Free-Thinkers, Best-Sellers, Fantasy

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The Economist, and an issue of The National Enquirer.

I have also read a volume of authors who wrote bestsellers in the XVIIIth century in France, and that was fascinating in itself. The most popular one was about the loves of nobles at the English court. I also read a collection of books from free-thinkers, about magic, about sexuality for women, etc. Two of them were written by the actual Cyrano de Bergerac, later immortalized in the rhyming play. Finally, I am reading the second volume of a collection of fantasy novels written by Germans in the XIXth century. That also is fascinating -- it gave rise to a whole current of literature that I knew about, having read many fantasy novels, but about whose roots I knew nothing. Who knew?