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Madame de Pompadour

Nancy Mitford,

Amanda Foreman (Introduction)

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Mar 20, 2020 Elizabeth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, france, biography, 1700s

I've long been a fan of Nancy Mitford, having read the incredible biography of her family The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family and then two of her novels, ink: The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate.

This is Mitford's biography of Madame de Pompadour. I picked this one up fresh off of reading Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz. Mitford may have written this some 75 years before Larson, but she is an equally excellent ...more

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Nov 21, 2015 Kiri rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: z-read-2010-2019

Awful. I know this is very well rated, and it is from vintage books, but this is simply tripe. I am reading the ebook version and hopefully it is a case of bad conversion from print. Having stated that, this version has terrible and nonsensical sentences, bad structure, the tenses do not even agree - and that is just the tip of the iceberg. I am left wondering about Ms. Mitford's education (or more likely lack thereof) and if she was a native English speaker. Yes it is that bad.

Sadly I have sev ...more

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Apr 21, 2007 Suvi rated it it was ok

Shelves: _france, biographies, history, cities_paris

This was my first biography I've ever read. I made a hasty review on what I thought was good and comprehensive overview but which instead turned out to be way too gossipy to be taken seriously. It's like the author was making lots of assumptions and not very much reasoning on her thoughts. ...more

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Jun 14, 2009 Isabel marked it as to-read

Oct 08, 2009 Juliana Philippa marked it as to-read

Feb 08, 2013 O'Rissa marked it as to-read

Mar 30, 2015 Ginger marked it as to-read

May 31, 2018 Deedee marked it as to-read

Shelves: world-europe-france, biography, n3, berkley-summer-reading, history-18th-century, year-1954, nyrb-classics, nyrb-unread-verified, m2, m2-no-articles