Year in Books
A Handbook of Greek Mythology, by H.J. Rose. A scholarly and wide ranging overview, concisely and skillfully written. Do professors like Rose still exist?
Kill or Get Killed, by Col. Rex Applegate. The classic guide to "riot control techniques, manhandling, and close combat". Full of information I look forward to applying in 2015.
Lord Byron’s Foot, by George Green. His poems are funny, he’s the contemporary master of ekphrasis, his references range from Pindar to David Lee Roth.
The Counterfeiters, by Hugh Kenner. Themes include "[T]he Enlightenment; Buster Keaton (stoic comedian); bad poetry; Albrecht Durer; Joyce; Swift, Pope; closed systems, mathematical and mechanical; Charles Babbage and his Calculating Engines; the late history of Latin abstract nouns; Andy Warhol; Gödel’s Proof; horses; computer games; a clockwork duck that suffered from indigestion; and a man who wore a gas mask to ride his bicycle."
The History of Atlantis, by Lewis Spence. Originally published in 1923, it’s still the most intelligent and evenhanded history of the lost continent I've ever read.
Eric Ravilious - Imagined Realities. Catalogue to the 2003 Imperial War Museum exhibition of the artist’s work.
The Opposing Shore, by Julien Gracq . An aristocrat from the mythical country of Orsenna must choose between waiting for catastrophe or hastening its onset (unless it’s not really a choice, and the catastrophe already happened and is merely unrecognized).
I would be interested in reading Spence's "Occult Origins of the Failure of the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum." Too bad he was taken up to the big stone circle in the sky before he could produce such a volume.
ReplyDeleteThat is too bad. That a man as accomplished and interesting as Spence received only 4.5% of the vote when he stood for MP in The Midlothian and Peebles Northern by-election of 1929 perfectly illustrates what a joke democracy is.
DeletePersonally I'm more of a Lemuria man, myself.
DeleteThen Spence has got you covered - he wrote two books about Lemuria.
DeleteMerry Christmas.
"The Evidence For Lemuria From Myth And Magic" and
Delete"The Problem of Lemuria: The Sunken Continent of the Pacific" are going on the reading list.
And speaking of Christmas. The following post contains examples of Christmas customs in acursed Whitby taken from The Sporting Magazine (1820). http://regencyramble.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/a-regency-christmas_19.html
Delete"should a damsel lovely as an angel enter first, her fair form would be viewed with horror, as the harbinger of death."
DeleteThe more you learn about Whitby, the more Whitbian Whitby gets.
Re: Col. Rex Applegate book. Sir, I hope you get your chance to stab a few sentries in the back with a knife next year. May you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Year.
ReplyDelete