Last night I got to do something very fun–do a presentation for a Girl Scout troupe on extraordinary women in history, complete with costumes and dress-up time!  They had been doing a program on stereotypes that can hurt girls/women and constrain them in life, and I was asked to talk about how women in history were able to break those stereotypes.  I talked about Elizabeth I, Marie Antoinette, Jane Austen, and Queen Victoria, and also the ways ordinary people lived their own lives despite some strict expectations.  I hoped that this would tell them that, hey it used to be REALLY hard to be a girl, and we can’t take our freedoms for granted.

I’m not entirely sure the message got across, but the clothes sure did. 🙂  I took some of my own costumes with me and let them try them on, so they could see how constrained girls were by their everyday clothes.  I asked them to imagine doing all the things they do (playing soccer, riding horses, doing chores, school and lessons) while wearing corsets, petticoats, long skirts, and bonnets.  But mostly they wanted to twirl around and dance in flouncy skirts!

It was a lot of fun, and reminded me of when I was 9 years old and played dress-up.  I had just started to be fascinated by history (thanks to reading stuff like “Anne of Green Gables,” “Little Women,” and, yes, Barbara Cartland novels!  Her stories were pretty terrible, with all those teenaged stammering heroines and dark, glowering dukes, but I do credit her with feeding my history obsession…), and was reading everything I could get my hands on that dealt with women in history.  Just like now, I loved imagining what it was like to live in a different time period, to think differently and see things in a very different way.  I especially loved women who managed to be true to themselves and live in their own ways, despite all the pressure to do otherwise.

I hope those girls took some of that away from the talk as well, but I think mostly they’re just astonished women used to ride sidesaddle in dresses all the time….

What were some of your favorite books as a child?  Who were some of your childhood heroines??

Happy New Year, everyone!!  I hope you had a great, fun New Year’s Eve and are looking forward to 2013 like I am.  It really feels like a fresh start this year.

But Janet’s “best of” list inspired me to take a look back as well!  I’ve read (as always) A Lot of books this year, and most of them are now forgotten.  I didn’t keep a list of what I liked/didn’t like/found useful, but these are a few that stuck with me:

Paris to the Past by Ina Caro–this had a fabulous travel tip for history geeks like me–visit sites in historical consecutive order (in this case, France, using Paris as a base).  I found lots of obscure, new-to-me museums and sites to visit the next time I’m lucky enough to get to Europe

Clover Adams by Natalie Dykstra–a short-ish, easy to read, engrossing biography of a fascinating, sad, mostly-forgotten life.  I remember visiting Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington DC and seeing Clover Adams’s incredibly striking, melancholy tombstone carved by Augustus St. Gaudens, and was so happy to finally find out more about the woman who inspired it

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple–my favorite novel this year! As soon as I finished it I ran around telling everyone they need to read it…

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel–the follow-up to Wolf Hall, which I also loved.  Even though it employs literary devices I usually can’t stand (present tense, sometimes unclear who is talking/thinking, etc) I do love these books for the way they capture the dangerous, precarious, lavish, bawdy fascinating Tudor world.  In the case of this books, the ferocious power struggle between Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn–for once, a much-hyped book is right.  Smart, sharp, weird, complicated, completely un-put-down-able

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo–another much-hyped book, which I was reluctant to pick up, but it was so, so worth it.  Not easy to read, but gorgeous beyond belief.  I think it was possibly the best book I read last year, and definitely the one that’s stayed with me the most.

I’m kind of ashamed to say I haven’t read a lot of romance this year.  I’ve had such tight deadlines and lots of research to do, especially for the Tudor mystery, not much time to read for fun.  Plus since I’ve been a romance reader since I was 10 years old, it’s gotten hard to settle down and really get into a romance the way I used to (it often feels like, no matter how well-written and well-plotted, I’ve read everything before.  Lots of times), and I really, really miss that.  But there were some I loved.

A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant–wow, this was great!  Complicated, not always likeable characters in twisty situations, yay.  I can’t wait for the follow-up.  I also loved Meljean Brook’s Riveted (hands-down the best steampunk series I have come across).  And I’ve been using our own Megan’s Vanity Fare to help me get through the last of this nasty strep outbreak!  It’s wonderful, though it really, really makes me want to eat cookies.  Which would go against my New Year’s goal of eating better. 🙂

What have you read this year??  Does anyone have any romance recs to get me out my slump???

So from two days after my wedding on Dec. 15 to about, oh, two days ago, I have been down with a majorly fun case of strep/ear infection/general winter blahs.  I am finally feeling better and tackling the WIP (which just happens to be due at the end of the month!  Fun!).  But my Kindle has been a lifesaver, and I spent a whole afternoon trawling around on it looking for some obscure historical sources.  Here are a few I found:

–For people like me, who like to plan fantasy trips to England, Gravestones, Tombs, and Memorials by Trevor Yorke and London’s Blue Plaques in a Nutshell (last time I was in London, I drove my mom crazy because I stopped to read every blue plaque we saw–this one is a guide to many more obscure figures memorialised there, and I am def carrying it with me next time I’m in London!)

—The Smart by Sarah Bakewell, a fascinating tale of an 18th century adventuress named Mrs. Rudd who managed to get herself into (and out of) a tremendous amount of trouble (including being imprisoned for forgery–she was acquitted, but her supposed allies the “unfortunate” Perreau brothers, hanged)

—An English Lady in Paris by Michael Allen, another fascinating 18th century woman, Mrs. Crewe, friends with the Duchess of Devonshire, a society beauty and great traveler

—The King’s Smuggler: Jane Whorwood, Secret Agent to Charles I by John Fox: the title says it all

—Tunnels, Towers, and Temples: London’s 100 Strangest Places by David Long: another great travel source!

—Beauty and Cosmetics: 1550-950 and The Ephemeral Nature of Perfume and Sense in Early Modern England

—All the King’s Cooks: The Tudor Kitchens of Henry VIII at Hampton Court by Peter Brears

—Wicked Women of Tudor England by Retha Warnicke (both because she’s an historian I admire, plus I can never resist any book with the words Wicked Women in the title)

In my quest to read more romance, I also downloaded the new Cecilia Grant (since Megan said it’s great!) and Courtney Milan’s The Duchess War.  Plus I got a pile of magazines featuring spring fashions because i cannot WAIT to get out my sundresses and sandals again…

What have you been doing lately?  What are some obscure/fun/great titles you’ve come across??