50 Book Challenge

Not Myself is a Harry Potter fanfiction response to the Severitus Challenge. This challenge started quite a few years back (I don't remember exactly when), and has a few components. The basis of it, however, is that Harry is revealed to be the son of Severus Snape, not James Potter. This is one of the better responses to that challenge that I've found. The authoress adjusted the very beginning of Harry's story - instead of the Dursleys taking baby Harry into their home, they instead abandoned him in an alley in London. From there, his life is changed in many ways from canon. The first four years follow the books as closely as possible within the variations Harry's parentage and upbringing provide, but the last three differ greatly, with only vague connections to the events of the final three novels. ( Collapse ) With the introduction of quite a few new characters, and fleshing out of some of those merely mentioned in the novels, many of them Slytherins, this is a series that I really enjoyed, and would recommend to fans of Harry Potter everywhere.

During lunch yesterday I finished reading another ebook/another Osprey, this one being:

Osprey Men-at-Arms #445: Medieval Polish Armies 966 – 1500 has been on my list to read for some time, but I've never gotten around to picking up a copy. Most books on the Medieval world deal with Italy, Britain or France, but not Poland. Various things happened, but were they interesting? Hmm...

This is a gorgeous book, containing really high quality photos from the two series of Downton Abbey.

I picked it up initially expecting it to be an in-depth behind the scenes/production values book, and to a small extent it was, but what I really loved about it was the way it combined social history with the characters and plots from the series which made it really interesting.

Many points were illustrated by referencing a certain character, so it was easy to relate to the subject and see an example of it in a character from the show. It made the subject really come to life in a vivid way that I haven't particularly come across before.

I don’t tend to read much non-fiction, but this book was a pleasure to read, and I found myself getting really caught up in the detail, learning all kinds of things along the way.

The final section dealt with the on location and behind the scenes workings of shooting the series, which was equally as interesting.

It's a definite must-read for all fans of the series, but also for anyone wanting to learn something of our history too.

MY RATING: 5/5