a book recommendation

Please excuse my lack of posting the past few days. Whether it's after Christmas jet-lag or the weather, I'm not sure, but I just haven't felt that great for a few days. And I've spent most of that time curled up on the couch with my cats. Who are loving the extra attention.

And I'm reading a fat book that I highly recommend if you like historical fiction—Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund. She wrote Ahab's Wife, too, and I think someone recommended it to me but I haven't read it yet. Anyway, this book is a fictionalized account of Marie Antoinette from the time she arrived in France to her untimely death. And it has all the historical details but written like a juicy novel so you'll find yourself just flying through the pages.

Interesting that she never said "Let them eat cake." But she did talk about her embroidery in letters to her mother. It seems she was quite accomplished at it and made lovely needlework items for her husband and friends.

"I truly love my embroidery, as it puts me in a kind of trance. I am not transported into another world as I am at the theater or even when I read an engaging book, but I enter a deep, still place within myself as I create flowers in thread. I feel calm and happy, which is a good balance for the thrill of the gaming table, though I gamble much less now and only in my own apartment; instead I often play billiards."

Oh, yes, she had a bit of a gambling problem, too!