19301. (Theodore Sturgeon) Some of Your Blood
19303. (Steve Muhlberger) [in blog Muhlberger’s Early History] Review of Jousting in
. . . . . Medieval and Renaissance Iberia by Noel Fallows
19303. (A. Merritt) The Ship of Ishtar Read more »
Category Archives: BL - Reading 2010
READING – DECEMBER 2010
READING – NOVEMBER 2010
19281. (Walter Scott) Waverley, or ‘Tis Sixty Years Hence
19282. (Charles L. Harness) Lunar Justice
19283. (Marie Corelli) A Romance of Two Worlds
19284. (Thomas Burnett Swann) How Are the Mighty Fallen Read more »
The Sensual Fantasies of Thomas Burnett Swann
Back in 1987, I read Thomas Burnett Swann’s Day of the Minotaur, and enjoyed it, but did not follow through with any more of his books until recent weeks. Now, reading four more of his novels gives me a better appreciation of this odd fantasy writer, who descends more from the Pre-Raphaelites, Lord Dunsany, and James Branch Cabell than the more usual fantasist’s patrimony of Tolkien and Howard. Read more »
19281. (Walter Scott) Waverley, or ‘Tis Sixty Years Hence
When Walter Scott published the first of his novels, Waverley, in 1814, he was already well-known as a poet. The book was so spectacularly successful that it launched him on a career as a novelist known in every corner of the world. His influence in 19th Century Canada, for instance, was such that nobody with pretention to education was without a set of “Waverley novels”. When I worked on various Ontario farms, I often saw them in Victorian-era farmhouses. I found a complete set in a barn, for which I negotiated payment in hay baling. That set (gorgeously bound) is long gone, but now I have another, acquired in a small Ontario town. Many of the scenes and characters of Scott’s novels are preserved in Toronto street names. Anyone familiar with Canadian history knows that in the 19th Century, its literary icons were, in descending order of importance: the Bible, Robby Burns*, Shakespeare, Scott, and Dickens. Read more »
Tuesday, November 2, 2010 — The Secret History of Democracy: Publication Dates
My long-time friend and colleague, Steve Muhlberger and I both have chapters in an upcoming book which may interest readers of this blog. The book is The Secret History of Democracy, edited by Benjamin Isakhan and Steven Stockwell, and published by Palgrave Macmillan. Read more »
READING – OCTOBER 2010
19235. (James Boswell) Boswell’s London Journal, 1762–1763 [ed. F. A. Pottle]
19236. (Eric Linklater) White-Maa’s Saga
19237. [2] (Charles Darwin) The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
19238. (Steve Kingstone) How President Lula Changed Brazil [article]
19239. (Isaac White) Review of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World [film review]
19240. (Thomas Burnett Swann) The Minikins of Yam
Read more »
READING – SEPTEMBER 2010
19035. (Jean-Pierre Changeux) The Physiology of Truth: Neuroscience and Human Knowledge
19036. (Jan Harding) Henge Monuments of the Scottish Isles
19037. (Kevin J. Edwards) People, Environmental Impacts, and the Changing Landscapes of
. . . . . Neolithic and Bronze Age Times [article]
Read more »
READING – AUGUST 2010
18957. (Ronald Firbank) Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli
18958. (Vernon L. Scarborough) The Flow of Power ― Ancient Water Systems and
. . . . . Landscapes
18959. (Jason Peters) [in blog Front Porch Republic] Beer. It’s What’s For Dinner [article] Read more »
18976. (Peter M. Edwell) Between Rome and Persia
This is a straightforward history, largely military and administrative in orientation, of two cities, Palmyra and Dura Europus, which acted as buffer states and trading centers between the Roman and Parthian empires. Both flourished in the second and third centuries A.D., growing wealthy on trade between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. The Palmyrenes maintained a crack army of archers, who specialized in protecting caravans. The safety they provided made their city extremely wealthy. What interests me is that Palmyra had a fully operational boule and demos on the classical Greek model. Read more »
READING – JULY 2010
18882. (Keith Laumer) Worlds of the Imperium
18883. (Elliot Aronson with Joshua Aronson) The Social Animal [10th edition]
18884. (O. Neugebauer) The Exact Sciences in Antiquity
18885. (Bruce Cronin) Community Under Anarchy: Transnational Identity and the Evolution
. . . . . of Cooperation
Read more »