Re: “Dracula Daily”, there’s a website that does the same thing with the Diary of Samuel Pepys, but since Pepys kept his diary for ten years, you’re in for the long haul if you read one of his diary entries per day.
In his first diary entry for May 3rd, Jonathan Harker describes having a chicken paprikash dish for supper at the Hotel Royale in a place called Klausenburgh. He enjoys it so much he wants to get the recipe for his fiancée, Mina, but there are various recipes for “Dracula’s Chicken” to be found online.
I need to find this dracula chicken recipe and give it a try.
On a separate note, I've been reading daily from Secret Voices: A Year of Women's Diaries by Sarah Gristwood. It's a collection of diary entries from woman across the ages. It's wonderful to see what other women we're thinking and doing on this day many many years ago.
I found a YouTube video of Sarah Gristwood being interviewed about her new book, and I could see on a shelf behind the interviewer a copy of the Gristwood book that I read a few years ago called, "Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses". Ms. Gristwood is a journalist by training, and I've found that journalists often make good historians because they know how to evaluate their sources and tell a good story. I also found that Ms. Gristwood has written at least one, and possibly two books about Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester, and I was able to order a cheapo used hardcover edition of one of them for a few bucks from Alibris.
As for my own nonfiction reading, back in February I started a book by W. Bruce Lincoln called, "Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians in War & Revolution 1914-1918", to provide background info for my reading of "Doctor Zhivago". But events in the novel soon outstripped those in the history book, so I laid it aside. But ever since then, I've felt the reproachful gaze of Mr. Lincoln's book following me from its coffee table perch every time I walk through my living room, so I finally started reading it again, even though the weather now is more suited to reading about Elizabethan England--"It was a lover and his lass, with a hey and a ho and a hey-nonny-no"--than the Russian Revolution.
It's kind of too bad that the "Dracula Daily" diary entries don't provide a place for readers to add comments. There could be avid Dracula fans out there who have actually been to the places Jonathan Harker mentions in his diary, and might have insightful observations to make.
With regard to “Clear” by Carys Davies, some years ago I read “The Highland Clearances” by John Prebble, which tells the story of how many Scottish Highland families were forced to leave their homeland and emigrate to Canada and other locations around the world when their clan chieftains decided there was more money to be made from raising sheep on their land holdings rather than have them tilled by tenant farmers.
From checking Wikipedia, I see that, in recent years, Prebble’s 1963 book has come in for criticism for being too simplistic and lacking in original research. That may be so, but like the half dozen or so other books he wrote on episodes of Scottish history from the 17th to the 19th centuries, all of which I’ve read except for “The Darien Disaster”, it’s a great read and full of colourful characters and incidents.
One that sticks in my mind concerns a British army recruiting party that arrived in Scotland looking for men to swell the ranks of the army’s Highland regiments. But where there once were villages and farms with men and boys willing to join the British army, there were now only hilly fields filled with flocks of sheep. When the officer in charge of the recruiting party asked an old Scotsman how he was supposed to meet his enlistment quota, the Scotsman replied, “Since ye prefer sheep to men, let sheep defend ye!”
I’m going to have to read Clear bc all I know about the Clearances I think I’ve learned from Outlander (and I’m not sure if that’s even the right time period 🤔).
My understanding of the Outlander series is that the story takes place in roughly the last half of the 18th century, whereas the Wikipedia article you cited gives the dates 1750 to 1860 for the time period covered by the Clearances. The Clearances were only part of the destruction of the Highland way of life and culture that began after the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden in April 1746. Some of those Highlanders who were cleared out up ended up joining the British army, which sent three Highland regiments to our particular corner of North America during the French and Indian War.
Incidentally, if you do a Google search for “Culloden film 1964”, you’ll come up with the famous docu-drama that British film maker Peter Watkins made back in 1964, and which I first saw in high school. The film has a nice gritty feel of authenticity about it, which will help furnish your imagination when you’re reading the Outlander books.
I didn't think I got the time period right. Its been a few years since I've read Outlander. I plan on rereading it soon and hopefully contining on past book 1 this time. I will see if I can find that film, maybe it will help spur me on through the series.
I was tempted to read the Outlander books when they first came out, because I've always enjoyed that period of history, which the Culloden film first got me interested in. But I was put off by the label the series was given as "historical fantasy". BTW, as long as you're looking for the Culloden film, you might want to check out "The Quiet Girl", which can be found by doing a search for the film title on YouTube. The film has been available for about a month. It's in Irish, but click on the CC button for English subtitles. You're way more high tech than I am, so I don't have to tell you that you can connect your laptop to your TV and watch YouTube videos on the Big--sort of--Screen!
Re: “Dracula Daily”, there’s a website that does the same thing with the Diary of Samuel Pepys, but since Pepys kept his diary for ten years, you’re in for the long haul if you read one of his diary entries per day.
In his first diary entry for May 3rd, Jonathan Harker describes having a chicken paprikash dish for supper at the Hotel Royale in a place called Klausenburgh. He enjoys it so much he wants to get the recipe for his fiancée, Mina, but there are various recipes for “Dracula’s Chicken” to be found online.
I need to find this dracula chicken recipe and give it a try.
On a separate note, I've been reading daily from Secret Voices: A Year of Women's Diaries by Sarah Gristwood. It's a collection of diary entries from woman across the ages. It's wonderful to see what other women we're thinking and doing on this day many many years ago.
I found a YouTube video of Sarah Gristwood being interviewed about her new book, and I could see on a shelf behind the interviewer a copy of the Gristwood book that I read a few years ago called, "Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses". Ms. Gristwood is a journalist by training, and I've found that journalists often make good historians because they know how to evaluate their sources and tell a good story. I also found that Ms. Gristwood has written at least one, and possibly two books about Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester, and I was able to order a cheapo used hardcover edition of one of them for a few bucks from Alibris.
As for my own nonfiction reading, back in February I started a book by W. Bruce Lincoln called, "Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians in War & Revolution 1914-1918", to provide background info for my reading of "Doctor Zhivago". But events in the novel soon outstripped those in the history book, so I laid it aside. But ever since then, I've felt the reproachful gaze of Mr. Lincoln's book following me from its coffee table perch every time I walk through my living room, so I finally started reading it again, even though the weather now is more suited to reading about Elizabethan England--"It was a lover and his lass, with a hey and a ho and a hey-nonny-no"--than the Russian Revolution.
It's kind of too bad that the "Dracula Daily" diary entries don't provide a place for readers to add comments. There could be avid Dracula fans out there who have actually been to the places Jonathan Harker mentions in his diary, and might have insightful observations to make.
With regard to “Clear” by Carys Davies, some years ago I read “The Highland Clearances” by John Prebble, which tells the story of how many Scottish Highland families were forced to leave their homeland and emigrate to Canada and other locations around the world when their clan chieftains decided there was more money to be made from raising sheep on their land holdings rather than have them tilled by tenant farmers.
From checking Wikipedia, I see that, in recent years, Prebble’s 1963 book has come in for criticism for being too simplistic and lacking in original research. That may be so, but like the half dozen or so other books he wrote on episodes of Scottish history from the 17th to the 19th centuries, all of which I’ve read except for “The Darien Disaster”, it’s a great read and full of colourful characters and incidents.
One that sticks in my mind concerns a British army recruiting party that arrived in Scotland looking for men to swell the ranks of the army’s Highland regiments. But where there once were villages and farms with men and boys willing to join the British army, there were now only hilly fields filled with flocks of sheep. When the officer in charge of the recruiting party asked an old Scotsman how he was supposed to meet his enlistment quota, the Scotsman replied, “Since ye prefer sheep to men, let sheep defend ye!”
I’m going to have to read Clear bc all I know about the Clearances I think I’ve learned from Outlander (and I’m not sure if that’s even the right time period 🤔).
My understanding of the Outlander series is that the story takes place in roughly the last half of the 18th century, whereas the Wikipedia article you cited gives the dates 1750 to 1860 for the time period covered by the Clearances. The Clearances were only part of the destruction of the Highland way of life and culture that began after the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden in April 1746. Some of those Highlanders who were cleared out up ended up joining the British army, which sent three Highland regiments to our particular corner of North America during the French and Indian War.
Incidentally, if you do a Google search for “Culloden film 1964”, you’ll come up with the famous docu-drama that British film maker Peter Watkins made back in 1964, and which I first saw in high school. The film has a nice gritty feel of authenticity about it, which will help furnish your imagination when you’re reading the Outlander books.
I didn't think I got the time period right. Its been a few years since I've read Outlander. I plan on rereading it soon and hopefully contining on past book 1 this time. I will see if I can find that film, maybe it will help spur me on through the series.
I was tempted to read the Outlander books when they first came out, because I've always enjoyed that period of history, which the Culloden film first got me interested in. But I was put off by the label the series was given as "historical fantasy". BTW, as long as you're looking for the Culloden film, you might want to check out "The Quiet Girl", which can be found by doing a search for the film title on YouTube. The film has been available for about a month. It's in Irish, but click on the CC button for English subtitles. You're way more high tech than I am, so I don't have to tell you that you can connect your laptop to your TV and watch YouTube videos on the Big--sort of--Screen!