Collection

Tom Williams and Anthony Riches on writing, Tom following up on word count and then Anthony - talking about his word count!

American Duchess has a collection of lovely early 19th-century dresses with CRAZY GIGOT SLEEVES ... Two Nerdy History Girls get a rare peek at the truly exquisite archive at Colonial Williamsburg - oh the embroidery!  And here we have silly hats and a whimsical blogger at Historical Fiction Research.  Men really do seem drab today in comparison with some of these ...

A Brief History of Baking (brief because it begins in the Middle Ages and stays in Britain, perhaps thanks to a tie-in to a cooking competition show ...).  With recipes here - including icy cream!

Ancient Peruvian mummies, found in a remarkable state of preservation, to be studied for their lifestyle, health, and DNA.

Qing Dynasty art destroyed by "conservation" contractors.  Sadly, firing the officials in charge doesn't redeem the cultural losses.

Where there is no destruction at all, a nice wide stage for blog-lery purist outrage at the  "experiment" of rewriting Jane Austen.  Because nobody has ever riffed off an existing story in a newer piece of writing, ever.  Especially not a work by Austen.  I'm sure there will be howls (I never snark like that, of course...).  It's unlikely I'll make the time to post them ...

Jeff Sypeck on Becoming Charlemagne and that elegiac time before the bookstores died ...

Leila is giving the gifts for her birthday!  Free copies of Hot Flashes, today through the 28th!

Kristy tells us what caught her senses at the James River Writers conference (she's a smarticle particle herself).

Nancy Bilyeau captures the paranoia of Tudor England.  Read The Chalice - and watch your back!

Kim Rendfield discusses the way the Franks in her period used religion and magic to grapple with their world ... and the role of hostages in hedging your bets.  Or not.  Hostage-taking has in many periods of history (I know stories from Europe, but would be very interested to hear similar tales of negotiation in other cultures) turned into something far from the terrorist image the word brings to mind today.  Caratacus enjoyed rather a famous sojourn in Rome after his capture.  Theodoric the Great lived for years as a hostage in Constantinople, where he was "treated with favor" by emperors Leo I and Zeno.  Cour de Lion famously became a songwriter in his prison.  There was something of a code of peculiar guest status in the practice.

Finally, I want to get a taste of ancient Greek music when it comes out.  The way people research and recreate ancient tongues and music and art is endlessly interesting for me.