Once again with much wine and munchies we got to grips with another Tracy Chevalier novel - her most recent - The Lady and the Unicorn. This brought out a lot of discussion about life in the Middle Ages, for families of the nobility, their servants, the middle classes (weavers), artisans (a Parisian painter to the Court), nuns, and smelly woad dyers.

Although this novel wasn't as controversial as some others the group has read already, everyone had something to say as it seemed to touch most people's lives: confusions caused by taking a married name or keeping a maiden name, falling for love rats, restrictions on women in the past and our (unbalanced?) perception that 'everything was so different back then'. One thing we all seemed to agree on was that Chevalier managed to bring to life a period in history that is otherwise very dark and unknown to the majority of modern readers.

Also, on one of our many asides, we also skipped over to the Bible and urgently had to find out just WHO was Rachel!

So thanks to all for making a very enjoyable evening once again and have a merry Christmas and Happy New Year.