Happy blogiversary to me, and other news

I should have noted this on my last post, but Reading the Past effectively went "live" on March 25, 2006. Now, about 22, 000 visitors later, we're at 187 posts and I don't know how many comments. Thanks for reading and commenting, everyone.

Penguin's fall catalogs for 2007 just went online, and sometime this weekend I'll be updating the usual forthcoming books page with all the juicy details. There are a number of historicals of note, such as Robin Maxwell's latest, at left, appearing from NAL in November. Maxwell's an expert on the Tudor period, and she seems to have mined the one part of Anne Boleyn's life not yet overdone in fiction: her youth (and sexual awakening) at the French court. This sounds like it could be a unique take, but apart from this, I admit to feeling Tudored-out, and I haven't even gotten to The Boleyn Inheritance yet. And with Alison Weir (per historicalfiction.org) and Margaret George both working on novels about Elizabeth I - though different aspects of her life, to be sure - I'm wondering whether there'll be anything new to read about there, either.

Other upcoming historicals: Ken Follett's World Without End, a sequel to his The Pillars of the Earth (October); S. Thomas Russell's Under Enemy Colors, "a sweeping novel of maritime mutiny" set against the backdrop of the French Revolution (September); Lian Hearn's Heaven's Net is Wide (August), a prequel to her Otori novels set in an alternate feudal Japan (I love this series); and Jennifer Ashley's The Queen's Handmaiden (October), the story of Kat Ashley's niece,who becomes a confidante to the young Elizabeth Tudor. It does look interesting, which makes me feel conflicted about my comments earlier, but if we have to have more Tudors - and it looks like we will - I'd rather read about people on the periphery of the court.