debsbooks

Monumental accomplishments (at least for me:): Finished my MA! All my books (7818 as of last count) are tagged in Librarything!

So much has gone on since I last posted. In studying for my MA exams, finishing up papers, etc., I must have read at least a hundred books. Stay tuned for my next post, where I'll list all my readings and will talk about some of the highlights. I also managed to read some great fiction as well

More Medieval, Polish

Finished From Memory to Written Record: England 1066 to 1307, by M.T. Clanchy. Clanchy argues that there was a "literacy mentality" in place in England well before the advent of the printing press, and that this mentality was a necessary precursor to the spread of literacy in Europe. Also finished A History of Poland, by Anita Prazmowska.

The Making of Europe

I finished The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change, 950-1350. The basic premise is that the creation of a common "European" culture was a "colonization" of sorts, using the same methods and structures as later cultural and military domination of non-European societies. I have to give at least the synopsis because I read the whole 300 pages and didn't even get to show off in class! (we're iced in).

More Medieval Books

Finished Contesting the Crusades by Norman Housely. I'm also about 100 pages into The Man Without Qualities, Volume II, and a chapter into Rereading German History: 1800-1996 (masters reading) by Richard J. Evans.

I Finished the Man Without Qualities, volume I, two days ago!

And also Medieval Heresy. Of course, I now have about 1,000 pages more of The Man Without Qualities Volume II to read. Seven hundred pages of volume I and we haven't even gotten to the brother-sister incest yet!

More Jewish stuff, another Medieval book, and finishing the last 10 pages from a book I haven't read in quite some time

So for class I finished The First European Revolution: 970-1215. I don't recommend it. It's very dense and doesn't really have a point. I also started reading To Pray as a Jew as a supplement to a minyan we are running. I do recommend it, even for Jews who are very familiar with the prayer service.

And just this morning I was looking through a bunch of books and found Pushkin's Children. I LOVED this book, read all but the last 10 pages and then misplaced it. It has been haunting me for a while. I looked back to when I last read it, and it was actually in my first post from over 2 years ago!

Someday I will finish my Grand Reorganization so I don't only have my books cataloged on librarything, but also have the location up there as well!

The Peace of God

I just finished The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in the Year 1000. I'm now linking directly to books in my librarything library and not to Amazon.) Was the Peace of God a class-united response against devolution into anarchy from the collapse of the Carolingian Empire? Or was it just a way for the clergy to jockey for power with the emerging lordly class? The discussion goes on.

It's Self-Hating Jew Month

With the whirlwind of Jewish holidays in October, it makes sense to connect a little bit with my roots. Yes, I am still reading Man Without Qualities (give me a break, volume 1 alone is 600 pages long), but also I am reading another Dad book, The Wicked Son, by David Mamet. My Dad would either love this book or it would infuriate him. The ending sentence of the first chapter is "In or out." I love it.

Also, I just purchased Everyman, typical Roth. And as I am also listening to some "Introduction to Judaism" lectures by the Teaching Company to fill in some of the details of Talmudic learning, that led me to Wise Men and Their Tales: Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic Masters by Elie Wiesel.

Still taking my course in medieval europe. More on that next week.

Yes, I am Still Reading the Man Without Qualities

But I have started multitasking again! I'm taking a seminar on Medieval Europe and have just read the first book--Europe in the High Middle Ages by William Chester Jordan. Oh, those crazy crusaders. ;)

Catch up

I haven't been able to read more than magazines for months it seems. Horrible. But now I am back on my game, and need to catch up on a bunch of schoolwork. I've started reading The Man Without Qualities (Vol I and II) in a new translation. Next I am taking a medieval europe class, I will list those books out in the next few posts.