Books tag game time! Thanks @marcusagrippa for the tag ✨
Last book I read: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions
Confessions... not going to go into it in this post. It's a wild ride for sure. But if you're interested in mental health (issues) in the 1700s, it's a fairly interesting source material.
Book I recommend:
I've recently finished Carlo Ginzuburg's Cheese and Worms. It's an absolute classic! It's also a fairly quick read. I'd recommend it to anyone who's curious to see how modern historical research doesn't have to just be about famous kings or medieval battles (or if you want to read about an unhinged oddly progressive 16th century Italian miller. Menocchio is the best and I adore him!)
Book I couldn't put down:
That usually happens with murder mysteries, since I want to keep reading until I find out what happened. One of them is Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (also a classic, and definitely an interesting spin on the genre),
the other is Stuart Turton's The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Nothing to do with history but it's so unique and so good! The best way I can describe it is that reading it feels like playing a video game, in the best way possible. It also opens up some interesting philosophical questions at the end. I've been (unsuccessfully) trying to convince my friends to read it for a year now 🙃
Book I've read twice:
I've read a lot of books multiple times for my final high school exams, but the two I know I've read twice for reasons unrelated are Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange (I rant about it any time I get a book ask, so I'll refrain from it here) and George Orwell's 1984 (I was obsessed with it in my early teens for some reason).
There are a lot of books I loved in my teens that I would be curious to read once again, to see if my perception has changed. It did happen for 1984 and Hamlet, so it would be interesting to see if it's the same case for other works as well!
A book on my TBR:
Gosh, so many. But one is Plutarch's Parallel Lives! I'm so curious about it but still haven't gotten around to actually reading it. I've only read short passages so far and I want to fix that! (Though good news is my grandparents actually have a copy in their library so I'll just snatch... um, borrow it at some point)
A book I've put down:
It used to happen quite a lot, but ever since I've started basing my reading on Tumblr... no okay, in all honesty, I've put down C. S. Forester's Hornblower and didn't get back to it for years. Although I love the tv series, I just couldn't get into the book. But I still kind of want to give it a go at some point in the future.
A book on my wishlist:
I've been obsessed with the Introducing Graphic Guides recently and I just want to collect them like Pokemon cards!!
They are very digestible and so, so good! I read one on Rousseau and Machiavelli, I bought one on the Enlightenment which I'm saving as a treat, but I need Žižek as well... and Foucault... and Romanticism...
A favourite book from childhood:
I know there recently was a movie that was... not good, but I loved Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines. It was this sort of steampunk-esque fantasy book which had a really interesting female protagonist. I mean I'm only just now realising how subversive it was that the main heroine was fairly unlikeable and very flawed but still someone you were meant to ultimately root for?
There was also a parallel about social darwinism – the world of the book had cities flying in the skies that were devouring smaller cities, robbing them blind and enslaving their populations. The governments had a flimsy quasi-philosophical justification for all this, but the heroes of the books were fighting against the status quo. Looking back, I still think the series was pretty cool!
A book you would give to a friend:
Recently borrowed Émilie du Châtelet's Discourse on Happiness to my friend after she went through a break-up. I'm hoping É's words of wisdom might help her!
A book of poetry/lyrics you own:
Catullus (a Czech and an English translation) of course!
I've also recently bought Ovid's Letters of Heroines in a second-hand bookshop and I'm looking forward to getting into it.
A non-fiction book you own:
A fair amount of biographies of old white dudes, to the surprise of noone...
but to give a little more interesting answer, I do own all the books by Jon Ronson. He's a British journalist writing about current issues and I find him to be both really funny and really insightful!
His books about the psychiatric industry (The Psychopath Test) and modern-day ostracism (So You've Been Publically Shamed) are especially good and I'd recommend them to everyone!
Currently reading:
Voltaire's biography - Roger Pearon's Voltaire Almighty. It may not be a prefect academic source, but his writing style is great and I'm really enjoying it so far!
I'm also on-and-off with Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety. I think I'll save it for once I start uni again.
Planning on reading next:
Denis Diderot's The Nun! I'm super curious because it sounds like a really interesting book for understanding sexuality and gender in the enlightenment era.
tagging @chaotic-history @my-deer-friend @theghostofbean and @iron--and--blood ! No pressure of course ✨
