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Books and Bites
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
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Carrie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Books and Bites podcast. Each month, we bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them. I'm Carrie Green, and I'm here with my co hosts, Michael Cunningham and Jacqueline Cooper.
Michael: Hello.
Jacqueline: Hi, everybody.
Carrie: Today, we're talking about books with kings or queens, one of the prompts on the Summer-Fall Books and Bites Bingo Reading Challenge.
And I know we've talked about this before, but I think this prompt does leave room for lots of different book genres. What do you all think?
Michael: Oh yeah, for sure. You know, first one that comes to mind is fantasy, but you got historical fiction.
Jacqueline: Mm hmm. Alternative histories, which is,
Carrie: which you, the book you read last month was an alternative history, right?
Jacqueline: And my book this time is because alternative history.
Carrie: Alternative history? Yeah.
Jacqueline: So.
Carrie: Mm hmm. Nonfiction. Did you already say that?
Michael: Yeah, no.
Carrie: [00:01:00] Okay.
But yeah, lots of, you know, if you're someone who really likes a bibliography in the back of your book, then there's lots of options for that.
Jacqueline: And biographies, if you're really interested in, you know, like Princess Diana or another favorite royal member.
Carrie: Yeah. More like, well, I mean
Michael: Elizabeth the First.
Jacqueline: More like what?
Carrie: Well, I was just thinking like, you know, there's like the People Magazine sort of biography versus like, like a real biography. And with the Royal Family there's, there's a lot of both.
Jacqueline: But they have been writing, like, They've been publishing books about Queen Elizabeth and several books this past year, I believe.
And then Prince Philip, I believe.
Of course,
I like to watch it on TV, which is also, I like to watch [00:02:00] the movies. So there's that, too.
Carrie: I mean. The Crown, the, I think the facts are sometimes a little dodgy on The Crown, but it is very fun to watch.
Jacqueline: Yeah, that's true.
Michael: I've watched a little
bit of it myself.
Jacqueline: Yeah. So that's that hybrid historical fiction fan, with a little bit of fantasy.
Carrie: Yeah.
Michael: The hybrid fiction non fiction.
Carrie: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah.
Carrie: All right. Well, hopefully we, it sounds like just from chatting beforehand. We might have leaned a little bit into the British Royals , but hopefully we'll have a little something for everyone.
Jacqueline: I tend to like, read a lot about the British Royal. So
I think about
that when a lot of times when you say kings and queens, I think a lot of Americans are fascinated by the British Royal family, though.
Carrie: Yeah. Why do you think that is?
Jacqueline: I'm not sure. I guess they're the, because, you know, the same, we have the same language.
So I think, [00:03:00] and there's, there's always this sort of fascination with being a princess for, for girls. You know, they want to dress in their little princess costumes and they kind of grow up with that wanting to marry. But hopefully we're a little less, like in the society's changed a little bit less than encouraging our, our girls just to look for a romance instead of a job or whatever.
Carrie: Yeah, because we also know it didn't, doesn't always work out that well for them.
Jacqueline: That is so true, that is so true.
Carrie: And so do you all have a favorite king or queen, whether fictional or non fictional?
Michael: I would say, I'll go, I'll go fiction. I love Game of Thrones, the Song of Ice and Fire series, which is heavily influenced by British monarchy throughout the years and the Plantagenets and Tudors and all that.
But, I would say probably my favorite is the Night King from the Game of Thrones. The Ice Zombie.
Carrie: I haven't watched it, so Ice Zombie!
Michael: He comes [00:04:00] down from the North to take out the
Westeros, the kingdom. We know how it played out in the TV series, which wasn't great, so we'll get out of that. But George R. R. Martin does in the books, but
Carrie: How about you, Jacqueline?
Jacqueline: I know I mention Holly Black all the time, but I I do The Queen of Nothing, Jude Duarte. She's my favorite queen, as far as fictional goes.
Carrie: The Queen of Nothing, that's a good, that's a good name.
Jacqueline: Yeah.
Carrie: But maybe not the best, I mean, if you're Queen of Nothing, like,
Jacqueline: Mm hmm. Well, you have to read the whole series, but she actually is the Queen of Elfane, but he, he, the king punishes her and doesn't tell everyone that she's his queen right away. And so, and he exiles her. And so she, is the Queen of Nothing at that point in the book, in the beginning of the book.
Carrie: Okay.
Jacqueline: You guys have to read Holly Black. [00:05:00]
Michael: What about you?
Carrie: Yeah, I can't think of a fictional king or queen right now. But as I think we've talked about on some past Books and Bites, I'm pretty interested in Mary, Queen of Scots, and it's partly, I actually started learning more about her when I was doing some reading about embroidery and how
both women and, and men have used embroidery as like a way of sending out subversive messages. And Mary Queen of Scots was actually, she, while she was captive, she did a lot of embroidery and, you know, would basically code her embroideries with messages to, you know, people who were on her side and also people who weren't on her side kind of [00:06:00] as, you know, a way of arguing for herself.
And this past summer when we were in London, I saw some of Mary, Queen of Scots embroideries at the Victoria and Albert Museum. So that was very cool to see, like, actual, embroideries that she created.
Jacqueline: That is cool. Catherine of Aragon, Henry the Eighth's first wife, she embroidered all his collar, his cuffs and collars.
And, she continued to do that, even though he was kind of in a relationship with Anne Boleyn. Until Anne Boleyn got really mad because she got tired of seeing the embroidery of her rival. Allegedly, of course.
Carrie: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a way for women, even, you know, higher class and royal women, that was kind of a way for them to show their status and to advocate for [00:07:00] themselves and like, Yeah.
Jacqueline: Yeah.
Carrie: It's interesting.
Jacqueline: It's really cool. Yeah. It's becoming a lost art, I'm afraid. I don't know that people actually embroider as much as they used to.
Carrie: Well, I do.
Jacqueline: You do? Oh, good!.
Carrie: But I embroider paper, so.
Jacqueline: Yeah.
Carrie: Which is even,
Jacqueline: even better.
Carrie: Even trickier, I think, than. Than embroidering
cloth. Yeah.
Michael: This month I read Magna Carta, The Birth of Liberty by Dan Jones. Over 800 years ago at Runnymede in England, the Magna Carta was born out of a bunch of very angry barons and King John the first coming to terms of peace after a serious fraying of relations with each other. Since that day in 1215, the Magna Carta has come to influence countless constitutions across the world and is still [00:08:00] seen as a cornerstone of Western traditions of liberty and democracy.
This book traces the roots back to the first of the Plantagenet Kings, Henry II, John's father. Henry II had to get the country back in order after the Anarchy, in which his mother, Matilda, and his uncle, King Stephen, fought for the throne. He established a political and administrative machine, and had a constant need to raise money to protect their lands on the continent.
This meant squeezing his barons for more and more money. Once Richard the Lionheart ascended to the throne, a king who was hardly present in England during his reign, was constantly on crusades and fighting on the continent, which meant he also needed a lot of money, and that didn't even include the ransom
after being captured. Then came John, Richard's brother, who he even tried to overthrow at one point. He was loathed by just about everyone. He ruthlessly squeezed his barons for even more money. He was, " a cruel and unpleasant man, a second rate soldier, and a slippery, faithless, interfering, [00:09:00] uninspiring king."
One faithful baron that fell out of favor with John has land seized and fled to Ireland. But that wasn't enough for John. He captured the baron's wife and son and starved them to death in a dungeon. He even made the pope so angry to get excommunicated for a period and seized all the church's money for himself.
The barons disliked him so much a couple even conspired to assassinate him. But it all started really coming apart for John when he decided to invade France to recapture his lands. It failed miserably and he was forced to flee back to England, which earned him a couple of unfortunate nicknames along the way, like John Softsword, since he had a propensity for running away from the enemy in battle, and John Lackland, since he lost most of the Plantagenet land on the continent.
He had burned through a lot of money fighting in France, and finally the barons were fed up. They seized London, which cut John off from the Tower of London, in his money source, and forced him to make peace. They came together at [00:10:00] Runnymede, creating the peace treaty that would become known as the Magna Carta, a document that would have a far reaching influence on the world.
But John wasn't happy. Now, now, back in the good graces of Pope Innocent III, he had the agreement annulled. Plunging the country in a civil war with the Barons calling for Louis, the heir to the French throne, to take the English throne for himself. Dan Jones knows how to craft a historical narrative that's compelling and as close to a page turner as a book of history can be.
British history can seem daunting, trying to keep everything straight with all the Kings and Moors. But he's able to craft a fascinating story without getting bogged down in the finer details and going off on tangents. I also highly recommend Summer of Blood, the Peasants Revolt of 1381. I pair this with a recipe I found on the British Museum's blog for Spit Roasted or Grilled Steak.
This recipe and the rest from the blog post can be found in Maggie Black's The Medieval Cookbook, recipes that are adapted for modern day cooks. We don't have it in our collection, but you could [00:11:00] borrow it through interlibrary loan from another library. This recipe calls for thin beef steaks, along with red wine vinegar, Seville orange juice, red wine, black pepper, and ginger for the basting sauce.
Then you garnish it with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Definitely a dish for a king or queen.
Carrie: Yeah, that sounds good.
Michael: Yeah, I was like, that's a medieval recipe?
Carrie: Yeah, it seems, it doesn't seem medieval. I mean, I don't really know what my conceptions of medieval recipes would be, but it seems very complex.
Michael: Yeah.
Definitely, probably not one for, any serfs or peasants?
Carrie: You have to have the ginger and the Seville oranges, I guess.
Michael: Yeah, I was like, that, that'd probably be hard to get.
Carrie: Yeah. Yeah, it's funny how the royals never seem to have enough money, do they?
Michael: Squeezing, squeezing, like, like, [00:12:00] just like they, so much, like it was just un, godly amounts of money.
Like someone, no, no one can even reasonably pay back even for a baron. And it was, it was just insane. And there were like, it was just amazing how many civil wars they had in this time, one after the other. And
Jacqueline: they had these people fight and they barely fed them and they, they wanted them to fight to the death for them, which is like,
Michael: it was like not even open battle.
Most of them were sieges. You just go to castle, build you a little camp, little siege machines and stuff. And that was it. That was the most popular form.
Carrie: So that reminds me when we were in England, we were at Corfe Castle. Oh, is that in the,
Michael: That was mentioned a few times.
Carrie: Yeah. So, so the people who attacked the castle, which I, I don't even remember, like, who it was or who was king at the time.
Maybe it was Richard II, I don't know. Anyway, they had, the [00:13:00] invading army had built, like, the largest trebuchet that had ever been built. And so they come up with this trebuchet to the castle, and immediately the people in the castle surrender and are like, no, um, you know, okay, we, you know, we surrender.
And the invaders say, sorry, we have to shoot this thing off at least once.
Jacqueline: Oh my gosh, that's so crazy.
Carrie: So they shoot the trebuchet so that they can just say that they used it.
Michael: Wow.
Jacqueline: Wow. .
Michael: I mean,
Carrie: it's, I mean, like Monty Python really wasn't that far off, was it?
Jacqueline: Mm-Hmm. . They were really violent. The past American, hi Amer, well, not American, but English history.
Mm-Hmm. has just been, it's very violent.
Carrie: Yeah.
Michael: Oh, yeah. Like, [00:14:00] they would say, they would have like rules for sieges, like pre agreements, but like
Jacqueline: Mm-Hmm. ,
Michael: you know, these chroniclers would say, Oh, you know, in like trebuchets, they will launch dead bodies over the wall and, you know, besides just rubble and some other gross stuff, there's also like tunnel under the walls to get the wall to collapse, but then that could also take a a whole bunch of men with you.
Jacqueline: Mm hmm. Yeah. Kind of gruesome.
Michael: Yeah.
Jacqueline: You don't need to read horror, Michael. Just read, British history.
Michael: I want to read the book on the Crusades, but I'm sure that's pretty
Jacqueline: Some of it's pretty Yeah. And they always want to put everybody's head on a spike. And stuff. It's just like
Carrie: Yeah.
Jacqueline: Why?
Carrie: So the book I read is The Tower by Flora Carr. It's [00:15:00] 1567 when this debut historical fiction novel opens, and Mary, Queen of Scots, has just been captured and taken to Lochleven Castle, where she will remain imprisoned for about a year. The novel takes place over the course of this year, mostly in the two rooms Mary shares with three other women:
her chambermaids, Jane and Cuckoo, and later, one of her ladies in waiting, Lady Mary Seton. The novel primarily focuses on the relationships between these women. Initially, Jane and Cuckoo find themselves in much more intimate circumstances with the Queen than they would normally experience. For instance, the Queen can't fall asleep without someone sleeping beside her.
Without her ladies in waiting, that falls to Jane. And when Mary miscarries twin boys, Jane and Cuckoo take care of her both during the event and after, when she suffers from postpartum depression. Jane and [00:16:00] Cuckoo's relationships with the Queen shift again when Lady in Waiting Seton joins them shortly after the miscarriage and Mary's forced abdication.
The observant Jane notices that, " both women are crying, they are thanking their God, and it is almost as though Mary has been alone all this while." Telling the story partly through the chambermaid's viewpoints helps Carr create a nuanced portrait of Mary. She doesn't shy away from discussing some of the darker things Mary may have done as queen.
And though Jane in particular finds some of these actions disturbing, she still reveres Mary. Which is lucky for the queen, who is described as, "a woman who needs love the way common people need air." A review I read described the novel as claustrophobic. Given the subject matter, to me that's a sign of the author's success, especially with her use of sensory [00:17:00] details.
The smells of their unwashed bodies, the blood after Mary's miscarriage, and even the shared chamber pot help convey the hardships they faced. Other details, like sexual abuse, Mary's depression, and a romance between Jane and Seton, bring a contemporary sensibility to this 16th century story. If you enjoy lyrical, character driven novels with a strong sense of place and history, lock yourself away with The Tower.
It's a realistic portrait of a medieval queen's imprisonment, with all its boredom and intrigue. Mary's friends bring her dried pears from outside the castle, a comforting and shelf stable treat. You can purchase or make your own to nibble while you read this book. We'll link to a recipe on our blog.
Jacqueline: I've been fascinated by, I haven't read a lot about Mary, Queen of Scots, but here lately I've been hearing a little bit of stuff in [00:18:00] some of the other books. And I'm, I would be really interested in reading that. Yeah. It sounds really good.
Carrie: Yeah. It was, it was good. I, I enjoyed it. And you still, you know, there were a lot of things where I was like, did that really happen?
And I looked them up and yeah, they did really happen. So it seemed like the author was sticking pretty closely with the actual history, just drama, dramatizing it in a way that, you know, we don't always see.
Jacqueline: Yeah. Her husbands were pretty cruel and did some pretty terrible things.
Carrie: Yeah. I mean, her first husband was the king of France.
And they were married when they were, I think, teenagers, but he died shortly after they married. But yeah, then she didn't, so she didn't choose him herself, but he seemed like he was okay. But the two that she chose, yeah, they were not, they were not a good choice.[00:19:00]
Jacqueline: Yeah, her story was It's kind of sad.
Carrie: Yeah, it is sad. And I think a lot of it, like, a lot of the problems that Mary, Queen of Scots, had and Mary Tudor had were because of Henry VIII and some of the messed up decisions he made with his wives and
Jacqueline: Yeah. Really did change. He's made quite a few changes in
British history.
Carrie: Yes, he did.
Jacqueline: My choice for this month's prompt is American Rules by Katherine McGee. This young adult novel is an alternative history in which America became a monarchy when it got its independence from England. The novel is [00:20:00] set in present day and the story follows the royal family of America who are the descendants of George Washington.
American Rules is told from the point of view of four different women. Princess Beatrice, the first woman to inherit the throne of America. Her younger sister, Samantha, who is determined to break all the rules to get attention. Samantha's best friend, Nina, who is in love with Samantha's twin brother, Jeff.
And finally, Jeff's ex girlfriend, Daphne, who will do anything to become an American princess. Beatrice's family believes that it's necessary for women to have a king to rule alongside her. Unlike her sister Samantha, Beatrice has always done everything that her parents and the country expect of her as a member of the royal family.
As the presumptive heir, Beatrice has always put the country first. So when her parents decide it's time for her to marry, at first she goes along with their plan to meet potential partners at a ball. However, the only candidate that she likes at all is Lord Theodore [00:21:00] Eaton or Teddy. Samantha also meets and falls for Teddy at the party.
So when Sam learns that Beatrice is going to on a date with Teddy, she is devastated, further driving a wedge between the two sisters who already barely talk. Lonely with few friends, Beatrice has become close to her personal guard, Connor. Beatrice realized that she has romantic feelings for Connor, further complicating an already tricky situation.
Beatrice is torn between love and duty, but most importantly, she feels that she doesn't need to be married to be queen. There are several love triangles and intriguing plots in this first book of the American Royal Series. One being Daphne, Jeff's ex girlfriend, who's ruthless enough to do anything, maybe even murder, to be a part of the royal family.
This series gives the reader an insight into what it might be like for women to be royalty or close to royalty in the past, as well as the present. In the past, women close to the crown had little choice in their fate, reminding readers of the danger and the political plotting in the struggle [00:22:00] for power for both men and women.
You should read this series if you're interested in finding whether the women in this series will follow conventions or will they seek to empower themselves through unconventional means. This book has a lot of world building for anyone interested in finding an intriguing new series. American rules will not let you down.
Also, if you're fascinated by the history of the English royal family, you might like this series. There are quite a few parallels to the English royal family. McGee clearly modeled Beatrice after the first and second Queens of Elizabeth. That said, for my bite, I wanted a food that represented America, so I chose a recipe for homemade cherry pie from southernliving.
com. This recipe provides plenty of tips for making a flaky lattice pie. I could not think of a recipe that speaks to being American more than cherry pie.
Carrie: Yeah, sounds good. So how did, you may have said this, but how did the original American royals in the book, [00:23:00] where were they, were they descended from?
Jacqueline: George Washington.
Carrie: Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Jacqueline: Yeah. They were allegedly. I mean, in this, well, in this alternate history, there were George Washington descents because there is a myth that George Washington was offered kingmanship of America, but I believe that that's a myth. I think there was a letter that was written saying he should be king, but I don't think that there was ever, you know, a push to make him the king.
Carrie: Interesting. But did he, did he have children?
Michael: Not any that were his, I don't believe. Oh really? I think there, um, Martha had, I think maybe a couple from a previous marriage, but I don't think he had any.
Jacqueline: Oh, I didn't know that.
Michael: I think so. I read a biography on him. It's been a couple of years.
But I would have to double check that.
But I think that's,
Jacqueline: he didn't have any children,
Michael: didn't have any of his own children. He had some stepchildren, I believe.
Carrie: Well, yeah, that's, I think I saw that [00:24:00] recently because there's been some discussion about, you know. childless people in politics. And I saw a list of some of the presidents, past presidents, who have not had children of their own.
Michael: Childless cat men.
Carrie: So I just kind of remember Washington's name being on that list.
Michael: Yeah. That's, I mean, that's fascinating. I've never heard. of any like alternate history or I haven't seen alternate history of America with a monarchy.
Jacqueline: Oh really? Yeah.
Michael: I thought that was very,
Jacqueline: yeah, it's pretty good. I'm, I've actually read the first four.
There's, I think there's a novella, but I haven't read that, but. And she doesn't, there's not, well, maybe I should, this might be a little bit of a spoiler, but not everyone got it gets a happy ending, you know, in this series,
Michael: a lot of romance?
Jacqueline: Lots of, there's [00:25:00] like at least four, I guess, quadruple romances going on in this book.
You're not a huge romance fan. Are you Michael?
Michael: I can handle a little bit. I can handle a little bit.
Jacqueline: I mean
Michael: I did read a book recently that was way spicier than I ever thought.
Jacqueline: No, it's not spicy.
Michael: Not spicy, just romantic?
Jacqueline: No, just, yeah, a little bit of romance going on there, but I think really it speaks more to feminism if you really dig down, if you were like doing a close reading.
You could really pull out some, some feminism and patriarchy and things like that.
Michael: Do you find out like what Franklin's ancestors were up to? Jefferson, if Jefferson and Washington don't get, still don't get along?
Jacqueline: You know, they do have like, these other little dukedoms where, and then one of the, one of them is like Jefferson or something.
The son is named Jefferson. So there's a little bit of homage to that, I believe. ,And you know, [00:26:00] Beatrice is like maybe short for Elizabeth, which I was saying. And then Samantha, I think is, she's clearly, modeled after, , Queen Elizabeth's sister, the, that was, was Margaret. She was a little wild.
Michael: Yeah.
Jacqueline: And, yeah, so it, the first book kind of, I think she borrows, if I can use that term, she borrows a little bit from that past, but she moves away from it pretty quickly in the following books.
Carrie: Thanks for listening to the Books and Bites podcast. To learn more about Books and Bites Bingo, visit us at jesspublib.org/books-bites. Our theme music is The Breakers from the album In Close Quarters with the Enemy by Scott Whiddon. You can learn more about Scott and his music at his website adoorforadesk.com.