(Okay, the image is of the movie version of Ivanhoe, but I liked it so much better than the boring Barnes and Noble cover that I was reading from.)
Ivanhoe is one of those books I'd always heard of but had ABSOLUTELY no idea what it was about. I probably couldn't have told you who it was by, even. But Tommy got it for Christmas (or something?) a while ago and he loved it--he's all about the Robin Hood/Three Musketeers/fighting stories, and this book fits right in with those. He loved it, which gave me some motivation to read it. But I mean, WHO KNEW that Ivanhoe was about medieval times? Even once I eventually learned who it was by, I still figured it was contemporary with Walter Scott.
All in all, the book was great. A good example of that genre of medieval knights, damsels in distress, burning castles, and a healthy dose of anti-Semitism (to be fair, I think Scott was making a commentary on contemporary anti-Semitism, not actually being anti-Semitic, but it was pretty rampant). I just couldn't help cracking up at all the times the strong, chivalrous knights fell madly in love with the perfectly formed maidens. And I could NOT believe how long the castle/prisoner scene in the middle was. But learning about all of the Norman-Saxon issues was really interesting--a part of history I frankly don't know anything about--and I loved Robin Hood and his merry men throughout the novel. And I love Richard the Lion-hearted!
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