Here you go - a hodgepodge of things, all related to books:

If you are looking for stuff to read, written by female authors, you might want to check out the SF Mistressworks List. There's also an accompanying website, the Mistressworks blog, with a large collection of book reviews from different sources - just in case you want to check out some books before buying them.

Speaking of female authors, my friend Gillian wrote a time-travel novel a while ago, and if you like historically correct novels (as she is also a historian), Langue[dot]doc 1305 might be just the book for you. (Here's a recent review of it.)

I also learned today that there is such a thing as a Brit-picker - somebody who proofreads books set in Britain to make sure they are properly referencing British stuff.

Also... best fine print ever:

 

A+ fine print, would fine print again. pic.twitter.com/eECXownBu7

— Gretchen McCulloch (@GretchenAMcC) 31. Mai 2016

It's finally sunny again outside (yesterday and the day before we had rain like for the end of the world), and the garden... is looking like it's early summer. The poppies were in full bloom yesterday, but the night's rain has stripped them of most of their petals. The rest of the blooming things, however, are giving their all:

[caption id="attachment_2449" align="alignnone" width="366"] Nigella damascena - one of the German names is "Jungfer im Grünen", literally "maiden in the green". I really like these, and I'm happy they are returning every year in their little spot.


[caption id="attachment_2450" align="alignnone" width="359"] Iris, in blue. They are a little too tall for this spot to be seen from outside the garden (the willows are purposely stripped of any buds at their very base), but they are very visible from the inside.


[caption id="attachment_2451" align="alignnone" width="383"] More iris - this one is one of the take-over-the-world plants.


[caption id="attachment_2448" align="alignnone" width="533"] The cat, meanwhile, is utterly unimpressed and prefers to nap on the sofa.

One of the things I love, in general, is getting to go behind the scenes and see the things not everybody sees. Whether that is being backstage in a theatre, being behind the scenes in an event, or going into a museum depot - I just love to get a look around the nuts-and-bolts areas, to see how the mundane day-to-day things are handled, how stuff is stored.

Fortunately, doing museum presentations, giving workshops and demonstrating crafts at events means that I get plenty of opportunities to go backstage in the wider sense, and in a lot of different places. (Next up: the Adventon. I'm already looking forward to that.)

What is especially wonderful about the backstage-going are depots. Museums have most of their things not in the exhibition, but somewhere in storage, and these depots are absolutely fascinating. (They also serve a purpose - they are not only safe storage for historical items, but also help the museums to fulfill their obligation to further research; and not all items are in a condition that they can be on display continuously, so the depot and rotation of objects makes sure that they will last.) I have next to no pictures of depots that I can show you, though, only pictures of individual items - but then, different storage areas have as many different solutions as you can imagine, ranging from regular shelves to specialised drawer cabinets. And of course there's the good old space-saving solution:


I have no clue what these are really called, but they are basically sliding shelves that form a closed box when they are sitting right next to each other. Turn the handles (slowly - always slowly and carefully!) and a whole block of these shelves gently rolls to the side, letting you access the spot you need. These are... awesome. Absolutely, utterly awesome.

It's Friday! The rain from this morning has stopped, the weekend is drawing closer, the poppies are in bloom outside and I think I finally have to go and do some more gardening work, unless I want the weeds to take over.

So for me, it's taking care of a few odds and ends and then some digging in the dirt. For you, I have two links:

Jonathan Jarret has written a very interesting post regarding the upcoming UK referendum on whether to stay in the EU or not - go read his comparison about the EU and Charlemagne's Europe. (Which also includes nice pictures.)

Jim Hines writes about Inkitts, a weird "publishing company" that asked him whether he didn't want to publish with them. It's... funny, in a weird and facepalm-inducing kind of way.

The British Library medieval manuscripts blog has a post about book sizes: Size Matters.

And that's it for this week. I hope you enjoy the links, and wish you a nice weekend!

If you are interested in late medieval embroideries, you might consider a trip to Frankfurt this summer to visit the Städelmuseum. From June 22 to September 25, the museum has a special exhibition called "Heaven on Display" with the stunning liturgical artwork from the convent of Altenberg.

The exhibition features not only the paintings and sculptural art, but also the linen embroidery, with the Altenberg pieces coming together from different museums - from New York to St. Petersburg. Getting all the pieces together again will allow a really outstanding impression of the interplay of the many different media used in early fourteenth-century church furnishing. The Altenberg ensemble is unique in that respect, and I'm definitely planning to go see this.

If you can't make it to Frankfurt, or if you'd like to have a closer look at the individual items first, there's also an accompanying book available, with texts both in German and in English.

This November, I'll be giving a presentation about embroidery at the Nobilitas-Akademie - an event for people doing Living History to meet and learn about a variety of topics.

It will take place in Korbach from November 4 to November 6, with a very varied programme - the presentations range from early towns to social and military aspects of town life to embroidery to local history of Korbach. If that sounds appealing and interesting to you, you can learn more about the Akademie here, and you can also register for it right away on that page.I'll be presenting after dinner on Saturday Friday, so I should probably try and find some extra weird or fun examples of embroidery, to keep everyone from falling asleep in the after-dinner-slump. What a nice excuse to make even more jokes in the presentation than usual! (I like to make jokes in my presentations and papers. One of the best tips I ever got about preparing a presentation, right at the start of my studies, was "Make jokes. An audience that is laughing is not sleeping." That is oh so true - plus everyone enjoys a presentation that makes you laugh, and isn't all bone dry.)

There are a few dates each year that come... unexpectedly and very quickly. Birthdays are such dates. Christmas is one. And May 31... is another.

May 31 is the day when German tax paperwork stuff is due, so usually I finally sit down in the week before to round up all the papers and bills and notes and things to finish the thing off. Today was that day for this year, and now all I need is one final check and it can go its merry way to the tax office - hooray!

Because this also means I can concentrate again on other things. Such as making more distaffs, and preparing the next events - the Nadelwelt in Karlsruhe is getting closer and closer, and the week before I'll be at the Handwerkerfest at Adventon. I'm already looking forward to both, even though the list of things still to do before is a tiny bit scary... as these lists tend to be. (Usually it's not that bad, but writing down all the small odds and ends that should not be forgotten can make for a really impressingly long list - hence the scariness.)