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Terrible Title, Wonderful Read. Really.
I'm going to gas on about this because I think many of you will enjoy this book. Really, how many biographies of 18th-19th century private figures are page-turners? Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era by Caroline Moorehead (Harper, 2009) is vivid, shocking, and entertaining.
(Advance apologies for the cutesie recipe but it's the shortest way to share this 400+ page biography.)
Ingredients:
The court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
The Great Terror
America at the time of Washington and Jefferson
Paris under the Directoire and then under Napoléon
Regency London
The battle of Waterloo
The Italian ducal courts
Meticulous research
Beautiful writing
Sprinkle with friends like La Rochefoucauld, Joséphine, Lafayette, and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and plenty of trials and tribulations (besides the historical upheavals, it all begins with a shrewish grandmother in a long liaison with her uncle the archbishop).
Enjoy!
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"I didn't want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice. Here comes the smolder." - Flynn Rider, "Tangled"
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