So, What Are You Reading?

Sorry, Ted. I'm not him. He's a Dutch one-n Johan. My forum-name is the two-n German Johann.

A page on Dr. Huizinga, for anyone curious about his work: Johan Huizinga Cultural historian Waning of the Middle Ages

J.

 

Read Paula Mitchell Marks' Hands to the Spindle: Texas Women and Home Textile Production, 1822-1880.

 

Read Katharine M. Jones' Ladies of Richmond.

 

Read Francis Bacon's Novum Organum and The New Atlantis.

 

Read Keith Richards' autobiography, Life. Finished two days ago -- man, I think I'm still high! :smile: Best book by a musician I've read in 55 years, and I love those books. In a coincidence, "Keef" actually referred to the two such books I started with, way back in the early 60s - Louis Armstrong's Satchmo: My life in New Orleans and Mezz Mezzrow's Really the Blues.

Keith Richards and I are the same age. We've never met each other, but both of us were young kids in postwar England - a setting I can tell you that Richards documents with exceeding accuracy. He's even got the smells right - the smoke-and-horsecrap "London Pong" as he called it. :smile: He and I lived about 30 road miles from each other in our early years.

It's an absorbing story, told with forthrightness by a man I admire for his honesty and his genius. He talks in a few places about guitar playing in the book and anyone who's ever picked up the instrument will love those bits - straight from the heart of a great player. :smile:

J.

 

Read Nicolo Machiavelli's The Prince.

 

Read Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan.

 

Wisdom's Workshop. The Rise of the Modern University, by James Axtell.

 

Wisdom's Workshop? I'll have to put that on my amazon.com wish list.

 

Read Norma Johnston's Remember the Ladies: The First Women's Rights Convention.

 

Just finished reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between The World And Me. A very powerful book. Painful to read but I'm glad I did.

 

Mint shape - 90 cents. Mark Cullen's The All Seasons Gardener - signed by the author, probably at a bookstore signing. Big enough to prop your shed door open, or raise your lawnmower up for an oil change. :smile:
Another signed book (also a thrift-shop find) I bought for 50 cents a couple of weeks ago: The Garden, by Freeman Patterson (my favourite Canadian photographer.) That one was only 50 cents.

I have probably bought 200 new-condition books from thrift shops in the last year or so - been on kind of a kick. I doubt if it's cost me $200 for those books; I did have to fork out $50 for two sets of extra bookshelves, though. :smile:

J.

 

Read John Locke's Concerning Civil Government.

 

Mint-shape copies: Lorrie Mack, Making the Most of Work Spaces and Margaret Hynes, Rocks & Fossils, Kingfisher Knowledge Series. $2 and change for both at Salvation Army. Read 'em right away.

Found some really good computer books for photographers lately, Photoshop etc., but no books on electronics or criminology. Oh well, looking is more than half the fun. You just never know... :smile:

J.

 

Read the American State Papers, to-wit, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. Currently reading the Federalist Papers.

 

Current Reading: The Federalist Papers and Abraham Lincoln's devotional

 

Finished reading Thomas Freiling's Abraham Lincoln's Daily Treasure: Moments of Faith with America's Favorite President.

 

Review of more literature for my dissertation.......

Soul of a People-David Taylor
The Federal Writers' Project-Monty Penkower
Against Itself -Paul Sporn


For fun..yeah..no...

Beauty-Roger Scruton

 

finished reading the Federalist Papers