Sunday Salon: 3 January 2010

Time spent reading:  1 hour and 45 minutes

What I read:  The Queen's Secret pages 150 - 215

                      The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories pages 137 - 149

Total pages read:  78

Overview:  I'm really enjoying The Queen's Secret by Jean Plaidy.  It concerns Katharine of Valois, the French princess who married Henry V after Agincourt.  She is the mother of Henry VI, but more importantly she was married to Owen Tudor and she is considered the "mother" of the Tudor dynasty.  Although there is no record of her legally marrying Owen Tudor, her marriage was validated later on to substatiate the Tudor claim to the throne.  All of this is very intriguing, especially after reading Phillipa Gregory's The White Queen.  In addition to this novel, I read one story from The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories entitled "The Roll-Call of the Reef" by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.  I didn't care for the story that much and you can find a brief review over at Our Mutual Read. 

Challenges / group reads:  The Queen's Secret is for the European Royalty GoodReads group.  In addition it will be applied to the Tudor Book Challenge, The Year of the Historical Challenge, and the Support your Local Library Challenge.  The story from The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories counts for Our Mutual Read and, when the collection is finished, it will be my first completion for The Short Story Challenge. Oh yes, it also qualifies for the Support your Local Library Challenge.

Reading Goals for next week:  I plan on plugging along with a story a day out of Oxford book.  In addition I'd like to wrap up the Plaidy book and concentrate on Barbara Pym's The Sweet Dove Died and The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt.