14 September 2009-Reading List

I just don't seem to have much time for reading these days. Creatively, it is a great thing because that means I have been writing up a storm. Recreationally speaking, I will not mince words: it sucks. It really does. Yet, I understand that it is part of the ebb and flow of the artistic process. This does not mean that I have stopped dreaming of books. Oh, no! In fact, it means that I think about them all of the time. Each new catalogue is greeted like a long lost friend. I have a growing mound of enticing catalogues, from Daedalus to Bas Bleu, almost always at hand. I'm going to share with you a few of the books that are currently intriguing me.

1. Fallen Angels by Harold Bloom, Mark Podwall, illus. (YALE)Written by the reigning Titan of literary criticism, it explores the concept of fallen angels in books, art, and modern society.
2. Affairs and Scandals in Ancient Egypt by Pascal Vernus (CORNELL)Bad behaviour among the ruling classes is definitely not a modern phenomenon. This book is proof that the elite have always engaged in tabloid-worthy shenanigans.
3. Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the Troubadors by Frederic L. Cheyette (CORNELL) A life of the female ruler and troubadors' darling.
4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius by Leo Damrosch (MARINER)I appear to be in a biographical mood but this definitely appears to be a tasty read, at least if you are into JJR.
5. Medieval Schools From Roaman Britain to Renaissance England by Nicholas Ormer (YALE) For the Anglophile-History geek residing in me...yes, these are two of my very favourite things.
6. Darwin: The Indelible Stamp The Evolution of an Idea James D. Watson, Ed. (RUNNING PRESS) A collection of the great man's still fascinating and relevant works.
7. Infinite Ascent A Short History of Mathematics by David Berlinski (WEIDENFELD & NICHOLSON) I am a lit-geek. Math has never particularly been my cup of tea. Yet, there is something indescribably alluring about this relatively short volume (a scant 197 pages). Is it high enough on my list to purchase? Probably not. I do see myself checking this out from the library, though.
8. Thoreau and the Art of Life Precepts and Principles Roderick MacIver, Ed. and Illus. (HERON DANCE) Thoreau was a strange man, an individualist of the variety that only 19th-Century America could produce. His words still care the weight and heave of truth.
9. Colette by Julie Kristeva. Jane Marie Todd, Trans. (COLUMBIA UNIV. PRESS) Colette remains one of the most engaging and maddening of all literary females. She was resolutely unconventional in most respects--which is quite appealing--and gratingly offensive to modern sensibilities in others. And, always, there is the singular writing.
10. Voices from the World of Jane Austen by Malcolm Day (DAVID & CHARLES) This volume looks into the lives of some of Austen's famous contemporaries, especially those with different experiences and world-views than that of England's most enduring and famous female author.
11. Consequences of Sin by Claire Langley-Hawthorne (VIKING) A period (Edwardian) murder mystery with an appealing-sounding heiress at its heart.
12. My Life in France by Julia Child & Alex Prud'homme (ANCHOR) I am already mildly sick of the 'Julie and Julia' craze. I admit that Julie Powell's writing and flat personality do very little for me. This posthumously published autobiography is more my style: part France, part food, part love-story.
13. Victorian and Edwardian Architecture by Derek Avery (CHAUCER PRESS)I have a slight obsession with decadent, lush coffee table books such as this.
14. Hemingway and Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers by Mark Bailey, Edward Hemingway, illus. (ALGONQUIN) One of my biggest passions is dead writers. I am also a trained bartender (oops, sorry, mixologist) so this book is quite the thing for me. And, yes, Edward is a real Hemingway (Papa's grandson).