I did learn a lot reading this, and Tabor is clearly an expert in the field, but as far as a work for the general public goes, it let me down. His writing is a bit disorganized, jumping between points, events, and documents pretty quickly and then coming back to them just whenever. I would’ve preferred smth more chronological, especially given 1 the time period and 2 everyone has the same name (@ two Herods within 100 yrs). I also have qualms with some of his analytical methods… I personally wouldn’t be so sure about some of his claims about Mary based on the lack of evidence, but this might just be how ancient history is. Ultimately, this is pretty informative and I like a lot of his ideas! I’m especially fond of the chapter on Mary’s supposed virginity (more accurately her lack thereof) (though he didn’t bring up the septuagint mistranslation…..) and the bits on Roman/Judean history. But yeah, fell flat in many ways too. I’m 100% sure his papers go crazy tho

She kinda perfectly encapsulated what getting into witchcraft was like during the pandemic. She has a lot of the same questions and issues I did, as a fellow witch-curious but mega-skeptic. But there’s also a Lot of white guilt all over and she has some intense anxiety about doing everything right when literally everyone in her life is always telling her that her practice is HERS and can BE HER OWN. It takes her months to begin to get that. There were some things like that where the solution seems so obvious and I wanna shake her and b like…. girl come ON. But in many ways I relate to her so maybe I’m just mad at younger me??? Regardless, she’s a good writer and this is a cool exploration… but be prepared

I wish I went in not knowing the ending!! I shouldn’t have watched that 2010s adaptation, that was a mistake on my teenage self’s part. BUT this is my first Agatha Christie read since 7th grade and I really loved it!! Poirot is such a diva and his approach to sleuthing is so hypocritical in a really funny way……. like random guessing for me but not for thee (m. bouc). I’m excited to watch the 1974 film version so I can actually see the evidence…… and also see how the train works bc for an American with little train experience I definitely felt like I was missing some spatial understanding. But pretty good stuff, if you can believe it