What are you reading right now?

[Richland]

I have Royal Flash in my sachel for quick reads. Very fun book.
A 1970 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the second of the Flashman novels.
Royal Flash is set during the Revolutions of 1848. The story features Lola Montez, and Otto von Bismarck as major characters, and fictionalizes elements of the Schleswig-Holstein Question, 1843, 1847 and 1848. It is set in the fictional Duchy of Strackenz.

Characters include Prince Edward, Lillie Langtry, Lola Montez, Otto von Bismarck, Ludwig I of Bavaria, John Gully, Nicholas Ward, Lord Conyngham, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Oscar Wilde, Henry Irving, Karl Marx, Lord Palmerston, Viscount Peel, Jefferson Davis.

The book is loosely based on the plot of The Prisoner of Zenda. Flashman explains that this is because the story was plagiarised from him by its author, Anthony Hope.

[mexpiper]

I am currently reading 1921 by Morgan Llyelyn. I recieved the series from a friend. I just started it today while sitting outside in the highly unusual weather for western NY it was 58 degrees.

Mexpiper

[Improv1]

I am on the final chapter of Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick (the story of the first American voyage of discovery). I enjoy his style of historical/biographoical writing. His previous book, Into the Heart Of The Sea was based upon the sinking of the whaleship Essex, which is what Melville based Moby Dick on.

For Christmas, I received a book about researching your own past lives. I am working my way through it, but there are writing exercises involved, so it is a little more interactive than most books I read. I can't wait to find out more of my past!

The most interesting book I have ever read was The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes, about convict transportation to Australia.