The Tiara of the Moment

With a blog titled Tiaras Optional, I would be remiss if I did not comment on Queen Elizabeth’s tiara at Tuesday night’s state dinner. Sadly, she wore one of my least favorite tiaras from her large collection. She wears it fairly often, so I’m guessing it’s one of her favorites. I was hoping for the Hannover diamond tiara (the tiara she wore at her wedding), which is a spike tiara (modeled after the Russian kokoshnik, traditional headdress). The one she wore is certainly glittery, and she had lots of other glitter, in her necklace (three strands of big diamonds) and earrings. (I can’t give the name of the tiara, as the fantastic site I used as a reference is no longer available and it’s one of the few British tiaras not mentioned in the fabulous book Tiaras: A History of Splendour, which holds a place of honor on my shelves.) Although the British royal family has probably the largest collection of tiaras of all the royal families, I much prefer the Swedish and Norwegian collections, which have some truly stunning examples.

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I need your help, readers who read. I would like some book recommendations, as I will be on a business trip later this month, and I’d like to be well stocked with reading material. On my last business trip, I got through 3 or 4 books (there was a lot of downtime), so please recommend anything you think I might like. Unfortunately, I’ve been in one of my not reading phases for the last few months, so I don’t have my normal pile of “stuff to read next.” I go through these phases every once in a while. Normally, I probably read two to five books a month (depending on time and length/difficulty of book), but since the beginning of the year, I’ve read maybe 6 books total. This is worrying me a bit. It might have something to do with the insane amount of TV shows on DVDs that I’ve been watching lately, which has cut into my reading time.

I received about 8 books for Christmas. I’ve read only one of them. I suppose I could bring some of them with me on my trip, but they’re not necessarily the kind of books I want to travel with. The kind of books I’m looking for are lightweight, engrossing, not terribly thought-provoking (do I really want to be awake all night in a hotel room pondering the implications of an airborne toxic event?), and not scary (I don’t want to be awake all night thinking a serial killer is under my bed either). So, if you have any recommendations along those lines, please let me know.