What are you currently reading?

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

For those who are interested, an interview article with Hamaguchi, a director of Drive My Car- a movie based on Haruki Murakami's novel with the same title.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-12-20/drive-my-car-explained-ryusuke-hamaguchi-interview

[André]

For those who are interested, an interview article with Hamaguchi, a director of Drive My Car- a movie based on Haruki Murakami's novel with the same title.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-12-20/drive-my-car-explained-ryusuke-hamaguchi-interview

Thanks for the link. An in-depth interview indeed. I was planning to watch the movie if it is offered on line.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Thanks for the link. An in-depth interview indeed. I was planning to watch the movie if it is offered on line.

My pleasure, Andre. Have a great week!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

The Bright Ages (December 2021) by Matthew Gabriele and David Perry - just released and a 'new look' at the history of medieval Europe which the authors have called not the dark but the bright ages - I've been reading medieval history for a long time and have a number of video courses - a LOT went on over that approximate 1,000 year period (the dates I like, of course arguably, are 476 CE for the beginning when the last emperor in Rome was deposed by invading ruffians and 1453 CE when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire). Just about a third done and enjoyable.

A Short History of Humanity: A New History of Old Europe (April 2021) by Johannes Krause and Thomas Trappe - just finished the book on Neanderthal Man by Svante Päabo who with his 'team' sequenced the genome of the extinct human ancestor; Krause is one of his students and updates the last 10 years of the genetic history of ancient 'humans' in Europe and the Near East.  Just getting started - Dave

 

Dave, do you agree w the bright ages thesis?

[SimonNZ]

I was going to say that a recent episode of the Rest Is History podcast had that author on, but looking now I see it was the author of a similar book called not "Bright" but The Light Ages.

[JBS]

Dave, do you agree w the bright ages thesis?

If I understand it correctly, the book's thesis is not particularly controversial. I learned about the Carolingian Renaissance when I was in college 40 years ago, for instance. It's more a matter of popular culture never quite catching up to the academic scholarship.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Well, the author is a legit guy- professor of Virginia Tech. But it is not from an academic publisher.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Thousand Cranes (Senba Zuru), Yasunari Kawabata.
Art of space and unsaid.

[SonicMan46]

If I understand it correctly, the book's thesis is not particularly controversial. I learned about the Carolingian Renaissance when I was in college 40 years ago, for instance. It's more a matter of popular culture never quite catching up to the academic scholarship.

I was going to say that a recent episode of the Rest Is History podcast had that author on, but looking now I see it was the author of a similar book called not "Bright" but The Light Ages.

Dave, do you agree w the bright ages thesis?

Thanks Guys for the comments on Bright Ages - having been fascinated with this approximate 1000 year period in history, the 'Dark Ages' is certainly a misnomer as if nothing much happened when the truth is the opposite.  This was a complex story over the those many centuries - I'm about half way through the book and the authors are highlighting these events and history - some 'new' personalities to me are introduced but much is going to be well known to those who have a knowledge of the era - much is a re-hash for me so far (and don't expect many surprises w/ the rest of the book), BUT for someone unfamiliar and un-read in this history will be rewarded in reading the book.  Dave

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Nice explanation, Dave. I will get the book!

[ritter]

Starting Albert Camus' Le Mythe de Sisyphe.

[SimonNZ]

Started:



"A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century"

Superb. Had me up until 2am last night.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

That looks very interesting.  I think I'll get a copy of that.

I'm currently re-reading this, after seeing the author on PBS America reminded me how good it is:

I added both the books to my Amazon wish list.

[SimonNZ]

That looks very interesting.  I think I'll get a copy of that.

It really is excellent.

It would have been all too easy for a one volume overview of history writing through the centuries to have been just a once over lightly string of not much better than wikipedia entries and following the simplistic thumbs up or down the current fashion assigns them.

But this is immediately clearly the work of a  professional historian at the end of a long career taking stock of a lifetime thinking about his craft. He is tellingly sympathetic to all of his subjects and the examples he chooses and connections he makes are highly individual. And even though I majored in history at university there are many works previously unknown to me that get signposted along the way.

I was particularly impressed by his section covering the now unfashionable Macauley, and I'll need to find the four-volume Heron edition of his history of the Glorious Revolution I used to see in every secondhand shop but of course is now nowhere to be found.

]


I hadn't heard of that book The Vanquished before. I'll grab a copy when I see one.

[JBS]

It really is excellent.

It would have been all too easy for a one volume overview of history writing through the centuries to have been just a once over lightly string of not much better than wikipedia entries and following the simplistic thumbs up or down the current fashion assigns them.

But this is immediately clearly the work of a  professional historian at the end of a long career taking stock of a lifetime thinking about his craft. He is tellingly sympathetic to all of his subjects and the examples he chooses and connections he makes are highly individual. And even though I majored in history at university there are many works previously unknown to me that get signposted along the way.

I was particularly impressed by his section covering the now unfashionable Macauley, and I'll need to find the four-volume Heron edition of his history of the Glorious Revolution I used to see in every secondhand shop but of course is now nowhere to be found.

]


I hadn't heard of that book The Vanquished before. I'll grab a copy when I see one.

I remember references in my college reading to Macaulay complaining about his alleged bias to the Whigs.

Amazon US has a copy of the Heron edition listed at $299.99 US.

There's a Penguin abridged edition: Hugh Trevor-Roper was the abridger/editor.

TD
Spending the evening with an old friend, Jane Austen's Persuasion.

[Karl Henning]

I've decided it's time I made good on reading Geo. MacDonald's Phantastes.  I don't exactly know how much I read before ... made a good-ish bit of progress, but certainly did not finish it. No good reason.

[SimonNZ]

I remember references in my college reading to Macaulay complaining about his alleged bias to the Whigs.

Amazon US has a copy of the Heron edition listed at $299.99 US.

There's a Penguin abridged edition: Hugh Trevor-Roper was the abridger/editor.

TD
Spending the evening with an old friend, Jane Austen's Persuasion.

300us? Yikes! I better grab that listing I can see on a local site for 25nz.

I've actually had the Penguin abridgment sitting on my shelves for a long while, and yesterday I got it down and had a look and decided that the 50-page introduction by Trevor-Roper could be interesting, but the unusual way the abridgment was done is for me at least going to make it a more not less difficult read. And at any rate after reading Burrow I'd like to experience the uninterrupted flow of Macaulay's thoughts and style the way Burrow describes it.

[Elgarian Redux]

I've decided it's time I made good on reading Geo. MacDonald's Phantastes.  I don't exactly know how much I read before ... made a good-ish bit of progress, but certainly did not finish it. No good reason.

I re-read Phantastes a few months ago too, Karl. It used to be one of my favourite books, though now I'm not so sure about it. But then, I had come at it, this time, straight after reading William Morris's The Well at the World's End which, despite being a fantasy, has a medieval robustness to it that made MacDonald seem a bit watery. Could just have been a mood thing. Still, I must say that the episode where Anodos sits down to rest by a tree - the Beech, I think it is - is unforgettable, and changed my whole imaginative attitude to trees when I first read it in the 1970s.

[Karl Henning]

I re-read Phantastes a few months ago too, Karl. It used to be one of my favourite books, though now I'm not so sure about it. But then, I had come at it, this time, straight after reading William Morris's The Well at the World's End which, despite being a fantasy, has a medieval robustness to it that made MacDonald seem a bit watery. Could just have been a mood thing. Still, I must say that the episode where Anodos sits down to rest by a tree - the Beech, I think it is - is unforgettable, and changed my whole imaginative attitude to trees when I first read it in the 1970s.

Yes, an especially touching encounter. I've now reached the place which was as far as I had read before: after visiting the cottage of an ogress, Anodos is dogged by his shadow ... his deliverance feels near.

[LKB]

I just received Robert Massie's Dreadnought for Christmas, so I'll be cuddling with that tiny little thing for a few days...