The first is The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Given that I've been a huge Sherlock Holmes fan since I was a little kid, it's odd that I've never gone beyond those books and read anything else by Conan Doyle until now. Instead, I usually decided to just re-read the Sherlock Holmes stories. The White Company is a historical novel, set during the Hundred Years War between England and France. It's Victorian view of the late Medieval world is an interesting contrast to how it is portrayed in more modern novels. Conan Doyle focuses on noble characters, mainly a squire who was raised in a monastery and who hooks up with a band of archers and eventually becomes a knight while campaigning in France.
It's an enjoyable book and creates an interesting portrait of the period.
The second book has the long winded title Disney Presents Carl Bark's Greatest Ducktales Stories Volume 1. It is a collection of some of the original comics that inspired the late 80s animated series DuckTales and is one of the few places you can find some of the original Scrooge McDuck comics. I don't know why Scrooge McDuck popped into my mind last week, but since he did I've been trying to track down some of the comics to read.
The actual comics are better than I remembered, and quite a bit better than the animated series they spawned. Carl Bark's, the creator and main writer of Scrooge McDuck, had some wild ideas and the stories are pretty amusing. In one story, Scrooge enslaves a rival to work his Klondike gold claim for a month. In another, he discovers the subterranean creatures who cause earthquakes and steals the trophy they have been competing for.
The comics are fun diversion and a very quick read.
Amazon Links:
The White Company
Disney Presents Carl Barks' Greatest Ducktales Stories Volume 1
