Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Challenge: Books I Keep Meaning To Read

Right, so, the usual bit of context: Weekly Blogging Challenge over at Long and Short Reviews. Hit their homepage to see the current week's responses, and add a link to your own if you're so inclined.

This week's challenge is Books I Keep Meaning To Read But Haven't.

Gentle Readers, that is literally my entire TBR Pile.

Still, that answer seems like a bit of a cop-out, so let's see if I can be a bit more specific. Because there are books that I feel like I put off, even though (I also feel like) they're the sort of books I should be reading just to keep my brain processing new information and making new connections. Which is to say, a lot of them are history or reference books. For example:

Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams - a study of the way that slavery financed the Industrial Revolution.

The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty - race, cooking, and the history of southern food in the United States.

Creature of Empire by Virginia DeJohn Anderson - domesticated animals in early America, and their effects on our history.

The Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman - a fantasy series in one of the classic Dungeons and Dragons settings. I started this but never finished it, but all the gamers I know remember it very fondly. I'd like to go back to it at some point.

The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme by John Keegan - Another one that I had purchased and started, but meant to come back to. This book attempts to capture the experience of actually being on these historical battlefields - not the grand sweeps of strategy, but the experience of individual soldiers trying to do the job. (Also, a tip of the hat to Patrick M. Prescott, who reminded me about the book.)

Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century England by Keith Thomas - basically looking at the shift away from folk beliefs in the face of organized religion and science.

11 comments:

  1. The Cooking Gene sounds like such a good read.

    My TTT.

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  2. Oh, The Cooking Gene is right up my alley!

    The Dragonlance books are so good! I'm not a gamer, but my husband is and he introduced me to these books (and Terry Brooks) back when we were still in high school. I hope you find the time to finish them.

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    1. I'm trying to get Firstborn to read them (because I'm always trying to find new things for him to read) and if he does I'll probably have to dive in too just so I can talk about them without sounding like an idiot. Right now, though, he's got me reading the Wings of Fire series, which is also quite good.

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  3. Interesting cross-section of your TBR. I like the variety. :-)

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  4. Thanks for stopping by earlier. I had forgotten about Wheel of Time... would love to go back and reread that. I also remember enjoying The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Donaldson (though I couldn't tell you know why). I need to reread those as well.

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    1. I've never actually managed to read those, though they come highly recommended.

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  5. Face of Battle is the beginning of the wisdom he has on military history. His History of WWI, Fields of Battle, and others rank up there with Basil Liddel-Hart and Sun Tzu.

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    1. Absolutely! And again, thank you for reminding me about him.

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