Recent acquisition:
📖 The Vikings (National Geographic) by Howard La Fay
so-soI appreciated the attempt to tie archaeological finds to the Norse folklore or Sagas. I learned quite a bit, but I could not stomach the slang. "No take-backsies" doesn't sound very academic, in my opinion.
so-soI was so excited when I saw this on the #WPNF25 longlist because Vikings, but I ended up being a little disappointed. It focuses on grave goods and exploring the culture through them but never quite pulled me in.
Description of Bergen, Norway c. 1200. Can confirm that 800 years later, this part is still the same 😂
#WomensPrizeNF
pick"... the personal, intimate parts of people's lives matter every bit as much as the famous, dramatic, narrative defining ones."
Another wonderful selection from the #wpnf25 long list. An interesting, engaging history of the Viking Age told through everyday objects and everyday people. Barraclough's narration is excellent, I highly recommend the audio!
pickFascinating book, filled with details you didn't know you needed about "ordinary" Viking life.
Got to watch those guys who bath once a week...
One is the Gosforth Cross from Cumbria, carved in the first half of the tenth century, towering 4.4 metres high in the churchyard of St Mary's... [it] also has carved stories that we might remember from Norse mythology, including Loki bound and tortured with snake poison for his crimes, and a figure with its foot in the mouth of a monstrous fanged beast, perhaps Odin fighting the wolf Fenrir at Ragnarok.
