[Re William of Malmesbury]A writer who shared his patron, political views and historical genius (even if in the use he made if it he was Lucifer to William's Michael) was Geoffrey of Monmouth.

"...people liked the same piece of music more when it was described as being by Bach versus a fictitious composer named Buxtehude" [Dieterich Buxtehude was entirely real, and admired by Bach]

Cold Iron combines a good bildungsroman, beginning with a chance encounter and cascading into a web of dramatic events which drive the maturation and formation of the central character, with a subtle narrative using a viewpoint on the outside of what is "really" going on, with the main action in the background. Plus plenty of action (especially swordfights), precise prose, careful worldbuilding, and interesting characters.

A beautifully structured book, with its Ouroboros shape, good prose and characterisation, and its very finely balanced plot (complete with a pivot at the end). Not only good in itself, but also influential as a counter to Bondian glamour in espionage fiction.

An interesting set of lectures on ancient Greek sounds and the classical views on euphony in prose and poetry. Stanford makes a strong argument for the use of the pronunciation of the classical period with tonal accents and pre-Byzantine consonants.

A nice quick read with all the typical Scalzi characteristics - decent plotting, engaging surface characterization but without a lot of depth, high readability. Like many police procedurals (which this is) most of the characters range from unappealing to malign. The glimpses of the world we catch make it look somewhat unappealing as well (deliberately on Scalzi's part - this has a polemical foundation). Still, recommended.

Of chemical improvements proper, we may note the invention and perfection of wood-pulp paper from about 1855 (there are bibliophiles and scholars who would not accept this as an advance)...

An effective intertwining of the poet's own memories with elements of the history of the North. This is also very much poetry for the ear, foreground ingredient the local dialect. One can see the legacy of the imagist emphasis on specificity of both word and image, and the paring down of text to its essentials.

Rather a disappointment. I was looking for more scientific detail and less in the way of background stories; but as a narrative it's competent but not gripping. The earlier part of the book, down to the cracking of the genetic code and the crystallographic analysis of haemoglobin, goes over ground which was dealt with in a very much superior way by Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation. The latter part is spotty and unfocussed.

This is a magisterial and impressive coverage of western mediaeval literature, beginning with the Writers and curriculum of Late Antiquity and reaching its height in the coverage of Dante. It was also Curtius' response to the rise of Nazism and the events of the Second World War, an affirmation of a continuing edifice of European culture. One of the core books of early comparative literature, along with Auerbach's Mimesis.

This is a really, really fine piece of worldbuilding and storytelling, with underlying themes regarding colonialism and issues about state authority. It's one of the least "escapist" fantasy novels I've seen recently, as it engages with a whole range of themes relevant to our present in our world, and it does so in ways which are not forced and are integral to the plot.

This is a more-or-less this-world mashup of SF and fantasy in the relatively near future, and a bildungsroman dealing with a boy and a girl who have dire childhoods, are friends in high school, and meet again as adults. It's the sort of SF where all the science is handwaving: a two-second time machine, an interdimensional gateway, a way of cancelling gravity. There is an element of the absurd drifting around the edges of the story.

For most of the Middle Ages and in most parts of Europe it was more common for lords to have land and lack men to work it than the reverse.