It's back across the pond today.

Mom always wanted to teach a history class using biographies. I think she would have enjoyed this book: A History of London in 50 Lives, by David Long. From the royal family, to artists, authors, thieves, even an ape and a spy, this is a nice collection of short bios covering centuries in one of the greatest cities in the world.

Stuff Brits Like: a Guide to What's Great About Great Britain, by Fraser McAlpine was a great read! The author has a nice, light, humo(u)rus style that kept me turning the pages as I read about food, attitude (apologetic), accents, spelling, weather, the BBC .... lots of fun stuff! My only comment/complaint is that there is no table of contents or index and the entries are not in alphabetical order so it's hard to refer back to a favorite entry.

Remember the story on the news a few years ago about finding Richard III's bones? What an amazing story it is! I recently read two books, in two days! Start with The King's Grave: the Discovery of Richard III's Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds, by Philippa Langley and Michael Jones. Ms. Langley long thought the view the world had of Richard III was one sided, that there must have been more to the man than the image we have (mostly due to Shakespeare). She was right! She worked hard ... on research, government paperwork, funding raising and so forth to make the dig in the car park happen. Then came Digging for Richard III: the Search for the Lost King, by Mike Pitts. There's more about the actual dig here, and the tests done to prove the bones belonged to Richard III. (Follow the trail of the mitochondrial DNA, it was pretty interesting). (And that's all I'm going to say). ;-)

Reading Hermit With Dog