Hey, everyone, Sebastian here. Just wanted to let you know that I will once again be participating in this year's Intelligent Speech Conference.

Deception, lies, fakery, fraudulence, and forgery is what they have on the docket for Intelligent Speech 2025.

So, obviously, I've got to be there. For those that don't know,

intelligent speech is an online conference that highlights the best in history podcasting.

Intelligence Speech 2025 deception will be taking place on the 8th of February 2025.

So if you want tickets, go to intelligent speechonline.com right now and get yourself to the conference. If you had to guess, what would you say was Queen Victoria's favorite book?

It's a tricky question, because the 19th century monarch was a voracious reader. On top of her duties as the

Queen of Great Britain and its globe-spanning empire, she managed to finish dozens of books

every year. And to her credit, she had fairly eclectic taste. Her journals reveal that she was a bit of a history buff.

Lengthy tomes on the history of France, the coronations of English kings, and the lives of Roman generals were a big part of her literary diet.

She was also deeply curious about the geography of faraway places.

This no doubt went hand in hand with her interest in the expansion of her growing empire.

She read many books about places on the fringes of British control,

with special attention paid to the manners and customs of people

who might soon find themselves

under the thumb of British administration.

But more than anything else, the Queen loved a good novel.

She rarely missed anything published by Charles Dickens and had a special affection for his novel,

Nicholas Nickleby.

She also spoke well of the author Dinah Crake and her novel John Halifax, Gentlemen.

So zeroing in on an all-time favorite book for the queen might be impossible. However, you could make the case that one of

Queen Victoria's favorite books also has one of the most surprising titles. This was 1839's

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