The Steel Bonnets

[vmac3205]

By George MacDonald Fraser has just been re-released. Got my copy in my bag and anxiously waiting to sit down with it!

Hey Streetcar,

I don't know what area of the Emerald City you live in, but while I had some time to kill a few months back. I found a great bookstore. Can't think of the name, but it is in the old Ballard library, right in Ballard. Check it out, They have some great books and the largest nautical section I have seen.

Victoria

[Streetcar]

Hey Streetcar,

I don't know what area of the Emerald City you live in, but while I had some time to kill a few months back. I found a great bookstore. Can't think of the name, but it is in the old Ballard library, right in Ballard. Check it out, They have some great books and the largest nautical section I have seen.

Victoria

I don't get to the Ballard area much, but it sounds like it's worth the trip. Barnes and Noble and the like are good, but I love roaming through an "independant" book seller.

[gilmore]

I recently finished "The Steel Bonnets." It's an interesting read, and well worth it, especially for those who descend from Border families. However, it's not without flaws. The material is organized in a unique way that is often distracting. When the chronological narrative finally begins in the last section of the book, it neglects the earlier periods, and focuses on the Tudor era, especially Elizabethan, with a cursory coverage of the last days of the reivers during the reign of James I & VI. This is understandable, since there is more material, and it is more readily available, on the later period, but it would be interesting to get more of an idea how Border culture developed into what it did. And it was a mess, according to Fraser, with the constant fear of raids especially in the fall and winter, generations-long feuds, etc.

It's ironic that in photos we see a now-peaceful country that had such a violent past.