"The Templars" (fair warning) is a slog

Now the most recent entry on our reading list, Barbara Frale's "The Templars: The Secret History Revealed" is a hard-core history, full of long-ago dates and unfamiliar names and the strange goings-on of the Middle Ages, and not an easy read. So if you decide to give it a try, don't say you weren't warned.

That said, it's full of fascinating stuff about military history, literary history, the history of diplomacy and the Catholic church (or churches), the Crusades—and, of course, the Templars—around the turn of the 1st Millennium. So there's that.

If you can find it in your local library and read even a little bit of it you're unlikely to be disappointed or wanting your money back.

Next time, hopefully, something a little more fun.