Иванна

KURT RUSSELL as R.J. MACREADY

math your gonna need that when your older

ya did clean

jack my meat perhaps?

that dragon fucking a car (hated this one)

my name is waluigi and im here to say i am going to kill Luigi so freaking bad

Dad?

shit the bed god damn

frog screams weed poop

skeleton on a motorcycle (literally only i did this)

Dark Queens by Shelly Puhak: are you super knowledgeable about royal court politics and the roles women played in them in 6th/7th century europe? me neither! do you want to lay out on the beach poring over scholarly tomes to learn about it? me neither! so read this book instead. Puhak’s background is as a novelist, not a historian, and it shows. lots of emphasis on painting specific emotionally charged scenes (marriages! murder! scheming! dynastic feuds! maternal grief! ostentatiously ascetic nuns! gruesome medieval executions! fun for the whole family!) and it reads like a novel. a good time

Femina by Janina Ramirez: Ramirez IS a historian, albeit a pop historian, which is not a bad thing. Gold standard breezy read if you’re into medieval history, women’s history, catholic history, catholicism in general, vikings, archaeology, it’s got something for everyone. eminently readable and easily accessible even if you’ve never delved into any of these subjects before. medieval women. there were a lot of them. they did stuff. they made stuff. they wrote stuff. it’s cool.

The Secret History of the Mongol Queens by Jack Weatherford: hey, turns out medieval women did stuff outside of europe too. might be a bit outdated (it’s now 16 years old) but extremely extremely readable, comprehensive, and interesting. grabbed it off the shelf on a whim and wound up blowing through like 80 pages in a single poolside tanning sesh. give it a shot

The Royal Wardrobe by Rosie Harte: this book was definitely not for me but it might be for you. easy breezy beautiful beach read. overview of fashion history amongst the british monarchy. i checked it out thinking it would be a deep dive into, like, textile industry sourcing and its relationship to the english crown and then british empire but it is Not That. moreso a look into the ways english/british monarchs styled themselves/used fashion as propaganda/etc. if you’re already generally knowledgeable about that there won’t be much in there that’s new but imo thats a feature and not a bug. the author is apparently a Tik Tok creator and you can really tell, and i don’t even mean that as a read. even tho it was mostly presenting me with info i already knew a lot about it still managed to hold my attention extremely well. it’s a fun book and also i mean it completely earnestly when i say that if the subject interests you and you’re also trying to rebuild your algorithm-wrecked attention span and dopamine receptors this is a stellar entry point.

Heavenly Bodies by Paul Koudounaris: found out while google spell checking the author’s name that apparently there is a spicy romantasy franchise series of the same name. this is not that. more catholic history. what to do when martin luther threatens your church hegemony? dig up some bones, cover them in exquisite finery, and parade them around the continent. more of a photography/coffee table type of book (you can stare at the pictures for hours and you will want to!) but the historical and theological narrative is interesting too.