Nicholas Bruner
Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Young Adult Author
Tag: history
What I’m Reading: The Old Ball Game
The Old Ball Game, by Frank Deford, is actually a re-read for me. I read it when it first came out in 2005 and remembered it as a delightful and informative book about the New York Giants in the early 1900s, focusing on their… Continue Reading “What I’m Reading: The Old Ball Game”
What I’m Reading: The Stuarts
The Stuarts, by J.P. Kenyon, is a history covering the Stuarts, who became the ruling family of England after Elizabeth I of the Tudor dynasty died without an heir in 1603. The monarchs are James I (1603-25), Charles I (1625-49, and beheaded at the… Continue Reading “What I’m Reading: The Stuarts”
What I’m Reading: The King’s Best Highway
The King’s Best Highway is a history of what was once called the Boston Post Road–the road from New York to Boston that developed in colonial times from a series of Indian trails, became the most important and trafficked road in America in the… Continue Reading “What I’m Reading: The King’s Best Highway”
What I’m Reading: Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade
Medieval Cities, by French professor Henri Pirenne, was published in 1952 but is the synthesis and culmination of lectures he had been building on since the 1920s. I believe Dr. Pirenne was the one who came up with the theory that it was not… Continue Reading “What I’m Reading: Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade”
What I’m Reading: In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made
In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made, by the late NYU Professor Norman F. Cantor, is billed on the cover as the best and most thorough book of the Black Death ever written. I don’t know. It… Continue Reading “What I’m Reading: In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made”
What I’m Reading: Stories of Daily Life From the Roman World
Stories of Daily Life From the Roman World: Extracts From the Ancient Colloquia, translated and with commentary by Eleanor Dickey, is not precisely what I was expecting, although it was close enough.
What I’m Reading: Where They Ain’t
Where They Ain’t, by Burt Solomon, is an excellent look at baseball in the immedate pre-modern era, from 1894 to 1902. It observes this era through the lens of the Baltimore Orioles, who invented a new style of baseball that made them the most… Continue Reading “What I’m Reading: Where They Ain’t”
What I’m Reading: White Trash
No, White Trash is not the latest southern Gothic pulp romance; rather, as its subtitle reads, it’s The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, a 2016 book by Nancy Isenberg. In America we have a tendency to think of ourselves as a classless society,… Continue Reading “What I’m Reading: White Trash”
