Category Archives: B - READING

READINGOCTOBER 2023

25257. (Samir Baig) Why We Don’t Care… and How to Get Us To [arti­cle]
25258. (Maria Isabel Puer­ta Rivera) Demo­c­ra­t­ic Back­slid­ing and Autocratization: 
. . . . . The Polit­i­cal Effects of the COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic in Nicaragua and Venuzuela 
25259. (Iain Reid) I’m Think­ing of End­ing Things
25260. (Mar­tin Bru­sis) Con­di­tions and Con­se­quences of Pop­ulism and Democratic 
. . . . . Backsliding
25261. (John Lacy) The Old Troop; or, Mon­sieur Rag­gou [play]
25262. (Kan­tapon Surapr­a­sit, et al) Late Pleis­tocene Human Pale­oe­col­o­gy in the 
. . . . . High­land Savan­na Ecosys­tem of Main­land South­east Asia [arti­cle]
25263. (Alwin Kloekhorst) Luwians, Lydi­ans, Etr­uscans, and Troy ― The Linguistic 
. . . . . Land­scape of North­west­ern Ana­to­lia in the Pre-Clas­si­cal Peri­od [arti­cle]
25264. (Heather Cox Richard­son) West from Appo­mat­tox ― The Recon­struc­tion of 
. . . . . Amer­i­ca after the Civ­il War
25265. (Susan Hayes, et al) A Late Pleis­tocene Woman from Tham Lod, Thailand: 
. . . . . The Influ­ence of Today on a Face from the Past [arti­cle]

READINGSEPTEMBER 2023

25245. (Robert S. Allen) His Majesty’s Indi­an Allies ― British Indi­an Pol­i­cy in the 
. . . . . the Defence of Cana­da 1774–1815
25246. (Paul Howe) Erod­ing Norms and Demo­c­ra­t­ic Decon­sol­i­da­tion [arti­cle]
25247. (Ceren Civlan) A Brief Overview of the Effects of Mediter­ranean Pol­i­tics and 
. . . . . Ottoman-Haps­burg Con­flict on the Mod­ern Euro­pean Iden­ti­ty [arti­cle]
25248. (Jeff Good­ell) The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
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READINGAUGUST 2023

25227. (Bri­an Klaas) The Despot’s Accom­plice ― How the West is Aid­ing and 
. . . . . Abet­ting the Decline of Democracy
25228. (K. P. Dial, A. M. Heers & T. R. Dial) Onto­genic and Evolutionary 
. . . . . Trans­for­ma­tions: Eco­log­i­cal Sig­nif­i­cance of Rudi­men­ta­ry Structures 
. . . . . [arti­cle]
25229. (Stephen M. Gatesy & David M. Baier) Skele­tons in Motion: An Animator’s 
. . . . . Per­spec­tive on Ver­te­brate Evo­lu­tion [arti­cle]
25230. (Daniel Z. Lieber­man & Michael E. Long) The Mol­e­cule of More
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READINGJULY 2023

25218. (Sher­man Hol­lar) Ancient Egypt
25219. (John Flana­gan) Ranger’s Appren­tice: The Ruins of Gorlan
25220. (Ben­jamin D. San­ter, et al) Excep­tion­al Stratos­pher­ic Con­tri­bu­tion to Human 
. . . . . Fin­ger On Atmos­pher­ic Tem­per­a­ture [arti­cle]
25221. (Rebec­ca Gib­lin & Cory Doc­torow) Choke­point Cap­i­tal­ism ― How Big Tech and
. . . . . Big Con­tent Cap­tured Cre­ative Labor Mar­kets and How We’ll Win Them Back
25222. (L. Sprague de Camp) The Great Fetish
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READINGJUNE 2023

25173. (Abdi Nazemi­an) Like a Love Story
25174. (John Thor­ley) Athen­ian Democracy
25175. (Matthew Edge­worth, et al) The Strati­graph­ic Basis of the Anthro­pocene Event 
. . . . . [arti­cle]
(Stephen Lea­cock) Too Much Col­lege, or, Edu­ca­tion Eat­ing Up Life:
. . . . 25176. [2] (Stephen Lea­cock) Edu­ca­tion Eat­ing Up Life [arti­cle]
. . . . 25177. (Stephen Lea­cock) The Machine at Work [arti­cle]
. . . . 25178. (Stephen Lea­cock) What Good Is Latin? [arti­cle]
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READINGMAY 2023

25143. (Jean-Paul Gagnon & Emi­ly Beau­soleil) West By Not West: Comparative 
. . . . . Demo­c­ra­t­ic The­o­ry is Con­stel­la­tion­al [arti­cle]
25144. (Damon Knight) The Oth­er Foot [nov­el ver­sion; short sto­ry ver­sion read at 14153]
25145. (Fred­er­ic Charles Schaf­fer & Jean-Paul Gagnon) The Hege­mon­ic Con­cept of 
. . . . . Democ­ra­cy has Dis­solved, What Hap­pens Now? [arti­cle]
(Stephanie Dal­ley ‑ed. & –tr.) Myths From Mesopotamia:
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READINGAPRIL 2023

25131. (Dmit­ry Dubrovsky) Escape from Free­dom. The Russ­ian Aca­d­e­m­ic Community 
. . . . . and the Prob­lem of Aca­d­e­m­ic Righst and Free­doms [arti­cle]
25132. (David K. Wright) Impact of Farm­ing on African Land­scapes [arti­cle]
25133. (Joseph Kel­ly) Amer­i­ca’s Longest Siege ― Charleston, Slav­ery, and the Slow 
. . . . . March to Civ­il War
25134. (Clau­dia Chang, Sergei S. Ivanov & Per­ry A. Tourtel­lotte) Land­scape and 
. . . . . Set­tle­ment over 4 Mil­len­nia on the South Side of Lake Issyk Kul, Kyrgysztan: 
. . . . . Pre­lim­i­nary Results of Sur­vey Research in 2019–2021 [arti­cle]
25135. (Mat­ti Charl­ton) Dendrome
25136. (Meh­di Hasan) Win Every Argument
25137. (Pavla Peter­le Udi­vič & Miran Erič) Log­boat from Ižan­s­ka I {SI-81} from 
. . . . . Ljubl­jana: New Evi­dence for Iron Age Trans­porta­tion on the Ljubljana 
. . . . . Marsh­es, Slove­nia [arti­cle]
25138. (James Ker-Lind­say & Miku­las Fab­ry) Suc­ces­sion and State Creation
25139. (Tris­tan Carter) Obsid­i­an Con­sump­tion in the Late Pleis­tocene ― Early 
. . . . . Holocene Aegean: Con­tex­tu­al­is­ing New Data from Meolith­ic Crete [arti­cle]
25140. (Michael R. Waters, Thomas W. Stafford Jr. & David L. Carl­son) The Age of 
. . . . . Clo­vis ― 13,050 to 12,750 cal yr B.P. [arti­cle]
25141. (Mike Park­er Pear­son, et al) The Stone­henge River­side Project: Explor­ing the 
. . . . . Neolith­ic Land­scape of Stone­henge [arti­cle]
25142. (Tomas Lars­son & Stithorn Thananithi­chot) Who Votes for Virtue? Reli­gion and 
. . . . . Par­ty Choice in Thai­land’s 2019 Elec­tion [arti­cle]

READINGMARCH 2023

25104. (Kirsti Mäki­nen) The Kale­vala: Tales of Mag­ic and Adventure 
. . . . . [ill. Pirkko-Liisa Suro­je­gin] [tr. Kaa­ri­na Brooks] [prose re-telling of 
. . . . . Elias Lön­nrot’s Kale­vala with verse samples] 
. . . . . [see oth­er trans­la­tions: Bosley at 27 & 8563; Kir­by at 391; 
. . . . . Friberg at 18426]
25105. (Mat­ti Charl­ton) The Dark Woods ― A Very Light Bed­time Children’s 
. . . . . Story 
(William M. Brei­d­ing ‑ed.) Portable Stor­age Nine:
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25074. (Matti Charlton) You’re Mine ― A True Story for Brave Little Ones

There are not many books for chil­dren in which death is the main top­ic. Mar­jorie Kin­nan Rawl­ings’ 1938 nov­el The Year­ling, which dealt with death from a child’s point of view, comes to mind, but it was not con­ceived by it’s author as a “chil­dren’s book.” It is today gen­er­al­ly shelved with “young adult” fic­tion in libraries, but that was not a cat­e­go­ry in use at the time of its writ­ing. The author was address­ing adults in a sto­ry writ­ten from the point of view of a child. Its clar­i­ty and emo­tion­al inten­si­ty allowed it to reach a younger audi­ence. We expect a teenag­er to have some con­cern with the idea of death.

But when it comes to books for younger chil­dren, death is still a taboo top­ic. It is some­thing that, many believe, chil­dren should not be exposed to in fic­tion, or even allowed to think about. This pre­sumes that no small child will encounter death, or have to think of it, or need to under­stand it. Except, of course, the chil­dren in Uvalde, Texas, and Sandy Hook, Con­necti­cut. Except, of course, the mil­lions of small chil­dren who have had to expe­ri­ence a death in the fam­i­ly, or even the death of a beloved pet. And that does­n’t even take into account parts of the world torn up by war, where small chil­dren are drenched in the stench of death. There aren’t many chil­dren in Ukraine or Yemen, today, who are obliv­i­ous to death. Reli­gion is of lit­tle help, here. It is far more con­cerned with deny­ing death than with under­stand­ing it, or prepar­ing for it. At its worst, it attempts to dis­miss life as a mere pre­lude to an imag­ined eter­nal exis­tence … at once oblit­er­at­ing death from thought and oblit­er­at­ing life from significance.

So I would rec­om­mend Mat­ti Charl­ton’s  You’re Mine. I wish I had such a book avail­able to me when I was very young. In very straight­for­ward lan­guage, it explains death, how it is inevitable, and why its exis­tence under­lies the pre­cious­ness of life: “Be grate­ful for your life. Every day. Every sec­ond. Cher­ish every moment while your life is still yours.” The nar­ra­tor is death itself, por­trayed as a mon­strous beast, speak­ing to the read­er, “Lit­tle One.” While the art­work of the book is designed to be just scary enough for a child to han­dle, it also evokes the beau­ty of life in a way that a child can under­stand. It is refresh­ing­ly free of eva­sion, deceit, or exis­ten­tial­ist blar­ney. Many adults would ben­e­fit from read­ing it, since, as the author says in a post­script: “..we are all Lit­tle Ones, after all.

READINGFEBRUARY 2023

25089. [2] (Robert McClod­key) Homer Price
25090. (Rose­mary Sut­cliffe) Beowulf [sto­ry]
25091. (Peter S. Ungar) Evo­lu­tion’s Bite ― A Sto­ry of Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins
25092. (Jesús Gil Fuen­san­ta, Alfre­do Mederos Martín & Otabek Ukta­movich Muminov) 
. . . . . Not Far from the Lim­its of the North­ern Uruk Cul­ture in the Middle/Upper
. . . . . Euphrates: the Lat­er Cal­col­ith­ic Lev­els of Surte­pe [arti­cle]
25093. (Susan Dewey, et al) Con­trol Creep and the Mul­ti­ple Exclu­sions Faced by Women 
. . . . . in Low-Auton­o­my Sex Indus­try Sec­tors [arti­cle]
25094. (Raziel Reid) When Every­thing Feels Like the Movies
25095. (Joseph R. Bish­op & Pas­cal Gag­neux) Evo­lu­tion of Car­bo­hy­drate Antigens ― 
. . . . . Micro­bial Forces Shap­ing Host Gly­comes? [arti­cle]
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