Current Reading List
It's been over a week since I posted a book review; sorry. The problem is that I'm in the middle of three books, and there's no hope of finishing one any time soon. The first is one I've blogged on a bit already; Sir Roy Strong's The Story of Britain. That's an audiobook on the ipod-- no long drives this week and only a couple of gym visits.
I'm also reading Tristram Shandy (aka "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman") by Laurence Sterne. Apparently it was Thomas Jefferson's favorite book. He called it "the best course of morality that was ever written."* Jefferson and his wife read it aloud to each other; when she was dying Patty Jefferson picked up a pen and wrote lines from it from memory.** I am enjoying it very much; it consists of an endless series of very funny digressions. Every time I pick it up I think it gives me an excellent blog entry; here is today's:
"It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that is assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read or understand. This is of great use."***
Finally, I am reading Virginius Dabney's Virginia: The New Dominion. A nicely done one volume history of the Commonwealth. I'm in the early 17th certury; my stongest impression so far is that Mr. Dabney seems to have a fixation on the sadistic characteristics of the Native Americans; on two occasions they have scraped the flesh off of unfortunate live English colonists with oyster shells.
* Willard Sterne Randall, Thomas Jefferson, a Life at 68.
** Id. at 347-8
*** Tristram Shandy, Modern Library Ed. 1950 at 156. Here is the page in Google Print, which is a different edition than mine.
I'm also reading Tristram Shandy (aka "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman") by Laurence Sterne. Apparently it was Thomas Jefferson's favorite book. He called it "the best course of morality that was ever written."* Jefferson and his wife read it aloud to each other; when she was dying Patty Jefferson picked up a pen and wrote lines from it from memory.** I am enjoying it very much; it consists of an endless series of very funny digressions. Every time I pick it up I think it gives me an excellent blog entry; here is today's:
"It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that is assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read or understand. This is of great use."***
Finally, I am reading Virginius Dabney's Virginia: The New Dominion. A nicely done one volume history of the Commonwealth. I'm in the early 17th certury; my stongest impression so far is that Mr. Dabney seems to have a fixation on the sadistic characteristics of the Native Americans; on two occasions they have scraped the flesh off of unfortunate live English colonists with oyster shells.
* Willard Sterne Randall, Thomas Jefferson, a Life at 68.
** Id. at 347-8
*** Tristram Shandy, Modern Library Ed. 1950 at 156. Here is the page in Google Print, which is a different edition than mine.
posted by Virginian | 6:07 PM
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