Excited!

Gabriele over at The Lost Fort and Carla at Carla Nayland Historical Fiction have both nominated my very 'umble blog as E for Excellent. Thank you both! And now I shall, after much deliberation, make my own nominations which aren't in any particular order because all of them are Excellent in their own ways.

The Lost Fort is Gabriele's blog about her multifarious writing projects, mainly fantasy and historical fiction set in Roman and early medieval times, and her travels. Her posts are often illustrated with superb photographs and her sidebar has a wealth of links to like-minded blogs and websites, as well as to sites where you can read samples of her writing, which is vivid, exciting and laced with humour, as is her blog.

Carla Nayland Historical Fiction features essays on various aspects of Carla's historical and novelistic sphere of interest (Britain from the 5th to the 10th centuries AD), as well as perceptive book reviews, delicious recipes and photo features about nature and the seasons. There's also a link to her website where you can find out all about her novels and researches. I reviewed her Paths of Exile here. (It's good. Very good.)

Sarah Johnson's blog Reading the Past is a valuable source of publishing news and reading ideas in the realm of historical fiction from the reviews editor of the ever-excellent Historical Novels Review. She also features author interviews and a very entertaining series of reports on the cover illustrations of historical novels (what's in, what's out, what's duped, etc).

Susan Hill is a multi-faceted novelist and publisher who has enough energy left over from these demanding professions to run a lively and opinionated blog on books, reading, writing and many other subjects on all of which she has strong views which will certainly stimulate you whether you agree with them or not. She's even had the time to run an online creative writing course which is linked on her sidebar.

Random Jottings of a Book and Opera Lover blogs delightfully about her life as a commuter who'd much rather be reading. Her bookish interests are wide and she always has something fresh to say about the books she reads and how they have coloured her life, as does

Dovegrey Reader who's just blogged about her participation on a panel at the Oxford Literary Festival, discussing book bloggers vs literary reviewers/critics with some literary types who have recently been rather sniffy about book bloggers.

WWI: Experiences of an English Soldier wherein a descendant of the soldier is blogging his letters home from the Front 90 years to the day from when they were written. My Dad alerted me to this fascinating record, which has a tremendous immediacy and is being presented complete with photos and facsimiles. And just like our soldier when he wrote the letters, we don't know his fate when we first read them. The comments are well worth a look too.

Books and Bricks is the blog of an archaeologist who loves reading, and often comes up with enlightening links that show how books and archaeology can illuminate one another.

Here's a couple of writing blogs. Francesca Scriblerus has posted Book One of her fantasy trilogy The Lion of Encour here at regular intervals. You can read each chapter along with fascinating notes on background, influences and her thoughts about writing. Kirsten of Kirsten's Scribbling Corner is an 18-year-old student of archaeology and ancient history who's writing at least two novels set in the Roman past of her native Scotland. On her blog you can follow the development of her writings, ideas and researches as well as reading excerpts from her works in progress. I'm amazed by the maturity of her writing - and her erudition!

I hope it's OK to slip this blog in, even though I'm on its team, in a small way: It's Rosemary Sutcliff: An Appreciation. Rosemary Sutcliff was the author responsible for my lifelong devotion to historical fiction and to all things Roman and Romano-British. The blog contains posts on all aspects of her work as well as links to articles and reviews and other Sutcliffiana. For me, her Sword at Sunset (one of her few novels for adults) still stands as the best novel ever written about "King" Arthur.