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Stumpage Reports
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Wednesday, July 20, 2005 :::
Reading
Last week I didn't have anything to read. So I picked something up, as I sometimes do, from some big stacks of children's history books I've collected. Sometimes it is a quick way to get some knowledge about something I really don't know about. In this case it was "Pizarro and the Conquest of Peru." I quickly lost steam on that.
Since I got back from Maine, I've been wanting to re-read a Stephen King book, since as I was driving around there I realized how well he has nailed the Maine countryside in his books. So I picked up Tommyknockers, since that's got lots of good Maine background in it. I've been enjoying it again, and am about 3/4 of the way through it.
I should be reading Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 by C. Vann Woodward. I've been reading it some, it works best when I'm stranded somewhere.
So, with one book I should be reading, and another one I am reading, and not to forget the one I abandoned, what do I do?
I go to the library and check out the 681 page book An Army at Dawn: the War in North Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson. I'm seven pages into the prologue (after reading the acknowledgements and glancing over the endnotes of course) and I really like it. The guy is definitely a cut above the Stephen Ambrose / David McCullough school of history, but not so scholarly its like wading through a university press book.
Oh, I also stopped by my brother's house on the way to the library, where I picked up from him The Complete Peanuts, volumes 2 and 3. He got them for me at the last 40% off for employees day at the bookstore where he works.
So I'm fucked. I'm gonna work on Army at Dawn I guess, and make a good faith effort at getting a chunk read in the New South book. Sigh, an embarassment of biblio-riches.
Quote of the Day:
I remember watching the Diamond Jubilee procession myself as a small boy, I remember the atmosphere. It was: Well, here we are on top of the world, and we have arrived at this peak to stay there -- forever! There is, of course, a thing called history, but history is something unpleasant that happens to other people. We are comfortably outside all that. I am sure, if I had been a small boy in New York in 1897, I should have felt the same. Of course, if I had been a small boy in 1897 in the Southern part of the United States, I should not have felt the same; I should then have known from my parents that history had happened to my people in my part of the world.
--- Arnold J. Toynbee, via CVW.
::: posted by tom at 8:33 AM
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