Showing posts with label Richard III. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard III. Show all posts

Friday, June 26, 2020

Bookshelf Traveling - June 26, 2020

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which is hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness.   The idea is to share one of your neglected bookshelves or perhaps a new pile of books. 

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Snow Day

As a lawyer, I am expected to work from home if I can't make it into the office so I will certainly try to be productive while it blizzards outside but I am also surrounded by books I have not had time to unpack since moving to my new home. My Sharon Kay Penman books have a place of honor in my living room, at least they will once I have liberated them from various boxes. Today I received a (group) email from Ms. Penman, who is going to lead a fabulous trip to France called In the Footsteps of Eleanor of Acquitaine, sponsored by Academic Travel Abroad. If one had unlimited funds, this would be an awesome trip! Interestingly, while I knew she had studied law, I did not know previously that she attended Rutgers Law School like me (although I suspect she attended the Camden branch).

I became a fan of Penman's the first summer I lived in NYC. I had no money and no books! It was hard to persuade the NY library to give me a card and they would only let me take out two books at a time, which was clearly inadequate. One day I was walking up Columbus Avenue and paused at one of those tables of used books. A tired copy of The Sunne in Splendour caught my eye. Even a dollar was a lot of money for me because I got paid on the last day of the month, but I handed it over and savored every word. I was already a fan of Richard III but fell in love with Penman's ability to create a panoramic vision of England under the Yorks. I have cherished that copy for more than 20 years! I must have raved about Penman's books to now deceased Pat Sado, a wonderful person who was then the hardcover fiction buyer at Coliseum Books in New York. One day when I was the Penguin rep, I came in for my monthly appointment and she proudly gave me a brand new copy of The Reckoning (a beautiful edition with a ribbon bookmark). I was so touched that she remembered my fondness for the author, and I always think of her in connection with Penman to this day.