Friday, February 8, 2008

Book Report.

I have to say this: One thing that nursing has provided for me has been ample time for reading. I love getting home, sitting in the rocker, boppy and baby on lap, and settling in for a good 20-30 min. stretch of breastfeeding and reading. Its a wonderful way to relax at the end of a hard day. Really!

Anyway, I just finished a great book and thought I'd share:

I'm usually sort of a fiction whore (Oh! What I won't do for some well written fantasy, sci-fi, or historical romantic fiction. Yum.) However, for a piece of non-fiction, Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette was suprisingly entertaining. Her descriptions of life at Versailles during the reign of Louis XVI are so richly woven that you can practically smell the wig powder and B.O.. Similarly, Fraser paints the tragically doomed queen of France as a complex, sympathetic, (if somewhat clueless) character and draws the reader into a world of excess and abundance in a time of political turmoil and unrest. In Fraser's eyes, she is first a naive girl just doing her duty to her own mother and motherland, then a sheltered, spoiled woman trying to find herself midst the rigid rules of decorum in the French palace, and finally a devoted mother and wife who bore the upmost of indignities with grace and brave resolve.

All in all, I thouroughly enjoyed this book, even though I already knew how it would end. Now that's some good non-fiction.

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