Hooked on history

I’ve always enjoyed reading historical fiction. It’s an entertaining way to step back in time and to experience events as an observer or imagined participant.

Just recently I’ve discovered the works of Bernard Cornwell, who is both talented and prolific.

I’ve read several of the Sharpe books, all of the grail series and now the first two of the Saxon adventures.

Cornwell creates characters who are actively involved in great events, but they’re unsung heroes because they are not part of the ruling elite.

Sharpe, for example, starts in the army as a private and wins promotion through valour.

Thomas Hookton is the bastard son of a mad noble priest. Uhtred in the Saxon series is highly born, but displaced from his lands.

Cornwell writes well and it’s nearly impossible to put these books down before they’re finished. I just have to be patient now and wait for the paperback version of Lords of the North to be released.

Flock browser

I must say that I’m very impressed with the latest version of the Flock browser. Earlier versions were a little clumsy and not much more than Firefox clones with a light blue theme, however version 0.7.1 has some outstanding features.

Proclaimed as a social browser, Flock now lives up to its name with handy features integrating content provision to blogs, delicious and flickr. New entries can be easily added through the browser, as per this article.

The tabbed browsing includes a close option (x) like Firefox BonEcho and IE7 beta, making it the first mainstream release to offer this feature.

More Firefox plugins have been made available, including my favorite Gmail Manager.

The general look and feel is also very attractive.

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