It's a year now since we came here... Some of my favourite places in South Northumberland... Riddlehamhope Blanchland Lambley Viaduct Tynedale between Hexham and Corbridge ...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2012/02/postcards-from-northumberland.html
At long last, on YouTube, the trailer for the forthcoming film The Eagle, based on Rosemary Sutcliff's classic novel The Eagle of the Ninth. Now we just have to wait until February to see the ...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2010/11/eagle-of-ninth-roman-military-studies.html
The historical fiction goddess Sarah Johnson (Reading the Past ) has just posted on the Historical Novel Society website a list of historical fiction to be published in the USA in the first half...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-historical-fiction-for-2011.html
The mansion at Bletchley Park Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, was Station X, the home of the Government Code and Cipher School set up by Winston Churchill during World Wa...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2010/09/bletchley-park-alan-turing-enigma.html
As an addendum to the previous post and in the manner of An Awful Warning, here's a re-post of some rules which originally appeared in Solander , oh, a long time ago. Rules for Writing Historic...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2010/08/rules-for-writing-historical-fiction.html
I did this list for an archaeology forum but thought it might be fun to post it here. I've asterisked my personal Top Ten. Do let me know if I've missed any. NOVELS SET IN ROMAN BRITAIN GILLIA...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2010/08/novels-set-in-roman-britain.html
I've just come across this essay by Allan Massie . He's no slouch at historical fiction himself, having written novels about Roman emperors, the Dark Ages and WWII, amongst others. But the mas...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2010/04/master-of-historical-fiction-by-allan.html
Anthony Lawton has alerted me to his blog about classic historical novelist Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-1992), to whom so many of us owe our fascination with history. Please go there for all the ...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2010/03/rosemary-sutcliff-blog.html
As a child in the first century AD, Sebastos Abdes Pantera, son of a Roman auxiliary soldier, witnesses an anti-Roman Judean rebel being taken alive from a tomb in Jerusalem. Decades later we me...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2010/01/rome-emperors-spy-by-m-c-scott.html
I don't usually jump on bandwagons but a while ago, I was shocked to discover from Dr Ben Goldacre's* Bad Science blog that certain unscrupulous 'sciency' types are using English libel law to si...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2009/12/national-petition-for-libel-reform.html
This is such fun to play with (thanks to Dr. Syntax 's books and publishing blog). Here are two sentences I generated earlier: > The reification of post-capitalist hegemony replays (in ...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2009/12/make-your-own-academic-sentence.html
Last September when we visited Portsmouth Historic Dockyard , we had an unexpected treat: the spectacle of HMS Victory firing a full 64-gun rolling broadside in honour of the new National Museum ...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2009/11/hms-victory-fires-broadside.html
I'm a sucker for the majestic, elegant but deadly ships of the Great Age of Fighting Sail and HMS Temeraire, a British 98-gun ship of the line is, as author Sam Willis points out in this spendid...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2009/11/fighting-temeraire-by-sam-willis.html
It’s National Novel Writing Month again, that madcap annual race to write a 50,000-word novel in the 30 otherwise dreich* days of November (at least it is, here in England). In 2007 I did it...
Gosh, this blog has performed more comebacks than any number of wrinkly pop stars or botoxed celebs. But here it is again, after a long hiatus resulting from my father's death last November which...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2009/10/seasonal-suicide-notes-roger-lewis.html
If you're of a certain age, you may remember the satirical magazine Punch (1841-2002), even if you only read it in the dentist's waiting room. For me, the highlight was always Alan Coren's col...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2008/10/alan-coren-gollies-karamazov.html
The gardens at Levens Hall , near Kendal in the South Lake District, contain the the oldest topiary garden in the world, created by Guillaume Beaumont in the 17th century. This photo is of on...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2008/10/gardens-i-levens-hall-cumbria.html
Given that my blog has the word book in its name, I really ought to talk about books now and again. I've been reading some rather good books lately and here's a review (slightly amended) of one o...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2008/09/book-review-redemption-of-alexander.html
Oh dear. I'm afraid I've become rather an unreliable blogger of late. Real life is so in the way in the blogosphere, as Mrs Gaskell might have said had she been living in the 21st century. Sar...
Last weekend I visited my Cheshire family and went with Mother and Dad for a beautiful walk in their beloved Derbyshire Peak District. We parked the car at Middleton (which features in the magnif...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2008/08/derbyshire-mystery.html
Home-made soup, home-made bread and fruit freshly picked from the garden. Ambrosia. I made up the soup recipe. I sometimes tweak it, so the quantities are somewhat vague. I'm rather pleased with...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2008/07/delicious-summer-lunch.html
Here's a rather consoling article by Alan Massie in The Spectator. It's about the waning powers of concentration that dismay the ageing reader. I find it consoling for two reasons: firstly it c...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2008/07/powers-of-concentration.html
No, not The Secret Garden of Frances Hodgson Burnett, but the Secret Garden at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal in Cheshire, to which we recently repaired. Quarry Bank Mill , in the care of the National...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2008/06/secret-garden.html
I'm not a big fan of crime novels and if I do read them it's usually for something other than the investigation of the crime (see, for example, my review of Ruso and the Demented Doctor by R. S...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2008/06/book-review-suspicions-of-mr-whicher-by.html
I hope you’re still paying attention because these Rules, by novelist India Edghill, originally published in the Historical Novel Society ’s magazine Solander , are absolutely indispensable i...
http://sarahsbookarama.blogspot.com/2008/05/rules-for-writing-feminist-re-imagings.html