Attempt not to Vomit

At the behest of a bookseller in whom I have a great deal of trust, I’m reading Umberto Eco’s Baudolino. So far, it’s an awful lot of fun, but I’ve been warned that it might not be my thing because I’m not normally into historical fiction. 

I guess it’d be fairer to say that I’m not really into history more than historical fiction; it’s not that I’m not interested, I studied classics for my first year in college and loved it to pieces, but I focused on poetry, art and architecture, rather than history. I guess the long and short of it is that I’ve always been able to find things other than history to invest my time in. 

So, now that I’m reading some “historical fiction,” I find myself totally at sea; I don’t know what else was happening around the time it was set, I don’t really know what was fashionable or unfashionable at the time, and I don’t really know anything about potentially famous events that might be on the horizon. 

Essentially, I find myself reading an incredibly detailed fantasy book, and it’s pretty wonderful.