Spell the Month in Books is a linkup hosted by Jana on Reviews From the Stacks on the first Saturday of each month. The goal is to spell the current month with the first letter of book titles, excluding articles such as ‘the’ and ‘a’ as needed. That’s all there is to it! Some months there are optional theme challenges, such as “books with an orange cover” or books of a particular genre, but for the most part, any book you want to use is fair game!

This month’s theme is History. I don’t think that the books you choose have to be books that you’ve read, but where possible I like to do that, or at least choose books that I want to read and and this month I’ve managed to find enough nonfiction books about different aspects of history that I have read with titles beginning with each of the letters to spell JUNE.

J is for Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley

I think it was a foregone conclusion that I would really enjoy historian Lucy Worsley’s Jane Austen at Home. I have loved Jane Austen’s books for many years, going back to when I was about 12 and read Pride and Prejudice for the first time. I’d previously read Carol Shields’s biography Jane Austen and Claire Tomalin’s Jane Austen: a Life so there was really very little I learned reading Jane Austen at Home that surprised me or that I hadn’t known before.

I suppose what was new to me was the emphasis on what home life was like during the period of Jane’s life and seeing photos of the houses and places that she had lived or stayed in as a visitor. And I think I gained a better understanding of the social history of Georgian England and of Jane’s wider family connections and what her family and friends thought of her both as a person and as an author.

Jane Austen at Home is both very readable and very detailed, which is not an easy thing to achieve. There is an extensive section at the end of the book, listing sources, a bibliography, notes on the text and an index. There are two sections of colour plates.

U is for Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

In this book the author describes how she bought and renovated an abandoned villa. It’s full of the pleasures of living in Tuscany – the sun, the food, the wine and the local people. It makes me want to do the same! It’s nothing like the film they made of it – the book is much better. Bella Tuscany is the follow up book with more details about the restoration of the villa and its garden, plus recipes.

I read this book before I began blogging, so no review. And I no longer have my copy, which just shows the dangers of recycling books as I’d love to re-read it!

N is for Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard

The facts are horrendous – on August 9th 1945, two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a five-ton plutonium bomb was dropped on the small coastal town of Nagasaki. The effects were cataclysmic.

This must be one of the most devastatingly sad and depressing books I’ve read and yet also one of the most uplifting, detailing the dropping of the bomb, which killed 74,000 people and injured another 75,000. As the subtitle indicates this book is not just about the events of 9 August 1945 but it follows the lives of five of the survivors from then to the present day. And it is their accounts which make this such an emotive and uplifting book, as it shows their bravery, how they survived, and how they were eventually able to tell others about their experiences. Along with all the facts about the after effects of the bombing, the destruction, and radiation, it exposes the true horror of atomic warfare, making it an impressive and most compelling account of pain, fear, bravery and compassion.

E is for Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World by Michelle Scott Tucker

This is an excellent biography because it is thorough, well researched and it provides an insight into the early years of Australia’s colonial history. It is an extremely readable biography of a fascinating woman. Elizabeth was born on 14 August 1766 in Devon, England and she married John Macarthur in October 1788. In June 1789 they sailed with their first child, Edward, initially on the Neptune, and then on the convict ship Scarborough to New South Wales where John joined his regiment, the New South Wales Corps, in the recently established colony of New South Wales.

For sixty years, Elizabeth ran the family farm in Parramatta, west of Sydney town – on her own during her husband’s long absences abroad, four years during her husband’s first absence, and nine years during the second, when she was responsible for the care of their valuable merino flocks, as well as the Camden Park estate and the direction of its convict labourers.

The book is packed with detail about the landscape, the indigenous population, the disputes between various sections of the colony, about farming and the establishment of the wool industry, not forgetting the details of the Macarthur family members, illnesses, and the position of the women within the community.

The next link up will be on July 6, 2024 when the optional theme will be Stars/Sky