The Reluctant Empress

My third book of the year is Brigitte Hamann's The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. This is the second biography of Elisabeth I've read. The first was The Golden Fleece by Bertita Harding and I'm still rather on the fence on which I liked best. I think Harding's was a more enjoyable read, because she wrote it in a more novel-type form and really drew you into everyone's thoughts and feelings. Hamann's was more of a traditional biography and was therefore a little more dry, but she, unlike Harding, included footnotes and based most of her information off of diaries and letters of the people involved. I have a feeling her work is a bit more accurate, even if it was a bit harder to get through.

( My Thoughts )