Another enchantingly educational installment in the terrific Magical History Tour series! I wonder if I can eventually get all these in a boxed set for my kids: that would be super rad. Volume 8 focuses on the legendary Vikings, taking them out of the realm of myth and placing them squarely in the known history …
Category: History
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/04/27/magical-history-tour-vol-8-vikings-by-fabrice-erre-sylvain-savoia/
Mar 19 2022
How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith
In How the Word is Passed, Clint Smith recounts his visits to seven locations as part of what he calls in the book’s subtitle “A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.” Monticello Plantation. The Whitney Plantation. Angola Prison. Blandford Cemetery. Galveston Island. New York City. Goréee Island (Ghana). Along with a prologue in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/03/19/how-the-word-is-passed-by-clint-smith/
Jan 26 2022
Magical History Tour #7: Gandhi, Soldier Of Peace by Fabrice Erre & Sylvain Savoia
I’ve found the Magical History Tour series to be incredibly intelligent and moving to date, but I did not expect to cry quite as much as I did while reading this seventh installment, and particularly over the life and times of a figure who’s become so familiar, I almost take for granted that I already …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/26/magical-history-tour-7-gandhi-soldier-of-peace-by-fabrice-erre-sylvain-savoia/
Nov 30 2021
Madly Marvelous: The Costumes Of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel by Donna Zakowska
The Marvelous Mrs Maisel has long been on the list of shows I’d watch if I had more time in my life, so I was immensely grateful to receive this book so I could make the time to watch at least the pilot episode. Even as someone unfamiliar with the show, I’ve long been a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/11/30/madly-marvelous-the-costumes-of-the-marvelous-mrs-maisel-by-donna-zakowska/
Nov 24 2021
The Last Jews Of Penang by Zayn Gregory & Arif Rafhan
Hey, everyone, my very talented friend Arif Rafhan has illustrated a(nother) terrific book! The Last Jews Of Penang is a slight volume suitable for all ages, that highlights a little known corner of Malaysian and Jewish history. A small but thriving Jewish settlement existed on the island of Penang for well over a century, building …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/11/24/the-last-jews-of-penang-by-zayn-gregory-arif-rafhan/
Nov 23 2021
The Bird: The Great Age Of Avian Illustration by Philip Kennedy
So for real, I spent every few pages of this gorgeous, luxe volume either exclaiming or sighing, “So beautiful!” I hardly expected anything less from a book billing (ha) itself as a retrospective of the golden age of avian illustration, but I honestly did not expect a volume so hefty and extraordinary, and for only …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/11/23/the-bird-the-great-age-of-avian-illustration-by-philip-kennedy/
Nov 20 2021
The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts
Fittingly, if annoyingly, I have mislaid my copy of The Lost Pianos of Siberia, so this will have to be from memory, just like many of the stories that Sophy Roberts collects over the course of the book. The conceit of the story is that Roberts was spending most of a summer with a German …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/11/20/the-lost-pianos-of-siberia-by-sophy-roberts/
Oct 10 2021
To the Lake by Kapka Kassabova
In Border, Kapka Kassabova traveled to the corner of Europe where Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey meet to find out how the region had changed since the Iron Curtain had ceased to divide these three countries that have so much shared history. To the Lake takes her further west to where Macedonia, Albania and Greece meet, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/10/10/to-the-lake-by-kapka-kassabova/
Oct 07 2021
Magical History Tour #5: The Plague, History Of A Pandemic by Fabrice Erre & Sylvain Savoia
Technically, this is a children’s book, but honestly, I wish everyone would read this! In the fifth volume of this deeply intelligent, highly accessible history series, our intrepid guides, Annie and Nico, go on a tour of historical pandemics, focusing primarily on the plague. They cover the historical and geographical spread of the disease — …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/10/07/magical-history-tour-5-the-plague-history-of-a-pandemic-by-fabrice-erre-sylvain-savoia/
Sep 26 2021
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, Pt. 2
The Making of the Atomic Bomb turns 35 this year. My copy is a 25th anniversary edition, and it opens with the words, “More than seven decades after its conception under the looming storm front of the Second World War, the Manhattan Project is fading into myth.” The book itself was written and published in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/09/26/the-making-of-the-atomic-bomb-by-richard-rhodes-pt-2/