« Quick Guide to DC Graduations . . . | Main | Manolo Covers Eurovision »
May 18, 2005
Book Tag
Oh, dear. This is difficult. Fr. Tucker passed one of those horrible "tell us a little about yourself" things on to me. I usually refuse to play, but my inner clericalist makes me say "Yes, Father."
Total Number of Books I've Owned: I really can't help you here. I must own a thousand or so; my office is full-to-overflowing and the back bedroom is getting to be frightening. I haven't unpacked all my boxes, even.
Last Book I Bought: Not counting my last Amazon shipment (which hasn't shipped, so I haven't been charged, so it doesn't count) I bought a stack of used books in Rochester last weekend - a book on the Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters sounds most impressive, but I gave it away. I've already finished (see below) Starrett, Vincent, ed. Fourteen Great Detective Stories. NY: Modern Library, 1928. (I link to a current paperback edition!) I'm most of the way through Ivins, William M., Art & Geometry, a Study in Space Intuitions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1946 (I link to the unillustrated Dover edition). I also picked up Collected Stories of Reynolds Price. I've never read any of his short fiction. Oh, and Crusader figural sculpture in the Holy Land;: Twelfth century examples from Acre, Nazareth and Belvoir Castle -- the things you find in good used book stores! I was at Gutenberg Books in Rochester.
Last Book I Read: Yesterday I finished both the Starrett (see above) and Crone, Patricia and Martin Hinds, God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam Cambridge: Cambridge Univ Press, 1983.
Five Books that Mean a Lot to Me: This too is unfair. It's like asking "what's your favorite artwork?" I always respond "from what century?" What about things I've read over and over again, whether I need to teach them or not? Shall I include or exclude fiction? I've got at least 5 novels I read over about every 2 years! Here are 5 that mean a lot.
.....1. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited..
.....2. Virgil, The Aeneid. sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentam mortalia tangunt
.....3. Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture - this book (which I first read in the first edition hardback in the Reserve Room because it wasn't available in paperback. OH the things you used to be able to force college students to do!!) is a big part of why I am a professional historian of art and architecture AND a medievalist.
.....4. Peter Brown The Cult of the Saints : Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity - this book changed the way I thought about the world by exploding the high/popular distinction in religion. Great stuff.
.....5. Walker Percy, The Moviegoer. I guess. I could put The Last Gentlemen and be reasonably happy about that choice, too.
I think I'll pass this on, with the offer to refuse to be tagged, to my friend at Mirabilis.ca ; Prof. H.D. Miller; my friend at Blogenspiel, whose name is in flux but who has actually MET Prof. Miller; Dr. Julius Weevil, and Prof. Kimberly Swygert, Psychometrician.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at May 18, 2005 8:21 PM