#carolyn meyer

[bookwormchocaholic]

ask game: 8!!

8. a book you've finished in one setting?

I'm sure I've done this more than once, especially when I was a teen and had no hobbies outside of reading (not much has changed, lol). But this is the book that comes to mind.

Earlier in 2000, I heard a fictionalized diary for Anastasia Romanov was being released and I was desperate to get my hands on it. My Mom and sister bought it for me to give to me for Christmas. Christmas rolls around, I opened their present and viola there it was, and I just devoured it. Had it finished within a few hours. Just adored it. I still have my copy.

[the-final-sentence]

He ruled the two kingdoms fairly and well.

Carolyn Meyer, from Beauty’s Daughter

[myhikari21things]

Read of Anastasia the Last Grand Duchess by Carolyn Meyer (2000) (190pgs)

[boricuacherry-blog]

I cried so hard reading this book. It's so good.

[onebluebookworm]

September 2023 Book Club Picks

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith: Cassandra Mortmain lives in a crumbling Suffolk castle with her penniless and eccentric family - her wild-tempered author father, her precocious younger brother, and her sensible older sister - recording their various misadventures in her diary. When two wealthy American brothers become their new landlords, Cassandra and her sister are immediately drawn to them, wondering if perhaps they've finally found an escape from their mundane lives.

Deborah Goes to Dover by Marion Chesney: Hannah Pym sets out once more for a glorious adventure, this time destined for Dover. Of course, what's an adventure with the infamous Traveling Matchmaker without matches to make? First, there's poor Abigail Cunningham, accompanied by her mother to be shuffled into a loveless marriage. Then there's tomboyish Deborah Western, encouraged to a life of lazy excess by her unruly twin brother William. Hannah isn't about to let two eligible ladies go astray, not when there are handsome eligible bachelors to pair them with!

The Only One Left by Riley Sager: Everyone knows the story of the Hope's End massacre - on a stormy, cold night in 1929, Lenora Hope systematically killed her whole family, stabbing her father and mother, and hanging her sister from the chandelier. Lenora swore she didn't do it and was never formally charged, but it had to be her. After all, she was the only one left. Fifty-four years later, Kit McDeere has been assigned to Hope's End as a caregiver after a series of strokes leaves Lenora almost totally immobilized, save her left hand. And one night, Lenora uses that left hand to plunk out a simple sentence on an old typewriter - I want to tell you everything. As Lenora tells Kit her story, it's clear that there's more to the story than anyone knows, and Kit begins to wonder how much she can trust this seemingly harmless woman.

Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer: Mary Tudor - Princess of Wales, only surviving child of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon - leads a life full of riches and admiration, destined to rule all of England one day. But vicious rumors begin to circulate through the court - King Henry's eyes have begun to wander, vexed that Catherine never provided him with a proper male heir. His sights land on the beautiful and ambitious Anne Boleyn, and turns his kingdom upside down to be allowed to marry her. Mary, only a child, is thrown into a dangerous world of political intrigue, spies, and love gone mad as her once-beloved father tears her life apart, strips her of her title, her home, and her mother, and declares her a bastard, unfit to inherit the throne. But Mary endures. After all, it is her destiny to rule one day.

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: When her father loses the family savings on a risky investment, young Agnes Grey decides to easy her family's financial burden by taking a position as a governess to a wealthy family. Ecstatic at the thought that she has finally gained control and freedom over her own life, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield mansion armed with confidence and purpose. The cruelty with which the family treat her however, slowly but surely strips the heroine of all dignity and belief in humanity.

[spray10101]

Christmas Book Haul

I know that I’m a month late but here are all the books I got for Christmas in 2022. I do plan on reading all of the theses eventually. Don’t know when I will though. Hopefully by the end of the year.

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Kristina: The Girl King | Author: Carolyn Meyer | Publisher: Scholastic (2003)

[lilyaquarius]

As a bonus, put the first book you can remember reading by the author in the tags!

If your favorite author isn't here, put their name in the tags!

[maddie-grove]

Little Book Review: Isabel: Jewel of Castilla

Author: Carolyn Meyer.

Publication Date: 2000.

Genre: Historical YA.

Premise: It's 1466, and fifteen-year-old Princess Isabel has been banished to Segovia by her suspicious half-brother, King Enrique IV, to live with his wife Queen Juana. She hates her party-hearty sister-in-law, misses her younger brother and sickly mom, and fears being married off or otherwise used as a pawn. Devoutly religious, intellectually curious, and politically savvy, she has considerable inner resources, but will that be enough to dodge the various traps set for her?

Thoughts: I always liked Carolyn Meyer, whom I mostly knew from her Young Royals series, but I never put her in the same class of YA historical authors as, say, Karen Cushman or Kathryn Lasky. My general experience of her books was that they had a lot of emotional resonance and great period detail, but suffered from serious pacing problems. As a result, I was pleasantly surprised by this early entry in Scholastic's The Royal Diaries series. Meyer captures the extraordinary energy and intelligence that enabled Isabel to take charge of her circumstances and exert so much influence, but she also shows how Isabel's ruthless, rigid belief system enables her to dehumanize anyone she deems to be in the out-group. She has a few good impulses--some affection for a converso lady-in-waiting, a moment of reflection about whether her approach to religion is too punitive--but they aren't enough in the face of the endemic antisemitism of her environment or her own sense of moral uprightness when she chooses intolerance and suspicion.

Hot Goodreads Take: "She's not quite right. Religiously intolerant," says one review of Isabel, which is more than fair.

[wallflowerglitter]

[fairweathermyth]

VELVET GOLDMINE dir. Todd Haynes, 1998 Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Brian Slade costume design by Sandy Powell

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Do you have any historical fiction book recs?

I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, so the majority of this list will compromise YA histfic from the late 90s/early 00s.

The early Dear America and Royal Diaries books were pretty foundational for me, and I still go back to reread them. Carolyn Meyer(s?) wrote some great histfic along the lines of Royal Diaries. Jane Yolen’s The Queen’s Own Fool is excellent, and of course, we stan Number the Stars. And none for Philippa Gregory byeeeee.

As for contemporary titles, the Maisie Dobbs books are 💯💯. They take place between the 1920s and 1940s, brilliant lady detective, excellent period detail. Also, the book that’s made like, the biggest impression on me since 2016 is Jerusalem by Alan Moore. It’s kind of hard to even describe what that book is about, but it’s MAGNIFICENT and has several long sections that deal with English class and racial history, and also Oliver Cromwell. I also enjoyed the first three books of the Outlander series.

Oh, and I love The Red Tent, (it gives Mists of Avalon but Genesis instead of Arthurian) tho that might be Hebrew Bible fanfic* as opposed to histfic.

Anyway, there are a lot of folks here who I’m sure will chime in with more current and diverse recs, so don’t forget to check the notes 🙂

ETA: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

*id actually argue that all histfic is fanfic, but im not hating.

[princesssarisa]

Opera on YouTube 6

Pagliacci

Franco Enriques studio film, 1954 (Franco Corelli, Mafalda Micheluzzi, Tito Gobbi; conducted by Alfredo Simonetto; no subtitles)

Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, 1961 (Mario del Monaco, Gabriella Tucci, Aldo Protti; conducted by Giuseppe Morelli; Japanese subtitles)

Herbert von Karajan studio film, 1968 (Jon Vickers, Raina Kabaivanska, Peter Glossop; conducted by Herbert von Karajan; no subtitles)

Franco Zeffirelli film, 1983 (Plácido Domingo, Teresa Stratas, Juan Pons; conducted by Georges Prêtre; English subtitles) – Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI

Metropolitan Opera, 1994 (Luciano Pavarotti, Teresa Stratas, Juan Pons; conducted by James Levine; Spanish subtitles)

Ravena Festival, 1998 (Plácido Domingo, Svetla Vassileva, Juan Pons; conducted by Riccardo Muti; Italian subtitles)

Zürich Opera House, 2009 (José Cura, Fiorenza Cedolins, Carlo Guelfi; conducted by Stefano Ranzani; no subtitles)

Chorégies d'Orange, 2009 (Roberto Alagna, Inva Mula, Seng-Hyoun Ko; conducted by Georges Prêtre; French subtitles)

Gran Teatre del Liceu, 2011 (Marcello Giordani, Angeles Blancas, Vittorio Vitelli; conducted by Daniele Callegari; English subtitles – ignore the silly references to Norse mythology and aliens that the translator threw in, they're not in the actual libretto)

Latvian National Opera, 2019 (Sergei Polyakov, Tatiana Trenogina, Vladislav Sulimsky; conducted by Jānis Liepiņš; no subtitles)

Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Dresden State Opera, 1977 (Armin Ude, Carolyn Smith-Meyer, Barbara Sternberer, Rolf Tomaszewski; conducted by Peter Gülke; no subtitles)

Bavarian State Opera, 1980 (Francisco Araiza, Edita Gruberova, Reri Grist, Martti Talvela; conducted by Karl Böhm; English subtitles)

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1988 (Deon van der Walt, Inga Nielson, Lillian Watson, Kurt Moll; conducted by Georg Solti; English subtitles)

Salzburg Festival, 1989 (Deon van der Walt, Inga Nielson, Lillian Watson, Kurt Rydl; conducted by Horst Stein; no subtitles)

Théâtre du Châtelet, 1991 (Stanford Olsen, Luba Orgonasova, Cyndia Sieden, Cornelius Hauptmann; conducted by John Eliot Gardiner; French subtitles)

Vienna State Opera, 1989 (Kurt Streit, Aga Winska, Elzbieta Szmytka, Artur Korn; conducted by Nicolaus Harnoncourt; Hungarian subtitles) – Act I, Act II

Teatro della Pergola, 2002 (Rainer Trost, Eva Mei, Patrizia Ciofi, Kurt Rydl; conducted by Zubin Mehta; Spanish subtitles)

Gran Teatre del Liceu, 2012 (Christoph Strehl, Diana Damrau, Olga Peretyatko, Franz-Josef Selig; conducted by Ivor Bolton; Catalan subtitles)

Bankhead Theatre, 2018 (David Walton, Alexandra Batsios, Elena Galvan, Kevin Langan; conducted by Alex Katsman; English subtitles)

Theatro São Pedro, 2023 (Daniel Umbelino, Ludmilla Bauerfeldt, Ana Carolina Coutinho, Luiz-Ottavio Faria; conducted by Cláudio Cruz; Brazilian Portuguese subtitles)

Un Ballo in Maschera

Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, 1967 (Carlo Bergonzi, Antonietta Stella, Mario Zanassi; conducted by Oliviero di Fabritiis; Spanish subtitles)

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1975 (Plácido Domingo, Katia Ricciarelli, Piero Cappuccilli; conducted by Claudio Abbado, English subtitles)

Teatro alla Scala, 1978 (Luciano Pavarotti, Mara Zampieri, Piero Cappuccilli; conducted by Claudio Abbado; Italian subtitles)

Metropolitan Opera, 1980 (Luciano Pavarotti, Katia Ricciarelli, Louis Quilico; conducted by Giuseppe Patané; no subtitles)

Royal Swedish Opera, 1986 (Nicolai Gedda, Siv Wennberg, Carl Johan Falkman; conducted by Eri Klas; sung in Swedish; Swedish subtitles)

Salzburg Festival, 1990 (Plácido Domingo, Josephine Barstow, Leo Nucci; conducted by Georg Solti; Spanish subtitles)

Leipzig Opera House, 2006 (Massimiliano Pisapia, Chiara Taigi, Franco Vassallo; conducted by Riccardo Chailly; English subtitles) – Part I, Part II

Teatro Regio di Torino, 2012 (Gregory Kunde, Oksana Dyka, Gabriele Viviani; conducted by Renato Palumbo; no subtitles) – Part I, Part II

Chorégies d'Orange, 2013 (Ramón Vargas, Kristin Lewis, Lucio Gallo; conducted by Alain Altinoglu; French subtitles)

Arena di Verona, 2014 (Francesco Meli, Hui He, Luca Salsi; conducted by Andrea Battistoni; no subtitles)

Cavalleria Rusticana

Giorgio Strehler studio film, 1968 (Gianfranco Cecchele, Fiorenza Cossotto; conducted by Herbert von Karajan; no subtitles)

Metropolitan Opera, 1974 (Franco Tagliavini, Grace Bumbry; conducted by John Nelson; no subtitles)

Franco Zeffirelli film, 1983 (Plácido Domingo, Elena Obraztsova; conducted by Georges Prêtre; no subtitles)

Ravenna Festival, 1996 (José Cura, Waltraud Meier; conducted by Riccardo Muti; Italian subtitles)

Ópera de Bellas Artes, 2008 (Alfredo Portilla, Violeta Dávalos; conducted by Marco Zambelli; Spanish subtitles)

Zürich Opera, 2009 (José Cura, Paoletta Marrocu; conducted by Stefano Ranzani; no subtitles)

Chorégies d'Orange, 2009 (Roberto Alagna, Beatrice Uria-Monzon; conducted by Georges Prêtre; French subtitles)

Gran Teatre del Liceu, 2011 (Marcello Giordani, Ildiko Komlosi; conducted by Daniele Gallegari; Spanish subtitles)

Mikhailovsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, 2012 (Fyodor Ataskevich, Iréne Theorin; conducted by Daniele Rustioni; English subtitles)

Vienna State Opera, 2019 (Younghoon Lee, Elina Garanča; conducted by Graeme Jenkins; English subtitles)

[myhikari21things]

Read of Isabel Jewel of Castilla by Carolyn Meyer (2000) (180pgs)

[oristian]

What are some of your favourite non-SJM books?

Oh, I love this question!

My all time favorite book is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I have been reading this book for years, over and over again and I never get tired of it. It is always the first book I recommend to people.

I’ll list some more (not all) —

When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Babel by R. F. Kuang

The Poppy War Trilogy by R. F. Kuang

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

The Host by Stephanie Meyer

The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah

The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Nancy Drew Series by Carolyn Keene

[thisbibliomaniac]

"American Girl is probably going to be the only exposure young girls are going to get to history from a female perspective."

So you've never heard of Mandie, or Dear America, or The Royal Diaries, or Anne of Green Gables, or Betsy-Tacy, or Carolyn Meyer, or The Magic Treehouse, or Ann Rinaldi, or—