My father's quite the Anglophile. Some of my fondest early memories are his reading King Arthur, Ivanhoe, Sherlock and Robin Hood to my brother and I.

Later on, I tucked into that massive Will and Ariel Durant series, Costain's Plantagenet stuff, and it just kind of went from there.

Like most people, I suspect, I went through phases: medieval, WWII, Romans, Vikings, Crusades...

I adore history, and I am always saddened by the generations of kids behind me that don't share that. Heck, just a book on the history of the Kings and Queens of England has more death, conspiracy, mayhem, gore and insanity than 90% of the "thrillers" out there!