Pages Ago is developing

So its the end of April and nearly time for the Pages Ago promotion to be launched. I feel as if some progress has been made this week, though there is still plenty that could be done. Quite a few library authorities have been telling me about their plans. Bolton Libraries have put some confirmed events up on the website. Wirral have planned an ambitious Victorian themed day for July. I had a very productive meeting in Liverpool's World History Museum this week and they are keen to work with the library service there. We were also delighted to hear in Manchester that Bernard Cornwell will make a rare appearance here during the big Readers Day/Historical Novel Society conference weekend which is very exciting.

But the more that gets organised the more I think of things which still could be done. For example I've just had the notion of collecting together information about all the historical reading websites and blogs out there which deserve more readers. I'm sure that there's work to be done researching and listing them all.

In the land that is the crossover zone between work and leisure I am trying to build up my own reading of historical fiction. I just finished Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold, a fictionalised interpretation of Charles' Dickens family life and treatment of his wife. While slightly overlong and a bit repetetive, I enjoyed this and found it a very interesting expose of how married women at the time had no control of their own circumstances, in this case to the extremity of losing contact with much-loved children.

Next I'm going to read some Roman History from Robert Harris, then I must read a Lindsay Davis in preparation for introducing her in Chester; the list will grow and grow this year.