Not much change since my last update. I am still reading the same two books as last time but will probably finish the devil’s brood later this week. I also started reading a new non-fiction history:

The Persians by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones was part of the book haul from earlier this year, but I was put off from starting the book by some comments I read on Goodreads.

I am delighted to say that the book has been great so far, and the reviews I read on GR that put me off initially do not reflect my reading experience at all. This is a nice surprise really. I got the impression from said reviews that this book may be another disappointment along the lines of Frankopan’s The Silk Roads, which to this day is my measure for how much I can detest a non-fiction history book written in our day and age.

One of the things I liked about The Persians from the start was the author’s explanation that a low of known history of Persia is based on the records and books of Ancient Greece and are biased towards the Greek narrative. It sounds silly, but this was not something I had considered before, so even adding that perspective to my understanding has made the book worth reading for me. I’m about 25% into the book and I love that the author is breaking up chapters of straight history / biography with chapters about Persian culture and life in Persia at the time he is writing about.

Devil’s Brood, the last book in Penman’s Plantagenet series that I have not read.
What can I say? Even knowing how the story will eventually end, I am gripped by the politics, the backstabbing, the intrigue, the brilliantly drawn characters, and the sense of getting to know much more about the shaping of medieval Europe.

I still cannot believe this is the last book I’m reading in this series.

It’s been a phenomenal ride.

I hope to finish Devil’s Brood this week.

Alligator Playground is a collection of short stories by Sillitoe that I picked up from the library.

I still have not made much progress with this one, and as I mentioned earlier, if I don’t manage to finish the book before Halloween Bingo starts, then the books is going back to the library as a dnf and without any regrets on my part.

Other reviews posted this week:

n/a

Currently reading:
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works – William Shakespeare (see The Will’s World Project)