Merlin, Myrddin Wyllt, & the ‘Men of the North’

Tim Clarkson, Scotland's Merlin: A Medieval Legend and Its Dark Age Origins, John Donald, 2016. Amazon US $22 PB, $8 Kindle. Tim Clarkson's new book, Scotland's Merlin, was a lovely break from my usual plague reading. Merlin is one of the few Arthurian characters who can stand alone from the Arthurian corpus as the Welsh figure...

Holmes on Animals in Saxon & Scandinavian England

Matilda Holmes, Animals in Saxon and Scandinavian England: Backbones of Economy and Society. Sidestone Press, 2014. I didn't plan on writing another book review this soon but I do have to share the news on this book - my find of the month. I discovered that this valuable book is available from the publisher in...

Aberth’s An Environmental History of the Middle Ages: Crucible of Nature

John Aberth. An Environmental History of the Middle Ages: The Crucible of Nature. Routledge, 2013. 326 pages.Although the title of John Aberth's book An Environmental History of the Middle Ages: The Crucible of Nature is almost identical to Richard Hoffman's book recently reviewed here, they couldn't be more different. Aberth's book is a cultural history...

Hoffmann’s An Environmental History of Medieval Europe

Richard C. Hoffmann. An Environmental History of Medieval Europe. Cambridge Medieval Textbooks. Cambridge University Press, April 2014. $25 paperback, $12.50 e-book. History roots in time and place -- establishing situations, telling stories, comparing stories, linking stories. Environmental history brings the natural world into the story as an agent and object of history. This is medieval...

The Bone Thief: Stealing St Oswald

[I didn't intend to be gone this long. I hope someone is still out there!] Its been years since I've taken much time to read novels. I'm embarrassed to say how few I've read in the last couple years, but the Bone Thief finally was a temptation too great. How could I resist a novel...

The Makers of Scotland

Tim Clarkson, The Makers of Scotland: Picts, Romans, Gaels and Vikings. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2012. 224 pg. In his third book, Tim Clarkson takes on the first thousand years of recorded Scottish history. It's a huge task, but Tim was more than up to the challenge. I really enjoyed it. I tend to focus so...