The Next Best Book Club discussion
Personal Reading Goals
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Reading Through History
Oooooh Shiny! :)Ok I've only randomly glanced at Egyptian but I love Elizabeth Peters and I had no idea she was writing non-fiction under her real name (though it makes sense) and am definitely going with your reads:Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt and Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt after Sumeria. I also thought I'd look for Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms they cited it as a "classic" in its field which sounded convincing :). The reviews certainly match the boasts!
I requested Inanna and Ancient Iraq from the library and am ordering Harps. Just about ready to kick off :)
woohoo, it's fun to find other "geeky" people who love to read for learning and fun. :) Alex, I "goodreads stalked" your bookshelf to find a translation for Gilgamesh. Stephen Mitchell the best one?
Other translation/versions I've found were John Gardner and Foster (which was Norton's Critical Edition)? This may be a dumb question, but does it make a big difference?
Hannah, I'm a bit obsessive, so I agonize over translations to a degree that would probably make you back away slowly. I do think they're super important; I can't tell you how many times I've heard people hate on, say, The Aeneid, because they were forced to read some super dry dude who'd translated it word for word and sacrificed all the poetry.That said, I'm a little bit dubious about Stephen Mitchell, who does exactly the opposite. He can't read Sumerian or Akkadian, so instead he's sortof...poetry'd up the translations of others. And that makes him the third guy in the Telephone game, right? If I'd realized that going in - I failed to research this properly because my buddy was raving about this translation and I foolishly trusted him - I probably would have chosen something else.
But: I will say that Mitchell's version is very readable. Zips right along, very pretty. And Gilgamesh is such a weird poem, that goes a long way.
My advice on translations is this:
1) Look on Amazon; frequently, the "most useful" review for a work in translation is by some crazy scholar who's broken down the three or four most popular translations and given examples of each.
2) Go to a really good bookstore and flip through any translations they have. I use BU's bookstore; college stores are more likely to have musty old crap like this because it's the only time anyone reads them - when they're forced to by musty old professors.
3) Do not be influenced by your friends, that one girl you went out with for three days in high school whose dad did a translation, or some dude you met at a party who read this ten years ago. Every time I let someone influence my decision I regret it.
4) ...but do let yourself be influenced by me, 'cause I'm wicked awesome.
The combination of those strategies usually gets me to the best translation for me.
If all else fails, Norton is pretty trustworthy.
Sorry about the length...I always babble in the morning. I'm all amped on coffee.
Hannah - yep, Elizabeth Peters! One of these days I'm gonna have to read some of her mysteries. She's so much fun to read.General, sexist sidenote: for some reason I tend to enjoy historical non-fiction more when it's written by women. Probably a coincidence.
As long as we're talking about Ancient Egypt, here's today's Fivebooks. I've heard good things about Village Life in Ancient Egypt: Laundry Lists and Love Songs. The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, 1940-1640 BC also looks really cool.ps note first author's name. Heh.
I'm just posting here so I can get updates whenever you add something new.I've been thinking of starting Gilgamesh here pretty soon. Don't know when it will actually happen, but it's on my list. The dreaded, unimaginably large, to-read list.
Hi Jessica!I just bought Piers Plowman. And The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009 is out! OMG OMG! I love that series.
Also ordered Tale of Sinuhe this morning.
Don't nobody tell my wife I bought $50 worth of books today, okay?
Alex, thanks for the recommendations on translations. I'll let you know what I decide. The only book I've read with a translation is The Count of Monte Cristo (both abridged and unabridged), and we talked about the differences between the copies. I feel as if I am chipping at an iceberg and have no idea what I'm getting into. But I'm excited about it :). It's been so long since I have had time to read that I am probably going a little overboard, but why just stick your feet in? I'll probably be getting into trouble tomorrow as I'm going to the mall to get thank you notes and of course there's a B&N there. Alex, you might not be the only one keeping secrets. :)
Alex wrote: "As promised, I'm starting a new thread about this so we can stop derailing the Next Book(s) thread.I'm on a more or less life-long mission to read my way through history, alternating between li..."
Have you read the Old Testament: Kings and Judges for history?
No, is that part of the Old Testament, like, the Bible thing? I started to read that but it was so weird, man, that is a seriously weird book. I kinda couldn't handle it. I'll try again someday though. I hear Song of Solomon is pretty good.
A lot of myths in the bible, but some is history, next time you want to try - use the New Jerusalem bible, it's more readable. Actually in the preface to the section called "The Historical Books" Joshua, Judges, Samual and Kings are called the Historical books, also called the early Prophets. I am not a true believer but its a part of history if that's what you are trying to read. Yes, it's Old Testament.
I'm not a true believer either - or any kind of believer - but of course I do agree that it's part of history, yeah. Honestly, it's a little shameful that I haven't read any of the major religious books. I need to suck it up and get to them. They're sortof intimidating, but that's no excuse.
Let us know how that trip to the mall goes, Hannah!I get so excited when I think of all the stuff I haven't read. You know how much Dickens I've never read? Lots. And I've never read Paradise Lost! And ...and someone just announced they were reading something called "My Life as a Harem Girl" or something like that...I've never read that either.
Might do Paradise Lost before that one.
I started reading Paradise Lost last year, like right around the New Year. I had to put it on pause though. Milton and I just weren't quite gellin'. But that was when one of our dogs started on a downhill spiral and had his first seizure, so Milton was a bit too much for me to handle. And now I can't go back because it reminds me of our dog. You know how powerful people's memories are when they hear certain songs? I'm that way when it comes to books. I have a horrible memory when it comes to some things (like family vacations as kids), but if I can remember what I was reading at the time, I can usually recreate the entire experience. Weird.I also get excited by how much I haven't read. Apropos to this thread, for example, I get excited thinking about reading freaking The Twelve Caesars.
Have you read Jane Smiley's "13 Ways of looking at the Novel" written post 9/11, she ends with 100 novels she read starting with "Tale of the genii" from the 11th century finishing with Jennifer Egan (because her daughter carried it with her on a trip.) She summarizes, reviews the 100 novels.
Alex wrote: "Let us know how that trip to the mall goes, Hannah!I get so excited when I think of all the stuff I haven't read. You know how much Dickens I've never read? Lots. And I've never read Paradise ..."
Reading at least some of the interesting bits of the Bible, especially Genesis and Revelations, before Paradise Lost helps your general understanding of the later. Though you have my complete and utter admiration for reading nonfiction books on every time period you visit through fictional works, I could never have the patience to do that.
It's because I'm a boy, Andreaa. Boys like boring stuff. I read this study recently: histories and biographies are the only two genres men read more than women. Further proof that boys are pretty lame.
El, I'm the same way with books. I can look at many of the books on my shelves and remember exactly where I was and how I was doing when I read them. It's cool. Although I can see how it would be not as cool if a book were associated with something more traumatic.
And I'm sorry about your dog. :(
I can't watch Trading Spaces anymore because I binged on it years ago when I got laid off and was really depressed about it.
Good point about reading the Bible before I take on Milton. I will definitely do that; it'll motivate me to get around to the darn thing.
And Natalie, that book sounds kinda cool...I do like books about books.
Alex, If you feel like it, visit my blog nataliereads.blogspot.com and tell me what I am doing wrong.
Natalie, your poem for your sister is fabulous. And I don't say that lightly; I think most poetry is awful. You've hit a really nice balance between funny and sad. I loved the line about her poofed up hair.; it perfectly captures those incongruously mundane thoughts you sometimes have at terribly sad moments like that.And I'd also like to say that sometimes I find myself talking to an 81-year-old woman who lives on the side of a mountain in Hawaii, writes a blog and reads by her generator, and I think yes: the internet is a cool invention.
As far as what you're doing wrong: you're not doing anything wrong. Why would you be? What's your goal? Are you hoping to become a famous blogger? No one's a famous blogger. Nobody reads anyone else's blog. (I mean, unless you were a 23-year-old Congressional aide who sleeps around a whole lot.) Just write what you want, right? You're documenting yourself, and this document will never go away. That's terrific.
If you were asking whether it's a good blog: yes, it is. You have a unique perspective, you write naturally, and you have interesting things to say. If you're asking why you don't have a ton of faithful readers, it's because faithful readers are mostly a myth.
Alex wrote: "Natalie, your poem for your sister is fabulous. And I don't say that lightly; I think most poetry is awful. You've hit a really nice balance between funny and sad. I loved the line about her poo..."Thank you, thank you. I forgot to mention I grew up prewar (WWII) in New England where there was a right way or a wrong way to do things and that bedevils me to this day.
I've printed your comments and when I have doubts of participating in this new media I'll remeber your kind words.
Alex wrote: "As promised, I'm starting a new thread about this so we can stop derailing the Next Book(s) thread.I'm on a more or less life-long mission to read my way through history, alternating between li..."
I recommend "From Dawn to Decadence" by Jacques Barzun, (500 years of Westernn Cultural Life.) it can give you a survey of our era (he thinks its ending) It has 877 pages that includes notes, index, etc.
Oh my, that best five books is evil. As if my reading list weren't long enough. Thanks, Alex...
Alex, if you get around to reading Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs in some translations) don't pull lines to compliment your wife...the language just doesn't translate to this time...
Goodness.... I'm away for a couple days and boom! you guys end up talking about all kinds of good things. :) I got a puppy the other day. And apparently an hour in Mississippi language actually means two, so I did not have time to go to the mall. And since my puppy is only 12 weeks old, I'm spending most of my time at home. So I think it will end up being a more Amazon adventure. :) But I'll keep you updated, Alex. I'm excited to start reading.
I agree Jayme, the Best Five Books is evil. In fact, the whole Goodreads seems to be evil for me. I guess it's a big challenge when my to-read list is like 8x the size of my read pile. :)
From a religious background, I thought I would just mention some thoughts. Not really wanting to go into a religious discussion (I hate conflict :) ), but I am a believer and my father was a theology major - so I thought could give you some background. Alex, Genesis will help lots when reading Paradise Lost. I've read both. I remember enjoying Milton, but I couldn't summarize the plot to save my life. Parts of the Old Testament are great from history and some fun reading, especially if you want some background of Jewish culture. Genesis and Exodus have a lot of history relating to Jewish beliefs about the beginning. Judges, Joshua, Ruth, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Samuel present a lot of their old time history; and most of it is pretty good reading. Revelation is some pretty crazy stuff, but fun to read if you like science fiction type stuff. It refers to Daniel a lot, which also predicts the future. Both are referenced in Paradise Lost, if I remember right. But if you want to read any Jewish literature or Christian literature from the "olden days," some of those books might help with references. :) Sorry for the rambling.....
Natalie, after Alex's wonderful comments, I took a look at your blog. I hope you do not mind. You're poem made me cry, it was so touching. It's fascinating to see pictures and read about times in the past. My grandparents and I do not have a close relationship, so I sometimes miss out on the stores of their childhood.
I guess I've stalled enough. I am studying for my licensure exam - so I guess I might get back to that. Sorry for the long post!
Hannah, I'd love to have you read my blog. I love telling the stories of my growing up in Rhode Island. Our upbringing was rigid with but with much care and love. So please join me. Also I'm glad you clarified the Old Testament for Alex, I gave him a little from my New Jerusalem Bible but you were more specific.
Wow, this thread got to it while I was away!I love the look of Village Life, and The Tale of Sinuhe. Those two stand out for me on that list.
Natalie, your blog is great! I don't think there are that many 80 year olds blogging (my mom's mom doesn't even have a computer), I laughed at the story about the snuggies! The story and picture of your sisters is wonderful.
I was thinking I wanted to fit some of the Bible/Torah/Quaran for the literature aspect of their historical eras. I read a lot of the Bible when I was a pre-teen. Some of the books are very readable. Thanks for breaking them down more efficiently in terms of history. For the Bible I'm going to have to go find a King James Version. My sister? I think gave me a New International Version and I greatly prefer the verbage of the former, it's more poetic.
My 60-year-old mom has a blog but it kinda sucks. She never updates and when she does it's mostly about lunch.Hannah, that's actually really great stuff. Advice on which parts of the Bible are more accessible helps a lot; I do want to read it, being as how it's one of the most important books ever written, but it's been a bit intimidating.
I'll have to get to the New Testament and the Quran eventually too...the Quran is just as weird as the Old Testament from what I've seen. Basically, if there is a God, I'm gonna say writing isn't really what he excels at.
I ordered Tale of Sinuhe, so I'll weigh in when it comes.
Alex, ages ago you (or at least I think/hope it was you) mentioned Beowulf on the Beach: What to Love and What to Skip in Literature's 50 Greatest Hits in a thread here somewhere. I meant to go find it back and comment that I've actually purchased the book , but obviously I forgot where it was being discussed....Anyway.... I haven't read it through fully but he does cover both the Old Testament and the New Testament in some depth as to what he thinks is essential reading and what can be glossed over. I don't know how closely his views on the topic compare to yours, Hannah, but it is interesting reading. As he says, (with no offense to anyone who feels differently) he has read it through in its entirety twice so you don't have to.
Thanks Tanya (and Alex) for the recommendation of Beowulf on the Beach. I will definitely have to check that out, at least browse through it at a bookstore. I'm always finding fun books about books and can't seem to stay away from them. :)
Oh, and Alex, I ordered Gilgamesh. I ended up getting the Sanders edition (if I am remembering it correctly). I browsed through Amazon, and found several reviews that stated Sanders was a good combination of readability and poetry. We'll see how it turns out.
Yes indeed, Tanya. Here's what Murnighan suggests in Beowulf on the Beach:- Job
- Song of Solomon
- Genesis
- Exodus
He goes into a great deal more detail; in fact he ends up going through the entire thing book by book. But those are the main four. I'll also check out the other bits Hannah recommended.
I'm never sure what to say about Beowulf on the Beach. I like it and I refer to it when I'm reading a book covered by it...but I think Murnighan tries way too hard to be hip, which gets old very fast, and his obsession with "dirty parts" is just juvenile. Browse through it before you buy it, to see if that's going to bug you too much.
Cool that you ordered Gilgamesh! I'm glad you got a different translation; now we'll be able to discuss the differences.
I had an English professor in college who loved to point out the "dirty parts" in a lot of literature like Beowulf. In her case it was sort of funny, but I'm sure we were all just especially horny. And it was a historically women's college, so the lack of man-folk left us all craving a little literary discussion on swords and whatnot. She especially enjoyed my discussion of Goblin Market which I maintain is entirely about sex.Okay, you people have made me want to read Gilgamesh now.
Sorry, random question: Has anyone actually read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? I own it, but I'm suspicious.
Gilgamesh is really~ dirty. I'd also recommend Ecclesiastes for OT books, especially if you want to get a sense of the development of literature over time since you'll probably encounter the meaninglessness of worldy things/memento mori motive in other books.
I haven't read Decline and Fall, El; I've heard that it's badly dated. Don't trust the information in it.That said, it's seminal; it ranks up there near Herodotus. (And you can't trust him either, of course.) Read it as a cultural artifact, not as history.
Seriously, Gilgamesh is wicked dirty. And gay. Hella gay. It's weird. And it's not very long, so it's not as much of a commitment as, say, Gibbons.
Awesome. Well it seems I have something to look forward to, I guess. :) El - I vividly remember discuss Goblin Market both in high school and college. I think it's funny that it is mostly remember for it's dirtyness factor.
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire sounds interesting, probably because Roman and European history interests me the most. If anyone reads it before I get there (which will be in a while...), I'm interested to see what he/she thinks. Are there (I'm sure there are but...) other books that could be compared and read at the same time to reference?
I finally broke down and organized my bookshelf. And thanks to you guys, there's a whole shelf of reading through history. Right now it only has like three, but I'm sure it will be growing exponentially soon.
There are oodles of books that would serve that purpose, yeah. One that's currently popular is Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. I haven't read it myself; I caught a lot of fall-of-Empire stuff tangentially from other books, and didn't feel like I needed more.
I'd never even heard of Goblin Market. Weird. Worth reading?
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely check into Heather's history. I don't know what fascinates me so much about the Roman empire, maybe because i never studied it in school. Goblin Market is a good read if you are trying to understand Victorian literature and attitude. I enjoyed it, especially when I read it in college because we were reading through the different types of Victorian literature and discussing common themes and such. But if you are already familiar with British Lit and the Victorian period, you could probably skip it and it wouldn't ruin your life. My opinion anyway....
Alex, if you like dirty, kinky, incestual sex full of "dripping juices", you'll like Goblin Market. Plus it's pretty short. It's a long poem, so you could breeze through it pretty easily. There are no Viking fem-bots though.I think if I read Gibbons I'll pair it with something a little more accurate. The Heather book Alex mentioned looks like it might be a contender for some side-by-side reading.
Ha...so Hannah says it's about Victorian attitudes, and El says it's about dripping juices. I wonder if this says more about you two than the book.
Oooh I illustrated Goblin Market for my Children's book Illustration course. I like that poem... but it's totally about sex or loss of innocence and it's consequences, which is where the Victorian attitudes and dripping juices co-exist. I'm not sure about the incest... because that aspect of the story is not negative, it's necessary... hmmm.
For those keeping track here, Madeline is telling us that she made an illustrated children's version of a book about dripping juices and incest.*golf clap*
Madeline is telling us that she made an illustrated children's version of a book about dripping juices and incest.See? This is exactly why I needed updates on this thread.
The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, 1940-1640 BC came today! No idea when I'll find time to get to it...but it's nice to look at.
Albion Seed by David Hackett Fisher - the best history I've ever read about the four great migrations to America that affect us to this day: Puritans to NE 1620-1640Royalists to Virginia 1640's
Quakers to Pennsylvania
Scots/Irish to hill country
the book compares the groups viz: child raising, religion, politics,marriage, etc.
Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America does look very interesting. I added it to my to-read list, which seems to be growing exponentially. However, I was really excited to read the description and see "anthropological" because I have been watching Bones recently. (such a dork)Alex, glad you got your book. Mine still hasn't been shipped. Oh well... should probably work on reading the million other books I have. :)
So, Natalie has been recommending different book magazines in a couple of different threads. I was enjoying just browsing through them. I found this on "Bookmarks" website. http://www.bookmarksmagazine.com/hist...They are recommendations for historical fiction with historical accuracy. I found it very interesting and wanted to read a couple. Have you guys read any of the books recommended? Thoughts?
Neat list. The only one I've read is Clan of the Cave Bear and I'm really surprised it's in there. I wouldn't have thought it was all that historically accurate.There's a few others on the list that I've wanted to read for a long time though. In particular, Death Comes for the Archbishop.
The Next Best Book Club
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I'm on a more or less life-long mission to read my way through history, alternating between literature and non-fiction about each period.
I started in the "Cradle of Civilization," the Middle East:
- Stephen Mitchell's translation of Gilgamesh, arguably the first book ever
- George Roux's magisterial Ancient Iraq: Third Edition.
Books wisely added by Madeline:
- The Harps That Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation
- Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart : Poems of the Sumerian High
I'm mainly covering Western civilization on this first pass. I have a vague idea that whenever I'm done I'll go back to the beginning, this time with Asian civilization. I take random detours into African and Native American stuff whenever something catches my eye.
I'm up to the 1300s now, finally finishing the Medieval period (which took freakin' forever, jeez).