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A few years ago, the boys and I read Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth, a historical fiction book that looks at the “disappearance” of the Roman Ninth Legion (Legio IX Hispana) from Britain in the second century AD. While we enjoyed the book (and the 2011 movie version, The Eagle), we also looked […]
I received word that David Womack, a true mentor and influence on my life, passed away on July 11, 2018. For someone that had such a huge, giving heart, it’s a sad irony that it was that physical organ that failed him. For a few semesters when I was in college, I lived at his […]
“[G]reat power involves great responsibility.” Sounds like something from Spiderman, but it’s part of a line from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s undelivered Jefferson Day Speech. Coincidentally, Jefferson Day was officially recognized by FDR beginning in 1938. Anyway…the speech can be found at The American Presidency Project. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia the day before this […]
I wanted to pass on a few of the books and movies the boys and I read and watched this semester for school (6th and 8th grades). My goal was to tie in reading with our U.S. history class as much as I could. This isn’t all we covered, but a few of these were […]
I’m happy to report my wife’s book has been translated into Polish! Which is funny since she gives me grief about the books I read from Central European authors. I’ve proposed a book tour of Poland, but I doubt our budget can handle it at the moment. You can dream, right? Since I’m talking about […]
Contra Mundum Press has made available some excerpts from the forthcoming book Black Renaissance by Miklós Szentkuthy, the second volume in his St. Orpheus Breviary series. The samples can be found at this link. Needless to say, I’m excited and looking forward to the release. The sample contains the beginning of the introductory essay by […]
I have yet to read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, but I fully intend to soon. In the meantime I have been keeping up with her Twitter account @EmilyRCWilson, where she selects passages from the poem and compares various translations and explains why she chose the words/phrases she did for these selections. It’s a […]
The Minutemen: Mike Watt, D. Boon, George Hurley I owe a debt of gratitude to Dangerous Minds for their post Minutemen Unplugged: Punk Legends’ Rollicking Acoustic Jam on Cable Access TV, 1985. Their post covers the important points of the short performance, although when I saw them in Dallas earlier that year (1985) their set […]
I received a nice note from a teacher in Zimbabwe (“somewhat isolated from the academic world,” as they put it) commenting that my posts on Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War has helped them and it has paid off for their students. That note, along with other nice comments from students reading the book and finding help […]
The other day I was changing channels on Sirius XM and landed on BYU Radio, which I had no idea even existed. I was getting ready to change the channel when I realized the conversation was on Moby Dick, and I ended up listening to the remainder of the show. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and […]
The Disappearance of Émile Zola: Love, Literature, and the Dreyfus Case by Michael RosenPegasus Books, 2017 I have to admit I’ve never really connected with Zola’s books. I find things I appreciate and like in his writing, but its more in fits and starts than for a sustained reading. What interested me in […]
If I see something interesting—post, video, etc.—that ties in well with a book I’ve posted about on the blog, I’ll go back to the original post and update it with the link to the new item. I realize not everyone will go back to something they have already seen, so I thought an occasional “Update” […]
The Avignon Papacy Contested: An Intellectual History from Dante to Catherine of Siena by Unn Falkeid Harvard University Press, 2017 Series: I Tatti Studies in Itallian Renaissance History The aim of this book has been to explore some of the most significant critics of the Avignon papacy, critics who in many ways came to prepare […]
I posted about this earlier this year, but I’m excited to say that The Landmark Julius Caesar: The Complete Works is now available and it is beautiful. While Robert Stassler is still the series editor, Kurt A. Raaflaub did the translation and editing. If you’re not familiar with the series, it presents classical historical works […]
Yesterday was the first day in about sixteen months that I was pain-free for a few hours. I cannot tell you how great that felt. It turns out I got very little done during that time, though. I found myself simply enjoying the feeling. Or lack of it, I guess. I know I’ve said this […]
Picture source: Big Star Third Live Facebook page I have wanted to post something…anything…but haven’t felt up to it for a while. I’ve posted about this tour elsewhere, but I’m pleasantly surprised how much I liked the documentary release covering one of its performances. There are some interviews with a few of the performers, but […]
Another week, another trip to the hospital for an infection. Fortunately this was caught early enough that medication may be enough to handle it. On to brighter things… The video appears to be the 1991 movie 30 Door Key based on Witold Gombrowicz’s book Ferdydurke. I’ll be checking it out this weekend. I had […]
I seem to be all over the place in reading lately, but with little time to post about it. I seem to focus on big-brush topics at times and while I always hope to post on them, it never seems to work. So I’m hoping with a little prodding on my own part, I’ll follow […]
I have had the above video open in a browser for several weeks without watching it. I wanted to see Hugh Kenner, but the topic title, “The Political Responsibility of Artists,” put me off. I finally screwed up the courage to watch and found it stimulating…I shouldn’t have let the title guide me. Kenner is […]
I wanted to wait until I had a released copy of Be Like the Fox to quote anything from it. Here’s a lengthy excerpt about an episode late in Machiavelli’s life. The setting: the Medici successfully returned to Florence in 1512 and Machiavelli was removed from office. He remained in political exile until 1521 when […]