The Emperor’s Conspiracy Giveaway!

My agent-sister, Michelle Diener, is celebrating the release of her third novel, THE EMPEROR’S CONSPIRACY!   Can I tell you how much I love that cover?   Rather than just throw around cyber-confetti, I thought it might be fun to offer a copy of...

Dead People at Dinner

I’ve recently been reading a number of works by Voltaire (Candide is absolutely hilarious if you’re in the mood for an Enlightenment era soap opera) and really wish the famous philosophe was still alive so I could invite him to dinner. So that got me...

Crash Course: How and Why We Read

I’m not sure if any of you have seen John Green’s Crash Course:World History on YouTube, but seriously, you need to. I actually discovered this nifty (and obscenely addictive) series this year when a student told me Green reminded her of me lecturing,...

History’s Greatest Female Rulers

I was walking down the hallway behind one of my former students the other day, listening as he talked to his friend about Queen Elizabeth.  (Never mind how excited I was to hear students discussing history in the halls when they could be talking about the...