by David West | Dec 4, 2022 | News
On Saturday I had my first book signing event. I took a small table at my village’s Christmas Fayre. It was really busy and I sold 32 of the 40 books that I took along. It certainly exceeded my expectations. The practice in talking to people: explaining what the books...
by David West | Dec 2, 2022 | News
When I wrote my post on renaissance writers, I failed to mention Sir Thomas North. I realised my error when I read, or heard, some quotations of Plutarch. In 1557 Sir Thomas North wrote the first translation of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives in English. Shakespeare based...
by David West | Dec 1, 2022 | News
I know, bear with me. Yesterday I posted about the words circled, and margin notes in Louis XIII: The Making of a King. The critical reader has underlined the phrase “To further placate the prince”, and put an exclamation mark in the margin. Clearly he or she is not a...
by David West | Nov 30, 2022 | News
Is the pursuit of perfection worthwhile? I’m enjoying reading Louis XIII: The Making of a King, but every few pages there are letters or words circled, and notes in the margin. The one I found today was correcting advisor to adviser. There, my spell checker didn’t...
by David West | Nov 29, 2022 | News
Humans are pack animals. We achieve most when we work together as a team. Teamwork can work very well with decisions debated and mutually agreed upon. However it remains the norm that teams have a leader. Ships have captains and countries have rulers. A ruler’s...
by David West | Nov 27, 2022 | News
f you’ve read previous posts, you will know that I’m reading Louis XIII: The Making of a King. The author, Elizabeth Marvick, draws extensively on the journal of Louis’s physician, Jean Héroard. As the fly leaf says, it is probably the most extensive record of the...
