Assam is a major component of English Breakfast, usually. It’s a little stronger by itself than in the blend. This tea is black with golden flecks.

Personally, I love a lot of bergamot :)

Gawain is a wonderful story (though read it with access to a Middle English Dictionary—who knew there were so many words for man and horse), and so is Pearl. Gawain is an Arthurian romance, Pearl a religious story. Pearl is somewhat easier to read, though heavy on the allegory. I haven’t read Patience or Cleanliness yet.

This is great—a brilliant comedy, and not nearly as dirty as Canterbury Tales, for the prudes of the reading world. My favorite character is Pandarus.

These are stories of romance and comedy (even dirty comedy), things enjoyed by the people of the Middle Ages! Trust me, this isn’t the dirtiest medieval lit you can find—try a French fablieau. Chaucer always writes with style and humor. This is NOT stuffy writing!

This is a really good, interesting movie, even with the gratuitous 80s sex and language. Lots of cool stuff about time travel.

His sources are good and much of the information is interesting, but I don’t like the way he interprets a lot of it. It’s too absolute and often insulting and simplistic.

Better than Vanity Fair in my opinion, though a little boring at the end, because Clive Newcome is a moron.

These books are very interesting, and written with humor and style as well as intelligence.

First, this book contains summaries of many different hero stories from many different areas, and that’s obviously a big job. Also, the author is trying to appeal to children as well as adults, so she cleaned up some of the tales a bit. Personally, I’d prefer an unadulterated (more correctly, unchildated) version of all of the stories rather than a cleaned up summary. However, this is a good place to start, or something to relax with if you already know quite a bit about mythology. I know a lot, but not everything about every country’s mythology, so I learned a little. Finally, there’s a small editing problem. There are at least two places in the book where graphics cover text, something that should have been noticed by the person inserting the pictures, and certainly by the editor.

On the whole, an okay book for beginners, but I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone looking for serious, detailed information.