Cleopatra by Stacy Shiff

This book is fabulous! I learned so much. Whenever I heard Cleopatra I just pictured a dark-haired temptress being fed grapes (lame I know). Stacy Shiff will totally change what you thought you knew about Cleopatra. Her biography is brilliantly written (not surprising..she has won a Pulitzer Prize before).

It took me awhile to get through it. I was looking on maps and looking up names. A weekend will not be enough time to finish this book. Once you are through though, you will be glad you took the time.

Speaking of books...

My mom got me a cute little book of opening lines from famous books for Valentine's Day.

See if you can guess where these lines came from:

1. "Who is John Galt?"

2. " Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her."

3. "Letter One

To Mrs. Saville, England

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th 17--

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings."

4. "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day."

5. "Call me Ishmael."

6. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

7. "When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen."

8. "I am an invisible man."

Okay guys... how much have you read? :)