April's theme was a cowboy type themed. It had one of the coolest postcards I've ever seen. 

Postmark'd is a subscription for mail and stamps. There's always a monthly theme. It's one of my favorite ways to get cards (although now my local indie is stocking some, so that's a relief). 
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I think this is the last 2021 box for Postmark'd. I think. So after half of 2022, I've caught up? I bet I'll find more stuff later. That's on me. Here we go! 

Okay, I have three 2021 Book Drop Subscription unboxings and I'm caught up...I think. So, let's start with the first one - March 2021. 

I've really got to get my photos together. Like, maybe do a full 2021 catch up in one post? Might as well. I've been on a total book reading streak in between friend catchups so I've done zero photo editing. 

Georgette Heyer is considered one of the earliest modern romance writers. While I've read some of her romances, I tend to like her country house mysteries. They are cozy, which is not my normal mystery-sub-genre love, but it works. 

I have no idea why PBS doesn't make a whole masterpiece mystery about them. I guess licensing won't allow it. Or perhaps there's some other reason I'm missing. 

I pretty much get all my bath supplies from Lavish. It's just easier. Plus, any leftover items make fabulous gifts. 

Well, I'm only one...or two boxes late here. I'm still going to blame Putin. Fucker. 

So, I picked this book up because it reminded me of another book I enjoyed which was How the Irish Saved Civilization (by a different author, Thomas Cahill I think?). It's the theme of a culture, usually through diaspora, sharing literature/philosophy/art, etc. 

With the Irish book, the argument is that because Irish monasteries housed writing and not gold, they were often repositories of knowledge lost by other European countries during the Medieval ages. Only through the diaspora and inclusion of Ireland (usually via British invasion) was this knowledge dispersed. Granted, it wasn't like the Middle East, Asia, Africa, or the Americas were wandering around clueless...they also had a strong literary tradition of all this stuff, but still. 

This book is more on Philosophy and Education that was passed through Scottish diaspora. I took a lot of philosophy courses in college, so this wasn't totally new to me, but I think it can be a bit dry if that's an uninteresting subject. I thought it was really interesting but I'm a huge nerd. The Scottish diaspora was in tandem with the Highland clearances and with the British Empire "colonizing" the world. Colonizing or you know...invading. 
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NPR did an interview with Arthur Herman, which I managed to embed. I love NPR. 

Herman was a coordinator of the Smithsonian's Western Heritage Program. He now a senior fellow at a Think Tank called the Hudson Institute. Think tanks can be full of brilliant people or morons. The Hudson Institute is a conservative think tank that writes semi-interesting reports and blows smoke up conservative men's assholes. So... the norm I suppose. No, seriously, look at who they give awards to and then tell me I'm wrong because I am not. 

I live and work around politicians. They need a lot of smoke blowing. A small, select few need to be put in a padded room. We don't have to name names. We all know who. 
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