ruthsic @sharvil1

#i know one of those ships isn't a ship #but SHUT UP! yes it is!

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rolledbadinitiative · 5 years

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What are you talking about? I love all the campaign settings! Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk and...*checks smeared writing on hand*....Ragon’s Plants

#Dungeons and Dragons #d&d #Forgotten Realms #Greyhawk #dragonlance #ed greenwood #gary gygax #Margaret weiss #tracy hickman #laura hickman

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nellygwyn · 3 years

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BOOK RECS

Okay, so lots of people wanted this and so, I am compiling a list of my favourite books (both fiction and non-fiction), books that I recommend you read as soon as humanly possible. In the meantime, I’ll be pinning this post to the top of my blog (once I work out how to do that lmao) so it will be accessible for old and new followers. I’m going to order this list thematically, I think, just to keep everything tidy and orderly. Of course, a lot of this list will consist of historical fiction and historical non-fiction because that’s what I read primarily and thus, that’s where my bias is, but I promise to try and spice it up just a little bit.

Favourite fiction books of all time:

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock // Imogen Hermes Gowar

Sense and Sensibility // Jane Austen

Slammerkin // Emma Donoghue

Remarkable Creatures // Tracy Chevalier

Life Mask // Emma Donoghue

His Dark Materials // Philip Pullman (this includes the follow-up series The Book of Dust)

Emma // Jane Austen

The Miniaturist // Jessie Burton

Girl, Woman, Other // Bernadine Evaristo

Jane Eyre // Charlotte Brontë

Persuasion // Jane Austen

Girl with a Pearl Earring // Tracy Chevalier

The Silent Companions // Laura Purcell

Tess of the d’Urbervilles // Thomas Hardy

Northanger Abbey // Jane Austen

The Chronicles of Narnia // C.S. Lewis

Pride and Prejudice // Jane Austen

Goodnight, Mr Tom // Michelle Magorian

The French Lieutenant’s Woman // John Fowles

The Butcher’s Hook // Janet Ellis

Mansfield Park // Jane Austen

The All Souls Trilogy // Deborah Harkness

The Railway Children // Edith Nesbit

Favourite non-fiction books of all time

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman // Robert Massie

Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King // Antonia Fraser

Madame de Pompadour // Nancy Mitford

The First Iron Lady: A Life of Caroline of Ansbach // Matthew Dennison

Black and British: A Forgotten History // David Olusoga

Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court // Lucy Worsley

Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Katherine Howard, the Fifth Wife of Henry VIII // Gareth Russell

King Charles II // Antonia Fraser

Casanova’s Women // Judith Summers

Marie Antoinette: The Journey // Antonia Fraser

Mrs. Jordan’s Profession: The Story of a Great Actress and a Future King // Claire Tomalin

Jane Austen at Home // Lucy Worsley

Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames // Lara Maiklem

The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth // Anna Keay

The Marlboroughs: John and Sarah Churchill // Christopher Hibbert

Nell Gwynn: A Biography // Charles Beauclerk

Jurassic Mary: Mary Anning and the Primeval Monsters // Patricia Pierce

Georgian London: Into the Streets // Lucy Inglis

The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart // Sarah Fraser

Wedlock: How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match // Wendy Moore

Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from the Stone Age to the Silver Screen // Greg Jenner

Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum // Kathryn Hughes

Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey // Nicola Tallis

Favourite books about the history of sex and/or sex work

The Origins of Sex: A History of First Sexual Revolution // Faramerz Dabhoiwala

Erotic Exchanges: The World of Elite Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century Paris // Nina Kushner

Peg Plunkett: Memoirs of a Whore // Julie Peakman

Courtesans // Katie Hickman

The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in mid-Nineteenth Century England

Madams, Bawds, and Brothel Keepers // Fergus Linnane

The Secret History of Georgian London: How the Wages of Sin Shaped the Capital // Dan Cruickshank

A Curious History of Sex // Kate Lister

Sex and Punishment: 4000 Years of Judging Desire // Eric Berkowitz

Queen of the Courtesans: Fanny Murray // Barbara White

Rent Boys: A History from Ancient Times to Present // Michael Hone

Celeste // Roland Perry

Sex and the Gender Revolution // Randolph Trumbach

The Pleasure’s All Mine: A History of Perverse Sex // Julie Peakman

LGBT+ fiction I love*

The Confessions of the Fox // Jordy Rosenberg

As Meat Loves Salt // Maria Mccann

Bone China // Laura Purcell

Brideshead Revisited // Evelyn Waugh

The Confessions of Frannie Langton // Sara Collins

The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle // Neil Blackmore

Orlando // Virginia Woolf

Tipping the Velvet // Sarah Waters

She Rises // Kate Worsley

The Mercies // Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit // Jeanette Winterson

Maurice // E.M Forster

Frankisstein: A Love Story // Jeanette Winterson

If I Was Your Girl // Meredith Russo

The Well of Loneliness // Radclyffe Hall

* fyi, Life Mask and Girl, Woman, Other are also LGBT+ fiction

Classics I haven’t already mentioned (including children’s classics)

Far From the Madding Crowd // Thomas Hardy

I Capture the Castle // Dodie Smith

Vanity Fair // William Makepeace Thackeray

Wuthering Heights // Emily Brontë

The Blazing World // Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle

Murder on the Orient Express // Agatha Christie

Great Expectations // Charles Dickens

North and South // Elizabeth Gaskell

Evelina // Frances Burney

Death on the Nile // Agatha Christie

The Monk // Matthew Lewis

Frankenstein // Mary Shelley

Vilette // Charlotte Brontë

The Mayor of Casterbridge // Thomas Hardy

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall // Anne Brontë

Vile Bodies // Evelyn Waugh

Beloved // Toni Morrison

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd // Agatha Christie

The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling // Henry Fielding

A Room With a View // E.M. Forster

Silas Marner // George Eliot

Jude the Obscure // Thomas Hardy

My Man Jeeves // P.G. Wodehouse

Lady Audley’s Secret // Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Middlemarch // George Eliot

Little Women // Louisa May Alcott

Children of the New Forest // Frederick Marryat

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings // Maya Angelou

Rebecca // Daphne du Maurier

Alice in Wonderland // Lewis Carroll

The Wind in the Willows // Kenneth Grahame

Anna Karenina // Leo Tolstoy

Howard’s End // E.M. Forster

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 // Sue Townsend

Even more fiction recommendations

The Darling Strumpet // Gillian Bagwell

The Wolf Hall trilogy // Hilary Mantel

The Illumination of Ursula Flight // Anne-Marie Crowhurst

Queenie // Candace Carty-Williams

Forever Amber // Kathleen Winsor

The Corset // Laura Purcell

Love in Colour // Bolu Babalola

Artemisia // Alexandra Lapierre

Blackberry and Wild Rose // Sonia Velton

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories // Angela Carter

The Languedoc trilogy // Kate Mosse

Longbourn // Jo Baker

A Skinful of Shadows // Frances Hardinge

The Black Moth // Georgette Heyer

The Far Pavilions // M.M Kaye

The Essex Serpent // Sarah Perry

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo // Taylor Jenkins Reid

Cavalier Queen // Fiona Mountain

The Winter Palace // Eva Stachniak

Friday’s Child // Georgette Heyer

Falling Angels // Tracy Chevalier

Little // Edward Carey

Chocolat // Joanne Harris

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street // Natasha Pulley

My Sister, the Serial Killer // Oyinkan Braithwaite

The Convenient Marriage // Georgette Heyer

Katie Mulholland // Catherine Cookson

Restoration // Rose Tremain

Meat Market // Juno Dawson

Lady on the Coin // Margaret Campbell Bowes

In the Company of the Courtesan // Sarah Dunant

The Crimson Petal and the White // Michel Faber

A Place of Greater Safety // Hilary Mantel

The Little Shop of Found Things // Paula Brackston

The Improbability of Love // Hannah Rothschild

The Murder Most Unladylike series // Robin Stevens

Dark Angels // Karleen Koen

The Words in My Hand // Guinevere Glasfurd

Time’s Convert // Deborah Harkness

The Collector // John Fowles

Vivaldi’s Virgins // Barbara Quick

The Foundling // Stacey Halls

The Phantom Tree // Nicola Cornick

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle // Stuart Turton

Golden Hill // Francis Spufford

Assorted non-fiction not yet mentioned

The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World // Deborah Cadbury

The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History to the Italian Renaissance // Catherine Fletcher

All the King's Women: Love, Sex, and Politics in the life of Charles II // Derek Jackson

Mozart’s Women // Jane Glover

Scandalous Liaisons: Charles II and His Court // R.E. Pritchard

Matilda: Queen, Empress, Warrior // Catherine Hanley

Black Tudors // Miranda Kaufman

To Catch a King: Charles II's Great Escape // Charles Spencer

1666: Plague, War and Hellfire // Rebecca Rideal

Henrietta Maria: Charles I's Indomitable Queen // Alison Plowden

Catherine of Braganza: Charles II's Restoration Queen // Sarah-Beth Watkins

Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses // Helen Rappaport

Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 // Stella Tillyard

The Fortunes of Francis Barber: The True Story of the Jamaican Slave who Became Samuel Johnson’s Heir // Michael Bundock

Black London: Life Before Emancipation // Gretchen Gerzina

In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon’s Wars, 1793-1815

The King’s Mistress: Scandal, Intrigue and the True Story of the Woman who Stole the Heart of George I // Claudia Gold

Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson // Paula Byrne

The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England // Amanda Vickery

Terms and Conditions: Life in Girls’ Boarding School, 1939-1979 // Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Fanny Burney: A Biography // Claire Harman

Aphra Behn: A Secret Life // Janet Todd

The Imperial Harem: Women and the Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire // Leslie Peirce

The Fall of the House of Byron // Emily Brand

The Favourite: Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough // Ophelia Field

Night-Walking: A Nocturnal History of London // Matthew Beaumont, Will Self

Jane Austen: A Life // Claire Tomalin

Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton // Flora Fraser

Sentimental Murder: Love and Madness in the 18th Century // John Brewer

Henrietta Howard: King’s Mistress, Queen’s Servant // Tracy Borman

City of Beasts: How Animals Shaped Georgian London // Tom Almeroth-Williams

Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion // Anne Somerset

Charlotte Brontë: A Life // Claire Harman

Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe // Anthony Summers

Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day // Peter Ackroyd

Elizabeth I and Her Circle // Susan Doran

African Europeans: An Untold History // Olivette Otele

Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron, and Other Tangled Lives // Daisy Hay

How to Create the Perfect Wife // Wendy Moore

The Sphinx: The Life of Gladys Deacon, Duchess of Marlborough // Hugo Vickers

The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn // Eric Ives

Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy // Barbara Ehrenreich

A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie // Kathryn Harkup

Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II // Linda Porter

Female Husbands: A Trans History // Jen Manion

Ladies in Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day // Anne Somerset

Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country // Edward Parnell

A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles // Ned Palmer

The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine // Lindsey Fitzharris

Medieval Woman: Village Life in the Middle Ages // Ann Baer

The Husband Hunters: Social Climbing in London and New York // Anne de Courcy

The Voices of Nîmes: Women, Sex, and Marriage in Reformation Languedoc // Suzannah Lipscomb

The Daughters of the Winter Queen // Nancy Goldstone

Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency // Bea Koch

Bess of Hardwick // Mary S. Lovell

The Royal Art of Poison // Eleanor Herman

The Strangest Family: The Private Lives of George III, Queen Charlotte, and the Hanoverians // Janice Hadlow

Palaces of Pleasure: From Music Halls to the Seaside to Football; How the Victorians Invented Mass Entertainment // Lee Jackson

Favourite books about current social/political issues (?? for lack of a better term)

Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power // Lola Olufemi

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Worker Rights // Molly Smith, Juno Mac

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race // Reni Eddo-Lodge

Trans Britain: Our Journey from the Shadows // Christine Burns

Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism // Alison Phipps

Trans Like Me: A Journey For All Of Us // C.N Lester

Brit(Ish): On Race, Identity, and Belonging // Afua Hirsch

The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence, and Cultural Restitution // Dan Hicks

Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living // Jes M. Baker

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot // Mikki Kendall

Denial: Holocaust History on Trial // Deborah Lipstadt

Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape // Jessica Valenti, Jaclyn Friedman

Don’t Touch My Hair // Emma Dabiri

Sister Outsider // Audre Lorde

Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen // Amrou Al-Kadhi

Trans Power // Juno Roche

Breathe: A Letter to My Sons // Imani Perry

The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment // Amelia Gentleman

Happy Fat: Taking Up Space in a World That Wants to Shrink You // Sofie Hagen

Diaries, memoirs & letters

The Diary of a Young Girl // Anne Frank

Renia’s Diary: A Young Girl’s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust // Renia Spiegel

Writing Home // Alan Bennett

The Diary of Samuel Pepys // Samuel Pepys

Histoire de Ma Vie // Giacomo Casanova

Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger // Nigel Slater

London Journal, 1762-1763 // James Boswell

The Diary of a Bookseller // Shaun Blythell

Jane Austen’s Letters // edited by Deidre la Faye

H is for Hawk // Helen Mcdonald

The Salt Path // Raynor Winn

The Glitter and the Gold // Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough

Journals and Letters // Fanny Burney

Educated // Tara Westover

Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading // Lucy Mangan

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? // Jeanette Winterson

A Dutiful Boy // Mohsin Zaidi

Secrets and Lies: The Trials of Christine Keeler // Christine Keeler

800 Years of Women’s Letters // edited by Olga Kenyon

Istanbul // Orhan Pamuk

Henry and June // Anaïs Nin

Historical romance (this is a short list because I’m still fairly new to this genre)

The Bridgerton series // Julia Quinn

One Good Earl Deserves a Lover // Sarah Mclean

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake // Sarah Mclean

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics // Olivia Waite

That Could Be Enough // Alyssa Cole

Unveiled // Courtney Milan

The Craft of Love // EE Ottoman

The Maiden Lane series // Elizabeth Hoyt

An Extraordinary Union // Alyssa Cole

Slightly Dangerous // Mary Balogh

Dangerous Alliance: An Austentacious Romance // Jennieke Cohen

A Fashionable Indulgence // KJ Charles

#the only categories not on here are plays and poetry #just bc this post would be even longer!#you can ask me for my favourite playwrights/poets separately tho

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jlromford · 7 years

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#map #литература #Кринн #Сага о Копье #Dragonlance #Ansalon #Krynn #Laura and Tracy Hickman

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randomsofmine · 7 years

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June Wrap Up

June was a very good month with some very good reads. I managed to read 10 books (plus a secret project for a friend). In total I read 3257 pages.I still feel a bit slumpy and there were times where I found myself avoiding reading, although a few books did help with this.

The Rosie Project (Don Tillman #1) by Graeme Simsion

This is the story of Don, who is in search of the ideal wife, using scientific methods. The story is told from his POV and while its never directly said, he has Asperger’s. I liked this and it lived up to the good reviews. I found all the characters interesting (Don’s though processes were interesting, Rosie felt very genuine and Don's best friend is the worst) and the story was quirky and fun (although the outcome of the romance was fairly predictable). 3/5

Gates of Thread and Stone (Gates of Thread and Stone #1) by Lori M, Lee

A YA fantasy series set in an almost dystopian world. I really enjoyed this. It was fast past and interesting, well-written and full of good quality world building and characters. I will definitely be picking up the rest of the series. 4/5

Not Just Jane: Rediscovering Seven Amazing Women Writers Who Transformed British Literature by Shelley DeWees

A look at seven females authors who influenced the literary world but who are not as celebrated as Jane Austen. This was interesting if a bit dry in places. Some of the authors I had heard of and even read and some were completely new to me. I’ve made some notes of books to pick up. 3/5

Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before #3) by Jenny Han

Wrap up to the series. I really enjoyed this and read it in a about a day. It was what I needed at that time and was a fantastic ending to the series. It wrapped up a fair few things and we got to see Lara Jean grow as character. 4/5

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

This was completely worth the hype it’s been receiving. I couldn’t stop reading it. It was adorable and charming and just what was needed at the time. I liked that DImple was a smart female character who knows what she wants in life. Rishi was just adorable. The romance did come a bit quick but there are a few time jumps so I can excuse that easily. I can’t wait to see what Sandhya Menon brings out next. 4/5

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

This months VF pick. This was a historical paranormal romance. I have to say this gave me Spirited Away vibes. I liked it, However there were issues. The main character was a bit bland and wishy-washy. I didn’t get the relationship between her and one of the characters. My favourite character was only in it for brief periods. Frankly had it not been for that character, I would have probably DNF’d. In terms of world building, it was very interesting and I enjoyed looking into the Malaysian culture. 3/5

I See You by Clare Mackintosh

I’m gonna preface this by saying I am a massive wimp. I rarely read or watch anything in the horror genre. I love true crime, strangely. But horror,nope! This was possibly the creepiest thing I’ve ever read. It was well written and had me guessing the whole way through with some excellent twists. It played on all of my fears and I will definitely be picking up other books by the author. 4/5

Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Dragonlance: Chronicles, #1) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

This is an absolute classic in D&D fiction. I’ve read it several times now and it just improves every time I pick it up. It contains all the standard D&D tropes and I just love it. Its a bit of a comfort read at this point. 5/5

Abracadaver (Esther Diamond, #7) by Laura Resnick

This is an urban paranormal series about an actress who accidentally discovers the paranormal truth about the world and tries to help save it with a band of misfits. I love it.Its fun and fast paced and interesting. I’m now up to date with the series with no idea if there will be any more books. 4/5

The Duke and The Domina : Warrick The Ruination of Grayson Danforth (Lords of Time #3) by Jenn LeBlanc

This was bad. Just bad. Not something I will be continuing. 2/5

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