Azincourt!

If you like reading historical fiction (especially about the medieval period), YOU NEED TO READ Azincourt by Bernard Cornwell!!! He's such a masterful storyteller who weaves a rich tapestry of history and characters making you feel like you're there right in the thick of things! http://www.amazon.com/Agincourt-Novel-Bernard-Cornwell/dp/0061578916/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233516790&sr=1-2

I recently finished it and didn't want it to end!!! I received this book as a Christmas gift from a friend and I gotta tell ya it was one of the best gifts!! It was such a captivating read and I just loved getting lost in the book. That hasn't happened in a long time....maybe I should read more historical fiction, eh?!

Basically the book leads up to one of the epic battles in history....Azincourt. It was fought by France and England, two very badly matched armies that met in atrocious conditions on St. Crispin's Day, October 25th, 1415, that resulted in an extraordinarily unexpected English victory. Even the English thought they were toast since their army numbered a mere 6,000 tired and hungry men against a fresh and well-armed French army of 30,000. It's long been held that it was the English archers who made victory possible and it's through an archer, Nicholas Hook that the author tells the tale and politics of the events leading up to and through the battle itself. But here's a tidbit I just find so incredibly fascinating....consider this stat....an archer at Azincourt averaged a mere 12 arrows a minute and that there were 5,000 bowmen; this means in one minute 60,000 arrows struck the French, a thousand arrows a second. It also means that in ten minutes the archers would have shot 600,000 arrows!! This totally blows my mind!!

Here's a clip about the history of Agincourt (english spelling) from the author's own words....