The rules of the Liebster Award are as follows :
1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog and link back to the blogger who presented this award to you.
2. Answer the 11 questions from the nominator, list 11 random facts about yourself and create 11 questions for your nominees.
3. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 11 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed and leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been chosen.
4. Copy and Paste the blog award on your blog.
So here goes with answering the Kathryn's questions -
1. What's your favourite novel and what do you love about it?
I'm afraid I have to go with one of the most popular novels of all time - 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte. I studied it for A Level English, and have read it so many times since. I love the use of the different narrators to tell the story - Nelly Dean, and the total outsider, Lockwood. The speech where Cathy talks about her love for Heathcliff is so powerful, and reveals for me how egotistical Cathy is. I'm afraid I have very little sympathy for her. I visited Bronte Parsonage last year, and was quite moved to see the fantasy world invented by the sisters.
2. Do you have any pet peeves in historical fiction?
Where do I start? I'm appreciative of interpretation, but when I get people telling me 'The Other Boleyn Girl' is a true story, and see Phillippa Gregory on chat shows talking how it could be possible Mary Boleyn's children were Henry VIII's, I seriously lose it. I also hate lazy stereotyping whenever Piers Gaveston and Edward II are written about. They are usually effeminate and weak, when in fact Piers was a knight who was praised for his graceful manners and had fought in wars and tournaments and clearly knew how to, whilst Edward enjoyed outdoor pursuits, clearly didn't mind getting his hands dirty and must have been extremely fit. And coming back again to interpretation - the idea of Piers as some rent boy is too ridiculous for words!
3. What are you most proud of?
Passing my driving test - yes, really. Never had problems with anything academic - A levels, BA degree, Post grad diploma - but trying to pass my driving test was a nightmare - 3 attempts! I'm afraid I have poor spacial awareness.
4. Your favourite and least favourite people in history? (As few or as many as you like!)
Hmm, favs first - Anne Boleyn, Piers Gaveston, Thomas Cranmer, Thomas Cromwell, Henry VII, Katherine Parr, Edward II, King John, Prince Arthur (Tudors).
Least fav - Richard III, without a doubt! Thomas of Lancaster, Thomas More.
5. The country, city or other place you'd most like to visit?
Moscow, and any country in South America.
6. Which five people would you invite to your fantasy dinner party?
Anne Boleyn, Piers Gaveston, Edward II, Henry VIII and George, Duke of Clarence.
7. Facebook or Twitter or neither?
neither - they cause alot of problems for people, and Twitter in particular seems so banal.
8. What's one of your goals for the future?
To finally complete my Masters.
9. What's your favourite season?
Autumn
10. Dogs or cats or neither?
Cats, without a doubt.
11. What's your favourite hobby?
Reading, when I get time. If I can't give at least an hour to reading, I don't really bother. Nothing like a 3 hour reading session - I just don't get enough time.
11 random facts, eh? OK, here I go.
I live in Wales and wish I spoke 'proper Welsh'.
I'd love to take up horse-riding.
From the age of 10, I read every Jean Plaidy novel I could get my hands on - my fav being 'Murder Most Royal'.
If I won the lottery I'd open a small animal sanctuary.
Best holiday I ever had was in Cuba on the revolutionary trail.
Best castle I've visited - Warwick.
Best tv series ever for me is Blackadder, and I quote it endlessly.
My favourite music to listen to is the New Romantics from the early 1980s.
I'm a member of the Royal Historical Palaces society, and my most visited place is the Tower of London.
My favourite period of history is Tudor, and it's the one I know most about. It's also the one I'm most disappointed in, in novels and 'factual' works - it's just so exploited and to have factual books about 'Mary Boleyn' and 'The Early Loves of Anne Boleyn' when there is so little information is just silly. I tend to buy them, read them, and then discover I've learnt absolutely nothing new as it's all full of 'maybes, possibly', and I vow never to buy again - and then I do!
My degree was in Medieval history, with the main focus on the Anjevin Empire and Medieval Peasant Revolts (Bohemia, Florence and Britain).
5 comments:
Anerje, we do have something in common after all :-) 'Wuthering Heights'. I love it. I wrote my BA dissertation about it, entitled 'A Cognitive Study of Methaphors of Love in 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte'. And my favourite season is autumn as well (I love Keats for his 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfullness...' :-)).
It was great to learn more about you :-) I'm working on my answers to Kathryn's questions. Should be ready for tomorrow, but I too have a problem with my awardees- you and Gabriele have been already chosen by Kathryn, Kathryn herself has been chosen by Sarah and so on... :-)
Hi Kasia - I also like Keats:> So that's 'Wuthering Heights', Keats and a love of autumn we have in common - as well as appreciating different branches of the Anjevins. This award really makes you think. I look forward to reading your responses.
Anerje, thanks for the comment on Henry's blog :-) I do agree: the award really makes you think.
As for my magnanimity, I couldn't have written simply Stalin and Hitler. Too trivial :-) But seriously, I will never forgive Pope Sixtus IV, Francesco Salviati Riario, Raffaele Riario and the Pazzi family for assassinating Giuliano di Medici on Easter Sunday 1478.
The outcome of which battle would you change? I'm still thinking which one I would choose :-)
Anerje, so sorry, I thought I'd left a comment ages ago, but can't see it so maybe it didn't 'take'! :( I did Wuthering Heights for A-Level too, and loved it. And so agree with your pet peeve in histfict, seeing Edward and Piers written as effeminate and weak, and 'RentBoy! Piers!' is the most ridiculous thing ever.
And I so love Blackadder too :)
Hi Kathryn - it's just lazy 'authorship', isn't it? Nothing effeminate ever appears in the chronicles about Edward and Piers, so why do it in fiction?
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