History of a nation

While it's a door-stopper of a book that, "if thrown with a good over arm action, [would] bring a water buffalo to its knees*," Rebecca Fraser's The Story of Britain has been a pure delight to read, even if I'm only able to retain about a tenth of the information that I've read so far (I'm already planning to read it through again).  She has accomplished the seemingly impossible: condensed 2,000 years of British history into an entertaining, thoughtful, and well-written book.

Check out the image of Britain covered in snow, taken by NASA's Terra satellite.  Startlingly beautiful.

*from Nancy Banks-Smith's review of M.M. Kaye's "The Far Pavilions"