Hi, thanks for reaching out!

Wow, someone who actually read Evelyn Hardcastle? The book I was bothering all my friends with for months?

(oh, and potential spoilers discussed below by the way, for anyone else who wants to read it themselves at some point. Which you absolutely should by the way).

I was also completely enthralled by it as I was reading it! It's been a little over a year now, so my memory is a little hazy, but from what I can remember:

I personally thought that Blackheath was a simulation of a crime that happened in real life, with the Plague Doctor pulling the strings.

I feel like it functioned both as a way of solving the crime but also as a punishment for the people trapped in it. Kind of a 'killing two birds with one stone' type of situation, though I'm not one hundred percent certain about that.

The charges against Annabelle definitely sounded pretty serious! I definitely thought she must have been either a mass murderer or a dictator, so Hitler is quite fitting. No idea about the specific nature of her crimes though, I think it was left to be quite vague.

If you have any more observations to share, feel free to send them my way!

(Btw I read Turton's second book, The Devil and the Dark Water, and while I enjoyed it it didn't quite live up to the expectations set by his first work. I know he has published a third one, but I haven't gotten to it yet. Did you? If so, I'd love to hear your thought son it as well!)

Hi, thank you for the ask. I don't think I've ever answered it publicly actually!

It depends entirely on what interests you:

1. The Social Contract/Du contrat social

-> start here if you want to pick up Rousseau because you're interested in the French Revolution/politics/political philosophy. It is probably his most famous work (along with Emile maybe)

It's surprisingly readable (and funny at times!), though if you expect a perfectly coherent and logical system, be prepared for disappointment. It also helps to know at least some basics (like the gist of Hobbes' or Locke's political philosophy), but don't worry if you don't, you're still understand most of it.

2. Letter to M. d'Alembert on Spectacles

-> start here if you want a genuinely fascinating insight into late 1700s misogyny. It's chilling how some of the arguments feel so contemporary. It's fairly short, and reads more like a ramble/angry twitter thread that just pulls you right in.

It's great to get your blood boiling, but not a great start if you want to like Rousseau. Oh, and if you read it alongside Confessions, the sheer level of cognitive disonance/denial it's simply delicious.

3. Confessions

-> start here if you want to learn about Rousseau's life. It won't necessarily give you the true facts, but it will offer you a fascinating insight into his mind.

It's one hell of a ride, but it's not all weird psychosexual wtf moments. You can learn a lot from it about what life was like in the 18th century, and about the (usually unspoken) social norms. One thing I loved was that it revealed how much power French women actually had in the society, though it wasn't immediately obvious.

Also, there are some passages in which he talks about his social anxiety and insecurities where I genuinely find myself sympathising with him.

I'm also sorry to say that I firmly believe that it's a fun read. It gets very, very frustrating at times, but the man could write.

4. Introducing Rousseau by Dave Robinson

-> Start here if you want a quick overview/something to hold onto before jumping straight in!

Yeah, it's an illustrated guide, it's a tiny book and it looks a bit daft, but I personally swear by it. It's a very quick and engaging read, but it represents his philosophy and his life fairly well from what I can tell.

Pictured here with my hand and the man himself:

Honourable Mentions:

5. Discourse on the Arts and Sciences -> start here if you want to start with a text that first made Rousseau famous/are keen to approach his works in a chronological order

6. Emile, or On Education -> I haven't read this one I'm afraid (though I now own it!), but it's one of his most influential works. If you're interested in the idea of childhood and education, this one's for you! (but prepare to be angry re: Education of Sophie I guess)

Thank you for the ask! 🦇

46. whats your favorite season?

Autumn, of course! Warm sweaters + hot drinks + leaves changing colour + that certain crisp smell in the air (& my birthday)

54. whats your best hottake?

I'm not sure if it's best but I firmly believe that a lot of popular non-fiction books (especially the pop psych/self help book kind that you always find at the airport) are low-key garbage.

I'm sure that a good fiction book can help you learn something about yourself, change your perspective, or even improve your life much more than the average 'How to Deal with Toxic People in Your Life and Win at Capitalism' could ever do.

71. whats your favorite song?

It's really tricky to pick just one, it keeps changing! But the one that stayed with me the longest is probably Placebo's Every You Every Me.

I think it's partially because of the time I first heard it , I associate it with a specific place and period of my life.

The tension between me and the €5 copy of Emile I found in a second-hand bookshop —

(am I ready to have my life ruined by a suspiciously cheap copy of Rousseau's work once again? The pile of assigned reading screams No!, but...)

Hi, thanks for the ask!

Marie Antoinette is an interesting gateway to frevblr, as she tends to be quite unpopular here. But I'm certain that if your interest in her runs deeper than an appreciation for the glamour and aesthetic, you'll fit right in!

MOVIES

I myself started with watching La Révolution française (1989). The movie has been criticised a lot here, and for good reasons, but I still think it works well as an introduction, as long as you don't treat it as the literal truth.

Plus, finding differences between the movie and a more accurate historical interpretations is, at least for me, part of the fun! You can watch it here. I would definitely recommend watching the second part with subtitles, as @saint-jussy points out some of the movies... biases as the scenes play out.

There are certainly better movies to watch though. La Terreur et la Vertu is one of them. It has been recommended to me by people on frevblr (@nesiacha I'm pretty sure?), and I'm definitely more than happy to pass the recommendation on!

There's also the Danton (1983) movie, but I'd personally recommend to go straight to the source and read Stanisława Przybyszewska's The Danton Case (and Thermidor, if you find yourself liking her style!). It feels different from the more contemporary plays, but I personally think it's great! It also covers the period of the Revolution I'm personally most invested in (1793 and especially pre-Thermidor 1794).

Oh, and if you're not put off by old movies, I have watched the 1927 Napoleon and thought it was really spectacular! It focuses mostly on Napoleon obviously, but you get to see the revolutionaries as well, in a way that is now rarely portrayed on the big screen.

PODCASTS

When it comes to podcasts, there's one called Revolutions which covers the French Revolution in great detail, but I haven't listened to all the episodes myself yet. It's not always perfectly accurate but I think you can see that a lot of work went into it.

I'd usually recommend BBC's In Our Time as a solid starting point for any topic you might be interested in. They bring on academics that specialise in that topic and often have great discussions. That said, if there's one thing I've learnt this year, it's that the French Revolution and the BBC don't really mix...

BOOKS

As for books, Twelve who ruled by R. R. Palmer is a classic! It helps to show how the evil all-powerful dictator Robespierre narrative is very much a myth.

I have also read Scurr's biography of Robespierre as well, but I feel like I'd risk being thrown to the Luxembourg if I recommend it to anyone. It's a fun read but Scurr's approach to historiography is often... let's say lax and a bit too creative a lot of the times. McPhee's Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life is meant to be much better, but I'm sadly yet to read it!

I also loved Marat's biography - Jean Paul Marat: Tribune of the French Revolution! I love a good biography and Marat is such an interesting and important figure for the revolution.

That said, if you are looking for books to read, @saintjustitude already put together a great list here!

Hope this helps, and welcome!✨

(if anyone feels like adding things to this feel free to reblog!)

Thanks for the ask kind anon and sorry for taking forever to answer! (this one was not easy!)

Top 5 books of all time?

In no particular order:

1. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Set in an interesting historical period (Canada in the 1800s) + partially based on real events + focuses on women's issues + from a female perspective + includes complex, morally grey characters + unreliable narrator trope + criminal (sub)plot + weird historical psychoanalysis & psychiatry + some really great writing. Need I say more?

(Also the show is actually really good as well, if you don't feel like reading the book!)

2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

I mean, it's a classic for a reason. Gay yearning. Corruption. Murder. Beautiful descriptive prose. But hey, this is Tumblr, so I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here.

(Still need to get my hands on the uncensored version at some point!)

3. The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

I've reread this one more times than I can count. Duffy draws on the classics (mostly Greek mythology, but also fairy tale characters and even Faust) but reimagines them through a more contemporary, as well as female perspective. That could go wrong really easily, but this book in fact does a stellar job in my opinion.

Just read Eurydice, my favourite (I don't think I've ever felt quite as represented by a poem before). Or Medusa. Or Pygmalion's Bride.

Or, you know, and poem that is not Mrs. Tiresias - I like to pretend that one is not there.

4. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Very much my teenage obsession. It's a gripping read written from the point of view of a teenage criminal that speaks in a strange mix of English and Russian that is at first barely coherent. It's raw, it's brutal, but it also asks some very interesting questions about the nature of morality and free will in a way that does not feel forced.

Oh, and the movie's great as well. Possibly the best soundtrack of all time. So good and so problematic that it's been banned in the UK until the 2000s.

5. The Great Cat Massacre (and Other Episodes in French Cultural History) by Robert Darnton

A collection of essays focusing on the microhistory of 18th century France? It's a real mystery why I like it so much, huh.

It's actually a bit insane how much I owe to this book. It arguably helped to spark my Rousseau and Diderot (and, in general, enlightenment era) obsession. I also sneakily reapplied Darnton's argument to justify my thesis (it's totally necessary to study 18th-century mental health approaches, give me all the funds now, please! /s).

Darnton is not only a hilarious author, but you also get a sense that he truly cares about the people he writes about. If you get your hands on it, I recommend reading chapter 4 (includes police description of the key enlightenment figures, like V, Rousseau, and Diderot!) or chapter 6 (the Rousseau stan culture analysis).

Maybe skip the titular chapter, especially if you are fond of cats. I'm afraid the name is, in this case, quite literal.

Thank you for the ask! ^^

10. Do you have a guilty fav?

Oh boy do I!

Rousseau's Confessions definitely fits that category to a t. I might as well come clean and admit how much I actually enjoyed reading at least the first few books (while also finding myself frustrated with JJ to the point of madness ofc - many, many times).

I would of course never go full Brissot, but I can't rule out a potential re-read in the future...

Apart from that, I also have a lot of complicated feelings about Chuck Palahniuk's books (probably most famous for Fight Club). No other author seem to oscillate between brilliant and absolutely atrocious as much as he does.

15. recommend and review a book:

It's been a while since I've read it, but I really liked Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad!

I know the book market is currently overflowing with Greek myths retellings, but this one is one of the original ones and - at least for me - one of the good ones.

I felt like Atwood didn't sanitise Penelope's character but rather made her a complex, quite morally grey heroine. I enjoyed seeing the events of the Odyssey from her perspective more than say, that of Miller's Circe. The way she felt bitterly jealous of Helen, the few sweet moments which fleshed out her relationship with Odysseus, her interactions with Telemachus... Atwood's Penelope just somehow felt more like a human being.

I also loved how she made Penelope's 12 maids into a Greek chorus, utilised a lot of different genres throughout the book (including a 21st century academic lecture), and reinterpreted one often overlooked passage of The Odyssey in a fascinating new way. No spoilers, but just for that alone, it's worth a read!

Thanks for the ask! ^^

7. Is there a book/series that got you into reading?

I don't think I can point out a single book or a series? My mum used to read to me a lot when I was a kid and then I sort of transitioned from that to reading on my own. But there were definitely books that reignited my interest in reading!

The one book series that sent me on an almost two-year reading binge in my tweens was Terry Pratchett's Discworld Series (in my defence there's more than 40 books in total!) I haven't read any of the books in a long while, but I think it's amazing how much of it still holds up. Something about Pratchett's empathy and humanism still gets me.

8. What is the first book you remember reading yourself?

I do actually remember which one that was! It was Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking. I don't remember that much from it, except that it made me want to have a pet monkey. Oh, and I think pirates were involved at some point?

Thank you for the ask! ^^

6. what books have you read in the last month?

I've tried to really keep up with my reading list this summer (& mostly failed 🙃) but still managed to read a lot of great ones!

I also know for a fact that I won't be able to keep up with my reading list once school starts, so I felt like I should make use of the time I have in the summer

20. what are things you look for in a book?

Lately? A stamp of approval from my mutuals ✨

But in general, I usually either pick up a book that's on a topic that interests me (like a favourite historical era) or a book by an author that I find interesting (works well for philosophers as well as those authors whose personal lives were even more of a wild ride than their books).

When it comes to the book itself, I appreciate a good prose. The kind of book that includes passages you want to immediately write down or memorise by heart.

Oh, and this will sound cheesy, but I really love books with which you can read between the lines? Like the ones that can reveal a lot about the author or about the times it was written, even if it's not immediately obvious.

Thank you for the ask ✨

Oh boy... It's a split between George Orwell's 1984 and Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. I swear I read the latter like three times in one year. It's a relatively short book, but still...

I was, for some reason, obsessed with both of them when I was a teenager.

12. Did you enjoy any compulsory high school readings?

Definitely! Already answered here, but I'll throw in Lord of the Flies and Mňačko's The Taste of Power as well for good measure. (That last one is so good! I'm convinced that if it was written by an English-speaking author instead of a Slovak one, it would be super famous and taught in schools around the world. To me, it's basically a 'what if Kundera - but with interesting and complex female characters actually?')

thank you for the ask! ^^

4. What sections of a bookstore do you browse?

The English language books section because I swear English editions have the prettiest covers!

No, in all seriousness, I usually look at history (+ biographies) section, the classics (in a broader sense, not just Greek or Roman), then poetry or philosophy if I'm in the mood.

It does depend on the vibe of the bookstore though, because philosophy sections would sometimes contain things like Peterson's books and my poor heart just can't cope with that.

12. Did you enjoy any compulsory high school readings?

I did! I'd say I enjoyed the majority of them. It would be easier to name the ones I didn't enjoy (cough cough Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther. Sorry Mrs. Z!)

Some of my absolute favourites include The Picture of Dorian Gray, All Quiet on the Western Front, Jane Eyre, Lord of the Flies, 1984, and Hamlet.

Books tag game time! Thanks @marcusagrippa for the tag ✨

Last book I read: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions

Confessions... not going to go into it in this post. It's a wild ride for sure. But if you're interested in mental health (issues) in the 1700s, it's a fairly interesting source material.

Book I recommend:

I've recently finished Carlo Ginzuburg's Cheese and Worms. It's an absolute classic! It's also a fairly quick read. I'd recommend it to anyone who's curious to see how modern historical research doesn't have to just be about famous kings or medieval battles (or if you want to read about an unhinged oddly progressive 16th century Italian miller. Menocchio is the best and I adore him!)

Book I couldn't put down:

That usually happens with murder mysteries, since I want to keep reading until I find out what happened. One of them is Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (also a classic, and definitely an interesting spin on the genre),

the other is Stuart Turton's The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Nothing to do with history but it's so unique and so good! The best way I can describe it is that reading it feels like playing a video game, in the best way possible. It also opens up some interesting philosophical questions at the end. I've been (unsuccessfully) trying to convince my friends to read it for a year now 🙃

Book I've read twice:

I've read a lot of books multiple times for my final high school exams, but the two I know I've read twice for reasons unrelated are Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange (I rant about it any time I get a book ask, so I'll refrain from it here) and George Orwell's 1984 (I was obsessed with it in my early teens for some reason).

There are a lot of books I loved in my teens that I would be curious to read once again, to see if my perception has changed. It did happen for 1984 and Hamlet, so it would be interesting to see if it's the same case for other works as well!

A book on my TBR:

Gosh, so many. But one is Plutarch's Parallel Lives! I'm so curious about it but still haven't gotten around to actually reading it. I've only read short passages so far and I want to fix that! (Though good news is my grandparents actually have a copy in their library so I'll just snatch... um, borrow it at some point)

A book I've put down:

It used to happen quite a lot, but ever since I've started basing my reading on Tumblr... no okay, in all honesty, I've put down C. S. Forester's Hornblower and didn't get back to it for years. Although I love the tv series, I just couldn't get into the book. But I still kind of want to give it a go at some point in the future.

A book on my wishlist:

I've been obsessed with the Introducing Graphic Guides recently and I just want to collect them like Pokemon cards!!

They are very digestible and so, so good! I read one on Rousseau and Machiavelli, I bought one on the Enlightenment which I'm saving as a treat, but I need Žižek as well... and Foucault... and Romanticism...

A favourite book from childhood:

I know there recently was a movie that was... not good, but I loved Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines. It was this sort of steampunk-esque fantasy book which had a really interesting female protagonist. I mean I'm only just now realising how subversive it was that the main heroine was fairly unlikeable and very flawed but still someone you were meant to ultimately root for?

There was also a parallel about social darwinism – the world of the book had cities flying in the skies that were devouring smaller cities, robbing them blind and enslaving their populations. The governments had a flimsy quasi-philosophical justification for all this, but the heroes of the books were fighting against the status quo. Looking back, I still think the series was pretty cool!

A book you would give to a friend:

Recently borrowed Émilie du Châtelet's Discourse on Happiness to my friend after she went through a break-up. I'm hoping É's words of wisdom might help her!

A book of poetry/lyrics you own:

Catullus (a Czech and an English translation) of course!

I've also recently bought Ovid's Letters of Heroines in a second-hand bookshop and I'm looking forward to getting into it.

A non-fiction book you own:

A fair amount of biographies of old white dudes, to the surprise of noone...

but to give a little more interesting answer, I do own all the books by Jon Ronson. He's a British journalist writing about current issues and I find him to be both really funny and really insightful!

His books about the psychiatric industry (The Psychopath Test) and modern-day ostracism (So You've Been Publically Shamed) are especially good and I'd recommend them to everyone!

Currently reading:

Voltaire's biography - Roger Pearon's Voltaire Almighty. It may not be a prefect academic source, but his writing style is great and I'm really enjoying it so far!

I'm also on-and-off with Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety. I think I'll save it for once I start uni again.

Planning on reading next:

Denis Diderot's The Nun! I'm super curious because it sounds like a really interesting book for understanding sexuality and gender in the enlightenment era.

tagging @chaotic-history @my-deer-friend @theghostofbean and @iron--and--blood ! No pressure of course ✨