Nancy Goldstone's Reading List

"That was when I really decided to write about her, when I stumbled across her memoirs. It’s like listening to a modern voice. She’s funny, she’s self-deprecating. Writing a memoir is very hard, that’s why I chose memoirs for this piece. It’s much harder than people think. The voice has to be exactly right, otherwise you come across as self-serving, or not interesting. Not Marguerite. I read her memoir like it was a novel. She wrote it when she was in her fifties, looking back over her life. She is, but not as big a character as her older brother, Henri III, or her husband [Henri IV], or her younger brother, Francois. Those are the relationships that dominate the narrative. But her mother is there, as the authority, always. Marguerite also focuses on the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Almost every historian uses Marguerite’s memoirs about the massacre because she is one of the closest people to the event at the highest level who talked about it, who wasn’t personally involved in the plot. She was a victim as much as her husband, so she has a more objective perspective. She’s definitely trying to settle the score against one of Henri III’s henchmen — Du Guast —but apart from that she kind of bends over backwards to be fair to her husband. But still he doesn’t come across well. He’s always chasing some woman and getting himself into trouble and she’s always having to mop it up. I’m sure she is on some level settling the score. But when I went back and checked on her experiences, for example when she goes into the Spanish Netherlands as a spy, all the events that she talked about actually happened according to the dates that she gave. I think you’re just getting an inside perspective. They used public shaming politically. I’m not sure we’re so far from that today. Again, it was the pot calling the kettle black. Her brother Henri III, who publicly shamed Marguerite, was a regular member of orgies. He was already such a poor leader that I didn’t want to put all the stuff that he did in my book. He was somebody who had absolutely no business calling anyone else out on their sexual behaviour. In fairness to Marguerite, she did have a series of affairs, but one of the reasons she did so was that she was married to a man who wanted nothing to do with her. This is perfectly understandable because he was married to her at eighteen and the massacre followed. “They used public shaming politically. I’m not sure we’re so far from that today.” It turns out that when the bride’s family hunts down and murders every single person that the groom cares about in the world five days after the wedding — he lost all his best friends, he lost almost every member of his family, he lost all of his advisers — this does not make for a close and trusting relationship between husband and wife. He thought she was part of the massacre, that she knew it was coming and hadn’t warned him. As a result, he wanted nothing to do with her. So she was trapped in a loveless marriage, and then also she was living such a dangerous life. This woman had one narrow escape after another, after another. Everybody around her died. It’s not like she would leave a lover for somebody else — the person she loved would die, usually from violence at the court. That’s why Marguerite kept having a series of affairs, because she was looking for someone she loved who would actually live. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter That wasn’t the case with her brother, Henri III, he had many favourites. Some people are meant to be rulers and some people are not. He was not, and Catherine was not. They became terrible people because they were put in positions they should never have been in."

"This is one of my favourites. When I said it’s hard to write a memoir and get the voice right, this is one of the examples of really doing it right. The book is about another dauntless daughter. Ivana’s mother, Lady Caroline Blackwood, was a member of the Guinness family. While Ivana was growing up, Lady Caroline lived with the poet Robert Lowell but he turns out not to be Ivana’s father. In fact, Ivana’s mother never tells her who her actual father is. It’s only after her mother’s death that Ivana goes through this process of finding out who her real father was. So, I thought that was pretty courageous — to investigate it and to write it all down and to tell it so well. She loved her mother — they had a very strong relationship — but there were also destructive elements, like alcoholism. On the one hand Ivana had a very privileged upbringing. When she was younger she lived in a beautiful house in Kent and they always had money. But they had this very odd background and she had a terrible accident as a child, so she had to overcome all this. Her story was so compelling I felt like I read this book in thirty seconds."

"Yes, Wendy Kann’s mother was bipolar and had a definite problem with alcohol. I picked this book because I love it. It’s beautifully written, so lyric. Her prose is haunting. Everyone knows Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight , but this is another African memoir that is just as enthralling and superbly written as that one, about growing up white in what was Rhodesia. It’s another mother-daughter relationship. Her mother is mentally ill and her father dies while she was still quite young and she and her sisters live with their stepmother. Yes! I never understood why anyone would make up stuff in a memoir, because the whole point is to get to the truth about what happened to you. It’s therapeutic. So if you lie about it you are just lying to yourself. Many times, I think, this is a way of going back through your past and asking how you got where you are and maybe get to some closure. These are all about daughters who faced their background with courage, like Marguerite did. The mothers aren’t bad or evil, they’re just very flawed human beings."

"Yes, I thought we should have some inspiring mothers! Amy Dickinson is the person who took over for an American columnist named Anne Landers, who wrote a hugely popular advice column for the Chicago Tribune. Now the column is called ‘Ask Amy’. Amy was a dauntless daughter too, but her conflict came when she got married to her college boyfriend and had a child and moved to London, where the marriage disintegrated — he just walked out one day. The memoir is about what it was like to suddenly become a single parent. Amy and her daughter lived in Washington DC, but the rest of her family was in this one little town in upstate New York called Freeville, and she eventually buys a house there as well. Her Freeville family is made up predominantly of women — her mother, her aunt, her sisters. The women were the strong part of the family, they were the people she could always rely upon and who helped her to raise her daughter. They help her to survive the broken marriage so she could go on with her life, eventually winning a nation-wide competition to succeed Ann Landers. It’s an engaging, uplifting story, very well-written. “None of the women in these memoirs are victims, they all meet their problems head on.” Still, to this day, all the women in Amy’s family meet in a diner once a week in their small town to have breakfast and discuss their lives. I think that’s terrific, that’s a side of family that’s wonderful. In this book Amy’s father had also walked away from the marriage, so her mother had been a single parent too. In Ivana’s case, she never knew who her father was, and in Wendy’s case her father died while she was still a child and she was left with her stepmother. So all of the worlds depicted in these memoirs are very feminine! In Catherine de’ Medici’s case, many of the older men who were her political opponents were killed in the First War of Religion. They left behind sons, but the boys were all young. Even at the time of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre Catherine was still basically presiding over a court of college-age kids. It took until they were in their early thirties for this second generation to grow up enough to actually become a political force, a viable political opposition. Until then Catherine benefitted from having a bunch of young people around her. All those hormones — they were easy to divert and control, especially with sex. She got rid of the one father figure, Admiral Coligny, who opposed her. That’s what the Massacre was partly about. So I don’t think of the court of France as having a lot of serious male figures. The women were more powerful at that time."

"I chose this because of my daughter, who loves nature and the outdoors, especially the mountains. Like Cheryl Strayed, my daughter also hikes and rock climbs — that’s how I originally came to read the book. What I especially liked about the book was the portrait of the mother. She was loving and warm, a good mother — they are out there! I found the narrative honest and riveting. The author used the journey through the hiking trail to work out her problems. I thought, here was a dauntless daughter if I ever saw one! My daughter, who is an experienced hiker, says Strayed was unprepared, that she should have known better than to go out alone on the trail—she could have died. But she didn’t. She came through it and was stronger as a result. I really liked that about her and admired her courage. None of the women in these memoirs are victims, they all meet their problems head on. If you’ve come out on the other side and are able to write it down, absolutely. Her mother died so young, and it was so tragic, and she was thrust into the adult world so early that she didn’t know how to handle it. So she self-medicated with drugs and sex. But then she decided the way to become the woman her mother would have wanted her to be was to go on this journey. So yes, you are right. Good or bad, there is no getting away from our mothers!"

"This is one of Alison Weir ’s best books. I think she has managed to teach history to more people than Oxford University, because her books are so well written and easy to follow. She is especially good at taking time to explain the world that she writes about, so the reader gets a real feel for what it was like to live in the middle ages. Her books emphasise the colour and pageantry of that era – what everyone wore, what their jewels were like. I love that kind of book. Eleanor lived in the 12th century and was a great heiress. She owned Aquitaine, a large duchy in southwest France. She was originally married to the French king, Louis VII. He was two years older than she was, but hers was the stronger personality and he was no match for her. She ran him around. He was very pious and he was in love with her. She was beautiful and very sexually active, and he was apparently less so. They had a great deal of trouble having a child. I think she tried to like Louis at first, but soon gave up and started taking lovers. She was never able to conceive a son with him. Someone gave her the idea that this was because they were too closely related, and hadn’t initially gotten a letter from the pope approving the marriage. When she decided she didn’t want Louis anymore, she asked for an annulment based on this lack of a papal dispensation. Louis agreed to her request, not realising that she had already set up her next marriage – to Henry II [the king of England]. Eleanor was 30 at the time of her second marriage, and her new husband was only 19. Henry and Eleanor seemed to have had a good marriage for about 10 years. She certainly gave him many sons. What is amazing about Eleanor is that she lived to 82. Now that was ancient for the middle ages. She ended up long outliving Henry. Their marriage broke down when she was in her forties and he in his thirties. That’s when he began openly to prefer other women and take lovers. But Eleanor gave as good as she got – before she married Henry, she had an affair with his father. That’s why I love these women. But the problem for Eleanor was that when her marriage went sour, Henry actually put her under house arrest – a situation that lasted for 10 years before she was released. Her sons were very loyal to her, so in the end they got her out."

"This book made me think of Princess Diana. But in terms of marriage, Catherine de’ Medici had it much worse. At least Princess Diana was young and beautiful, although of course it is heartbreaking that she died. Catherine de’ Medici was not attractive. She married Henri II, who eventually became the king of France. But Henri was only a second son when he got married, and was never meant to inherit the throne. Exactly. It was to promote his father’s hopeless campaign in Italy. Catherine came from a very rich merchant family but was essentially of lower birth. The problem was that her cousin – who was the Pope, and who had arranged the marriage – died soon after she arrived in France. His successor in Rome repudiated the alliance, and so Catherine lost almost all of the money and property associated with her dowry. She came to the marriage with nothing. She hung in there. The French wanted to annul the marriage. Catherine’s husband, Henri, didn’t love her. He wanted another woman, Diane de Poitiers, who was much older than him. Diane was a great beauty, but she really worked at it! She would get up every morning at dawn and take a cold bath. Then she got on her horse for hours, and afterwards only had a light lunch. Catherine was unable to provide an heir at first, but then the three of them worked out an arrangement because Diane de Poitiers didn’t want Henri to annul his marriage to Catherine. She was afraid he might end up marrying someone younger and more beautiful, and not want Diane as a lover anymore. So Diane helped Catherine to get pregnant. She would warm Henri up in her bed and then send him on to Catherine! This innovative method appeared to work, as Catherine ended up conceiving a number of sons. Many people have written about Catherine and Diane. I chose this book over the others because the gossip is so delicious! But a reader should bear in mind that it is terribly one-sided towards Diane."

"I think it was definitely written by her. She wrote other books and was a very intelligent woman. Marguerite was the sister of François I, King of France. She was originally married to Charles IV of Alençon, who died in 1525. After she was widowed, Marguerite was strongly encouraged by her brother to marry a younger man for political purposes. This second marriage was not happy. Marguerite’s new husband, Henry II of Navarre, didn’t really want her. She was an intellectual who was interested in humanism, the Reformation and the Renaissance . He was much less educated, in addition to which he was also coarse and, frankly, brutish. She just had to endure it. Even though her husband was violent, divorce was not an option for a French princess in those days. One of the ways Marguerite fought back was to write this book. She was inspired by a new French translation of The Decameron , written by an Italian, Giovanni Boccaccio, in the 14th century. The Decameron used the literary device of 10 people telling 10 stories each, so it contained a hundred short stories, almost all of them about love. Everyone at the French court read and discussed the new translation – it was like a 16th-century book group. After reading it, Marguerite also decided to write a book of 72 short stories, but with one big difference – the stories in her book were supposed to have actually happened. She only included anecdotes that she knew to be true, or that came from a source which she trusted. They are about love and the battle of the sexes. The first two stories are very harsh. Marguerite is clearly getting her revenge on her husband, and men in general. The rest of the anecdotes are much funnier and cleverer. This is a good choice if you want to learn about the period, because these are the voices of real people. Think of it as being a bit like Desperate Renaissance Housewives!"

"This book is about a very strong woman – Isabella, the daughter of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, the powerful ruler of 15th century Florence. Isabella was Cosimo’s favourite daughter, but even so she was obliged to marry Paolo Giordano I Orsini, a member of the lesser nobility, for political purposes. The Medici family was very wealthy, and Isabella was used to a luxurious life surrounded by beauty, art and literature. Her husband, on the other hand, owned one shabby castle in the middle of nowhere. She went there for one season, then for the rest of her life she lived in Florence away from him. She really did not like it, or him. She had her way for a very long time, and there was nothing he could do about it because she was her father’s favourite daughter. Cosimo protected her. He wanted her to stay home in Florence to run his court. All the parties were much better when she was around to organise them. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Isabella’s father died and she fell afoul of her brother’s mistress. Also, Isabella represented a significant political threat. Catherine de’ Medici, who was queen of France by this time, believed that she had a stronger claim to Florence than Isabella’s brother. If Isabella fled to Paris and allied with Catherine, together they might have overthrown Isabella’s brother and his mistress. To prevent that from happening, her brother had her strangled."

"Mary Eleanor Bowes, an ancestor of Elizabeth II , lived in the 18th century. She was an exceedingly wealthy woman. Her father made a fortune in coal, and as his only child she inherited everything when he died. This made her a very attractive candidate for marriage. Her first husband, whom she married when she was only 18, was the Earl of Strathmore. That’s how she became a countess – he got the money and she got the title. Interestingly, Mary did not exhibit a particularly strong character when she was younger. She had been spoiled by her parents and was only interested in parties and dresses. She was unhappy with her first marriage because her husband was older, cold and distant. She was 27 when he died. Yes – she got duped. Mary fell prey to a con man who feigned being wounded in a duel in her honour so that he could beg her to marry him on his “death bed”. Of course he recovered as soon as she said yes, and turned out to be possibly the worst husband in history! He took her money, and physically and mentally abused her. What is so good about this book is that, in addition to being very well written, it chronicles Mary’s transformation from victim to strong, independent woman. At the beginning you don’t feel much sympathy for her, but by the end you are rooting for her all the way. We all owe her a debt – it was she who actually made divorce possible. Because she was both titled and wealthy, she managed to take her case to the courts. My new book is about Yolande of Aragon, 15th century queen of Sicily, and her (until now) overlooked influence on the story of Joan of Arc. Yolande was a brilliant strategist and diplomat who happened to be the mother in law of the dauphin [eldest son of the king of France]. She also seems to be the exception that proves the rule – Yolande was a very strong woman whose marriage was actually pretty good. I am a great admirer of Joan of Arc, who was one of the most courageous women in history, but like everyone else I was perplexed by her mysterious story. How did Joan, an ignorant peasant girl, get in to see the dauphin? What secret sign did she show him that convinced him to follow her advice? How did a 17 year old girl manage to lift the siege of Orléans in a single week? All of these questions are answered in my book. Although other people have hypothesised that the queen of Sicily was responsible for the introduction of Joan of Arc to the court of the dauphin – the first person to do so was Jehanne d’Orliac, a French historian, in 1933 – until now no one has ever proved it. Mine is the first biography of Yolande in English, and the first to demonstrate not only how she brought Joan into the political situation but also why she did it, and more importantly what inspired her to do so. Yes. I think that each of the women in the books I have chosen was very courageous in her own way – and it is interesting to see how modern they were in their approach to life. So many of the issues that women grapple with today, it would seem, have not changed over the centuries."