This is really interesting. The author takes examples from famous people who are well documented, but also ordinary people you don’t usually read about.

I like to consider the fact that odds are everyone in Europe around the year 1000 was the ancestor of every person alive now with ancestors from Europe.

This is even better than I’d remembered. My mom and dad used to watch it when it first came out in the early 70s, and they’d try to get me to watch it with them, but I wasn’t interested (age 8-13). I eventually watched the whole series twice, once in my 20s, once in my 30s, and now I’m watching it again, this time with my mom, in my 40s.

It’s so well put together, beautifully staged, acted, researched. I had forgotten how amazing it was, but also how dark. There are few glimmers of hope for overall joy or success in the lives of the characters, only moments of peace and fun amidst a world that doesn’t care about individuals, unless they have power and money.

Another fun, impossible not to read, urban Brit drama by Joanna Trollope.

It was interesting and good overall, well acted, great production values, etc. I found myself wishing the actors would loosen up. At the end of the movie all the actors take a bow, more or less, in character, clowning a little, and I thought, if only they’d done more of that during the actual movie.

Funny! I get more of the jokes than I did the first time I read it.