Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England
by Alison Weir
Published in October 2005
528 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 3/5

Queen Isabella of France is one of the most important women in English history. She would lead a coup, which would ultimately result in major events such as the Hundred Years War.

Queen Isabella was the daughter of Philip IV of France. The great king of England Edward the First Longshanks negotiated a marriage alliance between his son who would later be known as Edward II and Queen Isabella.

When Edward I Longshanks would die, Edward II would come to the throne. Immediately, his rule was clearly a disaster. Edward II was a spineless homosexual, a horrible military ruler, incredibly unpopular, didn’t have his finances under control, was easy to manipulate, and when it came to diplomacy was a babbling buffoon. Nevertheless, the marriage between Isabella of France and Edward II which had been much delayed was pushed forwards, and the two were (unhappily) wed.

Neither Edward II or Isabella were enthusiastic about the marriage. Edward II didn’t have any real interest in Isabella, and instead preferred spending time with his homosexual boyfriend Piers Gaveston. Isabella was neglected emotionally, but more important, financially by Edward II and wasn’t particularly happy.

Edward II’s boyfriend, Piers Gaveston, used his position to embezzle significant funds and engage in corrupt activities. He also delighted in insulting the great lords of the land. Edward II was easy to manipulate, so Gaveston became the de facto ruler of England. Luckily, Edward I Longshanks had anticipated potential issues, so had appointed Lord Lancaster to oversee governmental affairs. Lancaster pressured Edward II to exile Piers Gaveston, and because Edward II was spineless, Edward II eventually agreed. For a while, things were running relatively smoothly. However, Edward II eventually called Gaveston back from exile. Gaveston used his influence with the king to start a campaign of vindictive humiliation of those who had exiled him. Eventually, Lancaster staged a soft coup (the first of many during Edward II’s reign) and had Piers Gaveston tried and sentenced to death.

Gaveston’s death sent Edward II into a sort of insanity. Edward II took power back, and started haphazardly imprisoning, exiling, or killing everyone who he perceived as an enemy. He came under the influence of the medieval equivalent of the military industrial complex known as the marcher lords who convinced him to engage in fruitless and bloody wars. He also borrowed heavily from Italian and Jewish bankers, who began influencing his court.

The later half of Edward II’s reign was completely unhinged. He lost significant battles against the Scottish. He diplomatically insulted the French. He drove the kingdom into a deep economic recession.

Eventually Queen Isabella and her small son by Edward II (future king Edward III) used the pretext of a diplomatic mission to flee to France. After spending some time in exile, she began plotting her own coup. 

While in France, she began cavorting with English exiles and political dissidents who opposed the regime of Edward II. During this time, she started an affair with a former marcher lord, Roger Mortimer. With Mortimer’s help, she raised enough funds to buy the support of a small army of Dutch mercenaries. These mercenaries crossed the channel, and overthrew Edward II’s regime.

Edward II was extremely unpopular. As a result, nearly the entire kingdom threw their support behind Queen Isabella’s coup. Edward III was nominated as king, with Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer acting as reagents during his minority. Edward II was imprisoned in a palace, and forced to agree to his own abdication.

Having a former king who had been deposed under house arrest was a dangerous and unsustainable state of affairs, because he could become a rallying point for political enemies. Eventually, Edward II disappeared. Exactly what happened is blurry and varies on sources. The least credible sources say that he was sodomized to death using a red hot iron by his jailers (possibly who were seeking revenge for atrocities committed during Edward II’s reign). Another version, which is viewed by historians as much more credible, is that he was suffocated in his sleep. There also is a conspiracy theory, which gained significant traction at the time, that someone else was killed in his place and that Edward II lived out the rest of his life as a tonsured monk in Italy. Letters discovered by historians seem to support this latter theory, but we will never know.

Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer’s reign during Edward III’s minority quickly became unpopular. Queen Isabella agreed to an extremely unpopular peace with Scotland. She also was very corrupt, and embezzled significant funds with her lover Roger Mortimer. Her misgovernment was so significant that it eventually was said that she had just replaced one inept tyrant with another.

Edward III, once he turned 18, realized that his mother couldn’t be left in charge of the Kingdom. He staged his own small mini-coup, where he deposed his mother. Her lover, Roger Mortimer, was tried for corruption and ultimately executed. His mother, Queen Isabela, was allowed to live a life of luxury, and also acted as his advisor. Edward III proved to be a very effective king, in the vein of his grandfather Edward II.

The facts and narrative of the book is very interesting. This is an interesting period, and because I’ve read a lot about Edward II’s predecessors, it fits really well into my reading. However, I find Alison Weir’s early 2000s feminism to be grating.

On one hand, Queen Isabella was clearly extremely intelligent and capable. She also staged a necessary coup, which saved England from the disastrous reign of Edward II. She also apparently did a good enough job at raising her son Edward III who became one of England’s greatest kings. On the other hand, Queen Isabella had many moral failings which Weird defends rather than condemns. Her rule during Edward III’s minority wasn’t particularly successful. If she hadn’t come after the imbecile Edward II, she would probably be correctly seen as a bad ruler by historians. She also cheated on her husband with Roger Mortimer, which Weird defends as an act of bravery rather than condemns as a breach of her marital vow. I wish that she had taken a more balanced view. I’ve often found that female historians tend to be overly forgiving and prone to defending female historical figures to the point of nearly distorting history, rather than being more neutral.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the period with some background knowledge. It probably isn’t particularly interesting for those who are not studying the period. Weir’s excessive sympathy and defense of Queen Isabella is also a bit annoying.

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A Great and Terrible King
By Marc Morris
Published in 2008
480 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 3/5

Edward “Longshanks” I is most well known, today, for being the villain in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. However, from a historical perspective, Braveheart is a terrible movie. In reality, Edward I was not a tyrant - he was a decent king.

Edward’s father, Henry III, was a decent albeit weak king. Henry III was emotionally scarred by his inept father King John’s early death. At 7, Henry III inherited a kingdom torn apart by civil war and on the verge of bankruptcy. His mother fled England, abandoning him. Luckily, he was adopted by an exemplary knight William Marshall who protected him, raised him as his own, and rebuilt England. As a result, Henry III tried his best to avoid the flaws of his own father King John and was a loving - even doting - father to Edward.

In Edward I’s youth, he was noted for being a jouster. Through his jousting, he became a celebrity. He used his celebrity to champion the cause of reform. Henry III’s reign was marked by a continuation of many of the bad and failed policies of King John. As a result, another civil war tore the kingdom apart. Painfully, Edward’s mentor Simon de Montfort joined the rebellion. De Montfort was another incredibly principled and honorable knight, who was a crusader. Edward was torn between joining his mentor, de Montfort’s rebellion which championed the very same reformist principles he stood for; or siding with the crown and his father Henry III. Ultimately he sided with Henry, and de Montfort’s army was crushed and de Montfort was executed.

To atone for his sins, Edward went on crusade. His crusade was useful, and allowed the remnant crusader states to survive for another few years.

After his coronation, Edward found himself at war. He fought two major wars - against Wales and Scotland. He won both, but at great cost. Edward was a great warrior and fighter, the first king since Richard Lionheart to actually be good in battle. This made him relatively liked and popular among his people. He also continued championing some useful reforms during his reign, cutting taxes and solidifying the strength of the Magna Carta.

This book was well written and interesting. For some reason, the late 2000s saw some of the best popular history books I’ve read. I enjoyed it. That being said, it's good but nothing special.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to most people because the topic is too niche. I enjoyed it because I’ve just watched a ton of videos about King John and Henry III, as well as the Magna Carta. It was great for me, but unless you are a specialist, it probably isn’t great for you.

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Jonathan Livingston Seagull
By Richard Bach
Published in 1970
144 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 2/5


Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an incredibly pretentious book. In the 1970s it was the darling of American left wing intellegencia; but the only people that have hear of it today are boomers who had to study it in school. I had never heard of it.


I found it because I was looking for books that didn’t have violence to read to my 3 year old daughter, that had animal allegories. It was completely boring, and also completely nonviolent.


The book has very, very, very long - interminable - descriptions of seagulls flying. Boring


In case you want to read it, I wont spoil the admittedly very surprising twists and turns in the plot. But there are many - and they are unpredictable. Its just that they’re boring.


I finished it, but my daughter had me stop because it was too boring. I’m reviewing this as a grown up book, not a kids book, and still don’t recommend it. This is the kind of book that’ll be completely forgotten in a decade or two once the last boomers who were forced to read it die.

UFOs & Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites
by Robert Lambert Hastings
Published in May 2017
598 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 2/5

This book is a mixed bag, but I do not recommend it.

This book is definitely extensively researched. (Note that I did not say that it was well researched.) It  is a collection of eyewitness accounts from various soldiers and military personnel who have witnessed UFOs and UAP surrounding various nuclear sites.

The author interviewed over 170 veterans and former officials. He then comes up with a grand theory about why so many UFOs are seen around nuclear sites.

My issues with this book are manyfold.

First, the book was written in the 2010s. However, it concerns events from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s entirely based on eyewitness accounts. I find that the methodology is sketchy by definition (even though the witnesses and accounts are credible). 

Second, the book is too polemic. The author spends a lot of time refuting refutations, and arguing with various opponents. He devotes a lot of ink randomly interjecting his theories, thoughts about a cover-up, etc… It’s tragic, because Hastings had a lot of meticulous fact based research that gets spoiled by his opinionating that is thoroughly mixed into the book.

Third, the book is too long. I only read about half, then put it down. The actual accounts of events are good; but the analysis and rebuttal of counter arguments makes for dry reading. It's also not hyper informative dry reading; it's hyper opinionated dry reading.

For example, halfway through the book he randomly says something along the lines of “Critics criticize me for taking paid speaking tours. They say I only write about UFOs for the money. But it's hard to earn a living doing this.” An author shouldn’t talk about themselves while arguing about external events. Also, nobody seriously believes that UFO conspiracy theorists make a lot of money; all serious critics understand that the money authors make from writing and speaking is very minimal. It's an argument that should be addressed on Twitter; not randomly in the middle of a book.

The author also spends much time on a supposed sighting he had as a teenage janitor in a military base. This also undermines his credibility. I would have mentioned it at the beginning the way he did which was interesting and explained his curiosity - but wouldn’t have returned to it time and time again. Once again, this would have made for a great blog post or Tweet that goes alongside the book but shouldn’t have been included.

The best books just lay out the evidence and let the readers come to their own conclusions. This book painfully spells out every obvious conclusion that doesn’t need to be explicitly spelled out. Mixing facts with speculation is not a recipe for success.

This book was a great concept, and the author clearly did some very serious research. But his presentation style undermines the credibility of his own arguments.

I think that this book is of almost no interest to average readers. It isn’t a skitzo conspiracy book; but it's not something that will convince anyone of anything. I might recommend it to another UFO researcher as a source for interview material for their own book or article; but wouldn’t to anyone else.

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Evolution of the UAE Armed Forces
By Athol Yates
Published in December 2020
380 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 3/5

This book is a very informative - if somewhat dry - history of the UAE’s military.

I bought it in the UAE a few years ago. It then lived in my library, where it gathered dust, unread, alongside countless other tomes. This year (2026 for future readers), Trump began military operations in Iran. Iran retaliated, hitting the UAE. This naturally created significant concern for me. When cleaning my library I found and remembered this book, and decided to read it to get some insights on the current conflict.


This book is written for a military audience. The author, Athol Yates, is an Australian born professor of civil security studies in Abu Dhabi. I am not sure exactly why he wrote the book, but it seems like he either was commissioned by the UAE government, and / or wrote it as training material for his students. The target audience is very specific - people from the UAE in the security industry.

I didn’t gain very much insight into the current Iran war. But some passages were relevant. For example, I learned that the US has refused to give the UAE superior quality weapons in order to artificially inflate Israel’s relative capabilities compared to Arab neighbors. This might explain why the UAE is so dependent on the United States. I also learned that Iran already has attacked the UAE several times - before the Iranian revolution when it seized some islands; during the revolution when it seized more islands; during the Iran Iraq war when it struck an Abu Dhabi oil facility; and numerous other incidents where it has harassed UAE vessels.

I gained tremendous insight into Emirati politics. The most interesting chapters of the book were the chapters where it describes the British controlled forces (the Trucial Oman Scouts) and the feudal levy style ruler controlled forces. I was shocked to learn that each Emirate had its own separate independently controlled army; and that several times these were used to manage internal inter-Emirate conflicts.

The fact that this style of Emirate controlled armed forces today is unthinkable shows how much progress the UAE has made in only a few decades.

Despite what many in the West say, I love the UAE. To me, its semi feudal political system is a major strength not a weakness.

I probably cannot recommend this book to anyone because I don’t know anyone who might be interested in reading it. But if you are interested in the UAE and doing a deeper dive, it might be worth buying and skimming. If you specifically are doing defense or defense adjacent work in the UAE, its a must read.

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King John
By Marc Morris
Published in October 2016
400 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 3/5

King John is a solid biography of England’s worst king.

The writing style was clear, the pacing was good, and I never got lost. This book was neither overly vague and simple; nor academic and pedantic. I always appreciate well written history books.

I recently read Dan Brown’s Magna Carta. If you wanted to learn more about the Magna Carta, I would point you to that book first. This book is about the same topic, and is quite similar. However, there is a major difference. Dan Brown’s book focuses more on the Magna Carta itself and its legal importance. On the other hand, this book focuses on King John’s family, life, reign, and non-Magna Carta consequences. If you want to learn more about the man, then this book is better.

Usually when trying to find information on King John, you only get information about the Magna Carta. This book covered the Magna Carta adequately, but managed to avoid focusing on it. In retrospect, the Magna Carta is clearly the most important consequence of King John’s reign. However, that would only become apparent centuries later. During King John’s own life contemporaries would have instead pointed to his loss of Normandy, inept financial management skills, or numerous military failures.

Like all biographers, Morris has some sympathy for his subject. But this book is not revisionist or apologia for John’s incompetent rule. It is a clear eyed history and analysis of King John’s life and reign.

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Just So Stories
By Rudyard Kipling
Published in 1902
108 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 4/5

This is the first (hopefully of many) books that I’ve reviewed which I’ve read with my daughter.

Just So Stories is a compilation of “animal origin stories” written by Rudyard Kipling in 1902 for his daughter Josephine.

Kipling wrote Just So Stories and the more famous “The Jungle Book” based on compilations of bedtime stories he remembered telling his daughter. Josephine tragically died in 1899 at the age of 6 of pneumonia.

This book went way beyond the head of my 3 year old daughter. The dated language; subtle references to geography; and strange creation of the world scenarios were too much. But she “sort of understood” some of the action about animals and it was a lot of fun. I want to revisit it when she is 6, I think that is when it will be the most age appropriate.

Each story seeks to explain how some animal came to be.

The camel has a hump on his back because he was grumpy and would refuse to work just saying “humph.” The Rhino has scratchy skin because he stole the cake from a Parsee who put the crumbs under his skin. The armadillo was created when a turtle and a hedgehog teamed up and shared abilities to outsmart predators. The elephant got his trunk after a crocodile pulled on his nose too long. My daughter especially liked the elephant story; but my favorite was the armadillo story or the crab story.

I don’t want to spoil any more. You should read this with your kids. Or just alone as an adult - it makes for funny reading even for larger readers.

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The Lost Teachings of the Cathars: Their Beliefs and Practices
by Andrew Phillip Smith
Published in November 2015
256 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 4/5

The Cathars were a group of heretical Christians who lived in Southern France. It is unclear exactly when they appeared, but were a small but demographically noticeable minority by the early 1200s. In 1209, Pope Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade - an internal “mini-crusade” within France, supposedly to exterminate the Cathars.

The Cathars lived in a territory called Languedoc in the south of what is today France. The crusade was led by French crusaders, but had international participants from England, Germany, Spain, and Italy. When the crusaders arrived, they massacred the people of Languedoc - exterminating the local Catholic nobility and massacring the civilian population. The local nobles were replaced by French nobles, and Languedoc was incorporated into France.

The Cathars were a tiny minority within Languedoc. Languedoc was nominally a fief of the Catholic King of Aragon, but the Aragonians had no effective control. The political effect of the crusade was to permanently sever Languedoc and Foix from Aragon, and integrate it into France.

The Cathars were demographically insignificant in most areas affected by the crusade. The crusaders exterminated them along with the majority Catholic population. One crusader famously declared “kill them all, and let God sort them out.” When the war was coming to a close, and it became politically unprofitable to kill civilians, the crusaders spared all civilians - including the Cathar heretics. This proves that the crusade was predominantly about politics and the papal sanctioned annexation of Languedoc into France; not about exterminating a heresy. The Cathars were essentially semi-innocent bystanders caught in the mix.

The Cathars would later be hunted down and nearly exterminated by the inquisition over the following century and a half. It is notable that the Cathars continued to exist long after the Albigensian Crusade. They experienced several re-emergences, then re-exterminations, and ultimately disappeared from history.

Despite their disappearance, many clues suggest that others took on their most important ideas. There are protestant movements in the 1600s that seem to take their ideas; some of their iconography appears on everything from Tarot cards to watermarks on paper; and future authors and artists seem like they are influenced by them. In the 19th century, romantics and theosophists influenced by Rudolf Steiner travelled to Languedoc. There, they rediscovered and re-imagined Catharism, forming various neo-Cathar revival movements. These movements are, at best, fantastic re-imaginings because much of what the Cathars themselves believed has been lost to time.
Catharism was a gnostic Christian sect that drew most of its ideas from Bogolimilism. They seem to have maintained contacts with the Bogomils until the bitter end, with there even being a visit of “Bulgarian Cathars” (likely in fact Bogomils) who came to Northern Italy to help retrain Cathar bishops following the inquisition and Crusade. The Catholic Inquisition itself wrote that the Cathars came to France because of returning Crusaders who were influenced by Bogomils while travelling through the Balkans.

The Cathars likely drew on other cultural traditions such as other Christian gnostic sects, remnants of Languedoc folk religion, Manicheism, and perhaps even Buddhism. It is hard to trace exactly how these influences moved, because there were significant cultural contacts with both the Cathars via the Crusades to the Holy Land, as well as the Bogomils via Constantinople. Smith doesn’t cover this, but various steppe people like the Pechenegs, Avar, and Cuman all raided the Balkans. These peoples originally came from Central Asia, where Buddhism and Manicheanism thrived and survived well into the 11th century. The idea that ideas came alongside raiders and merchants is now widely accepted by historians; but significant ambiguity remains about which ideas came and when.

Smith spends much time discussing the specific beliefs of the Cathars. I found this to be the least interesting part of the book; because they seem like fairly generic Gnostic ideas I’ve come across before. Smith is himself a neo-gnostic Christian and is very sympathetic to the Cathars; while I very much see these as some of the most repulsive anti-human ideologies to ever exist. Despite my distaste for their actual ideas, I still recommend these chapters. Readers coming across gnosticism for the first time will find Smith’s explanations to be very clear and refreshing.

Smith is obviously biased; and makes no effort to hide his pro Cathar bias. This is actually refreshing. Many historical books are biased, but cloak themselves with a veneer of academic neutrality. They hide their nonsense by using academic jargon. Their jargon substitutes short words for long, without adding any specificity or insight. I was pleased to find that Smith’s writing style is particularly clear and concise.

Smith ends the book with a discussion of neo-Cathar movements, and how they intersected with a wide array of unrelated groups such as the followers of Rudolf Steiner, Nazi Germany, Christian revival movements, occultists, and hippies.

If you want to get a good introduction to the Cathars, I very highly recommend this book. This book answers most of the supposed “mysteries” by clearly outlining all of the available evidence.

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UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here―and Out There
by Garrett M. Graff
Published in November 2023
544 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 4/5

This book is a history of all of the well documented efforts by the US government to look for extraterrestrial life.

I grew up in Palo Alto, where the omnipresent Stanford University “dish” could be seen from just about anywhere. The “dish” was used by a wide variety of groups - such as the US Air Force to spy on the Soviet Union and astronomers to do research. The story that always intrigued me the most growing up was that the dish was used by a group of scientists called SETI to listen for potential signs of extraterrestrial communication in space.

This book is a history of SETI and how it ties into the many other weird government funded initiatives to search for extra terrestrials. SETI always had a good reputation in the Bay Area - as a credible, mainstream scientific effort supported by reputable universities. To my surprise, this book revealed that SETI was tied at the hip to US government funded investigations into “flying saucers” during the 1950s and 1960s.

This book covers SETI, Project Blue Book, ATIP, and the many other government funded initiatives to look for extraterrestrial life. They range greatly in terms of their scope and credibility. On one hand, some involved astronomers looking for signs of Dyson Spheres. On the other, some involved interviewing alleged alien abductees.

Fascinatingly, nearly all of these projects overlap. The scientists, financiers, donors, and supporting government officials all connect to each other. They all knew each other, and participated in some sort of ecosystem. During the height of the Cold War, the ecosystem even included Soviet scientists.

The book was very entertaining and well written. It has a little bit of a slow start, but considering the overall length of the work, it is acceptable. At first I thought it would be nothing more than ratiocination and pontification; but it quickly moves into serious substance.

The book begins with an explanation of how the US government’s interest in extra terrestrials was piqued shortly after WW2. During WW2, there were accounts of US pilots of strange glowing orbs in the sky. The allies believed it was a German weapon; but upon raiding German archives realized the Germans had seen the same orbs but assumed it was an allied weapon. Then, there was a series of crashes of vehicles or rockets in Scandinavia that were neither Axis nor Soviet in late 1945. The US government began investigating potential extra terrestrial activity by 1946.

The book ends with the major revelations of pilots such as David Fravor and the “gofast” and “gimble” videos. It explains more recent initiatives such as AATIP.

I would recommend this book as a serious introduction to the topic of UFOs.

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