Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory

Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory by Kimberly L. Craft

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was incredibly interesting. It took me a while to read it because of the subject, but I am glad that I read it. Countess Erzsebet Bathory was a wealthy woman from Hungary who murdered countless young woman brutally. Using her position, she brought in somewhere around 300 girls from about 10-14 and brutalized them until they died.

The book style is a little hard to get into because it is a compilation of actual records, testimonies, and documents. She was aided by 5 of her servants, four of whom were active participants and one who was ordered to torture the girls or be tortured herself. No one is exactly sure how many girls died, but even if the estimate is low, she is still one of the worst serial killers in history and the only woman to have killed so many.

I was interested in the book because it seems almost impossible for someone to have done this and I wanted some confirmation before I accepted it as true and this book has done that. Like The Nazi Doctors, this was hard to read, but important in understanding what makes people behave like this and what a human being is capable of.
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Murder At Ebbets Field

Murder At Ebbets Field by Troy Soos

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mickey Rawlings is a utility player for the New York Giants during the pennant race for the 1914 World's Series. When he is picked for a bit part in a movie about baseball, he meets a glamorous movie star and a young woman who is also in the movie. Unfortunately, the movie star is murdered and Mickey has a hard time proving that it isn't him. He and a young Casey Stengal cross paths and become friends in the midst of the mystery. This is not just a mystery, but a lot of fun historical information, both about Casey and baseball in it's infancy. It is a great read for anyone who has any interest in baseball.


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Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine

Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine by Bart D. Ehrman


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This audiobook was incredibly interesting. The author is a noted Biblical scholar and he refuted many of the claims made in Dan Brown's book resoundingly. For example, that the Emperor Constantine decided the can of Scripture and that he rejected some 80 other Gospels. The canon was established more than 100 years beyond his time and there were only a few other gospels and they had glaring errors or in some cases were almost nonsense. The whole mystique of "the sacred feminine" is just not proven by any of the historical documents in existence. The book was very well arranged and written respectfully refuting the character's statements in the books rather than attacking Brown. As a work of fiction, the Da Vinci Code was a real page turner, but the actual documents that Brown says exist to prove what he wrote simply don't exist.

The only problem I found with Ehrman is that he does not have any room in his historical facts for faith, and especially a personal faith with a real Jesus Christ. His approach is purely historical, which is fine, but there is more to religion than simply choosing to believe a bit of history and staking your life on it. With that said, I would recommend the book to anyone interested in real scholarship presented in a logical, easy to listen to or read text. The author is clear and concise and easy to follow.

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Modern Scholar - Odyssey Of The West III

The Modern Scholar - Odyssey Of The West III (3) The Medieval World by Timothy B. Shutt


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I listened to this audiobook thinking it was part III of the earlier series on the Middle Ages and essentially, it covered the same period and added a great deal to my understanding of the Era. Shunt covers the period by examining great books like The Confessions of St. Augustine, The City of God, Beowulf and The Poetic Edda, The Divine Comedy, and others. It included the authors, St. Thomas Aquinas, Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, and Dante.

I found this lecture to be fascinating and it was very interesting to put these authors into the Medieval lectures of Thomas Madden which I read previously. Dr. Shutt's enthusiasm for the subject is infectious and made the series even more enjoyable.

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The Modern Scholar: The Medieval World I: Kingdoms, Empires, and War

The Modern Scholar: The Medieval World I: Kingdoms, Empires, and War by Thomas F. Madden


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
While I had to listen to sections of this book more than once, it was very good. I studied World History in High School and college, but I wish I had had a course like this. Madden is a great teacher and he wove together the events of what we used to call the "dark ages" in a way that made a lot of sense and explained a number of things that I have never been too clear on.

Since this class took in about 1,000 years of history, there was a lot left out, but the series has several courses which cover other aspects. It was interesting to note the pattern of civilization rose and fell. As a people became more cultured and prosperous, they seemed to lose discipline and military strength leaving them open to conquest by a more primitive society. The conquering society them absorbed a great deal from the former and after prospering
followed the same pattern. The course also covered the religious history of Europe, which was essentially the civil history also. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand world events today as many of the present customs and conflicts are based in this early history.

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