For those readers expanding beyond reading novels, biographies and historical fiction are hits among our readers. It’s useful to read outside the genre that you normally read so that you can broaden your experience.

Hearty thanks to the readers who wrote in!!! Here are some of their replies to questions about biographies and historical fiction:

“I also LOVE historical fiction. When The Tudors series first came on TV, I became fascinated with that period of English history and began reading all of Philippa Gregory’s novels about Henry XIII, his reign, his wives, his heirs and the entire Tudor and Elizabethan periods.”

“Her books, on which the series was based, are steamy page turners (some are better than others) but to your point, I learned so much about the history that I was able to justify reading and enjoying them. They transported me to another time and were great escape fiction. Some of the titles are (if I can remember): The Constant Princess (about Katherine of Aragon) The Virgin’s Lover, The Queen’s Fool, and The Bolyen Inheritance.”

AND

“I also read a great many biographies when I was younger. You’re the first person besides me I have heard say that! I read just about everyone I got my hands on, so the list is long and actually a lot were autobiographies. Isak Dinesen, David Niven & Hildegard Neff come to mind.”

“One of the best things I learned from this reading is to persist. Over and over you see the pattern that people who become famous (perhaps mostly in the arts which was what I read about) succeed because they ‘would not take no for an answer,’ because they did ‘not know how to do anything else,’ and because they ‘ignored all the people who told them to give up on their dreams.’ Well, I think these things work, personally.”

Please share your favorite biographies and books about history with the group. What have you learned from this kind of reading outside of business and self-improvement reading?

Some of my clients have felt guilty when reading fiction for pleasure. They have felt that they “should” be reading business books or learning how to use a new computer application. Many clients choose to read biographies of people whom they admire as a kind of mid-point between pleasure reading and reading business books.

“Pleasure” is the operative word. What do you enjoy? As a child and teenager, I read every biography I could put my hands on. The stories were amazing, and the experience was definitely pleasurable.

Choose fields of interest and then research biographies of prominent people in those fields. Classic biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway, and Alexander the Great are among those which made a big impression on me in the past.

Historical fiction is another way to read for pleasure, but also learn. The most recent winner of The Booker Prize is Hilary Mantel whose book, “Wolf Hall,” has received rave reviews and is being celebrated for its deeply researched and historically accurate depiction of life in Tudor England.

Please share your favorite biographies and historical fiction with our group and read!

PS: Another great fiction recommendation from a different reader in Florida:

“The Monuments Men…Robert Edsel……recovering the art treasures ,stolen by the Nazis during WW2….fascinating.”

History was made last week with the appointment of Britain’s first woman Poet Laureate in the 341 years of the existence of the position. It’s telling that Carol Ann Duffy will receive an annual stipend equal to $8,500; yet, it’s a great milestone to have broken the gender barrier even if it did take three and a half centuries.

In the U.S., Louise Bogen was appointed its first woman Poet Laureate in 1945 (the fourth U.S. Poet Laureate overall). The current Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, is charged with raising the national consciousness of poetry, and she’s paid $35,000 annually. Ryan writes in a poem called Hide and Seek:

“It’s hard not to jump out instead of waiting to be found. It’s hard to be alone so long and then hear someone come around. It’s like some form of skin’s developed in the air that, rather than have you torn, you tear.”

Some might consider poetry like this frivolous; others consider it essential. Where do you stand? Is there a practical role for poetry in our lives? How might you incorporate poetry into your life? If it were up to you, how valued or not valued would the Poet Laureate of a country be?

What would the world be without poetry? Poets translate the world into infinite ways for us to experience it from the bittersweet, to the tragic, to the humorous. Poems were often sung in ancient times, and we are surrounded by song lyrics that often aspire to poetry.

Plato said, “Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.” This makes sense in that poetry at its best is an open window into the human condition. Whether or not you read poetry, if you sing along to songs, you are engaging in a form of human poetry that is as old as language.

How is poetry a part of your life? Do you remember song lyrics, and do you consider them poetry? Do you have a favorite poem, passage or line that speaks to you in some way?