Kelly mentioned how awful the selection was at this library book sale! Les Mis, a lovely copy! Haha! “The only time I want to a library sale where there wasn’t Rushdie.” That made me chuckle, Jason. Thank you for sharing.
I started Sea of Poppies a few times, but got distracted every time. I will finish it someday though 🙂 I did read The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh and loved that. I am rather good at chosing my books, so almost all the books I read I love, hahahahaha. I read Stoner and loved it. In the same vein I read Any human heart, also a very good read.
You will enjoy the Willa Cather by Hermione Lee, who has written some grand biographies. Just a brief warning Antonia Frazer writes well, but her history is sometimes a little shaky. Be prepared for that, and her books are enjoyable and unusual in that she writes from a Catholic perspective, a slightly different slant, but fascinating. A very interesting video, Jason, as in the UK libraries are funded from local taxes and therefore their sales are of worn out or surplus library stock and sold very cheaply. I shall look for "The Wake" as it sounds interesting. After reading James Joyce's "Ulysses" , experimental fiction holds no fears for me, chuckle.
'The modern historiography of English Reformation was revolutionised in 1964 when A G Dickens published 'The English Reformation'. He told the familiar stories of parliamentary statutes, English Bibles, the Protestant Prayer Books, but he added the men and women who experienced religious change, and showed how and why new religions appealed to some of them.' This will I hope be recognised as of some relevance to my previous Comment and thread below.
I am so glad that the library made a safe way for you attend a book sale, although I hate that it ended up being a dud. I can't help but wonder if your library moved to selling their donated book online during the pandemic (like my local library) and that may have accounted for some of the low volume. The Wake sounds so intriguing, while also sounding a bit like a nightmare. I think for something like that, I would need to pair the audio book with a physical copy. Which, now that I think about it, might be a way for me to give A Clockwork Orange another go. Thanks for sharing your finds!
I wonder if the selection of books was "lacking" because the library wasn't accepting donations during the height of COVID? I always thought library sales were just deaccessioned books from the libraries themselves, but sounds like from what you are saying that a lot of the 'treasures' are actually donations. I know that in parts of the UK at least, charity shops stopped accepting donations for a while - at least of certain items. Could that be it? Anyway, glad you managed to find a few items to add to your shelves.
I actually asked them that upon checking out, and they said they’ve been getting more donations than ever the last two years, to which I replied: you’d never have known it from the number of books on the shelves. 🤷♂️
@@OldBluesChapterandVerse Weird…with government ‘funding’ of libraries being what it is these days, maybe they held back all the gold to add to their own shelves. 😅
This is a milestone! Two and 1/2 years is a long time. It’s nice to hear that they were still being precautions about crowding and yes that $20 goes for a good cause. Sorry that the pickings were so scant! It looks like you got some great books nonetheless! I am intrigued by The Wake
Tragic description of William the Conqueror. Alas English society was NOT "broken apart" and systems were definitely NOT "turned on their head". And indeed if it was in any way, it was in the positive: the Normans emancipated the slaves etc etc! A hundred at a time in some royal and ecclesiastical manors in the West Country. Alas fiction allows for propaganda under the radar where the author that we find is our friend; whom we might trust.
I love that about fiction, though. That it gives us history at a slant. We accept that it’s an invention, designed to situate our sympathy in whatever pocket the novelist appoints. But then non-fiction does that, too: eras and epochs and events are all subject to colored lenses in even the most objective history texts. I’ve got no problem with Kingsnorth telling a version of history (what he is doing is not unlike what Hilary Mantel does with More and Cromwell in her books), in part because, in the end, who is to say this interpretation of events might not have been the interpretation subscribed to by a given character back in the day?
@@OldBluesChapterandVerse If you talk about the evidence for belief in Catholicism and Protestantism for example across the English Reformation(s), in the Tudor period, you are simply not looking at that history through a coloured lens. Says I. The post-modernists, do talk about how any claim to objectivity is spurious, in history. I think this is very wrong. If you will allow. It muddles up the individual with dictionary definitions in short. We encounter a dislike of the individual and a liking of collective identity. All professional historians, unless they are post-modernists are unethical and subjective says mad Mr Derrida. (Wittgenstein was of course mad - at least according to Mr Pinsent a student friend for a time). The subjective is "based on personal thoughts and feelings, not impartial or objective"; whereas the objective is not depending on, or influenced by, personal opinions or prejudices; and therefore much as in a court of law - think a jury - based on evidence. Hypothetically we the jury really thought the guy was guilt for most of the trial, based on the evidence, (juries are overwhelmingly not biased/prejudiced), until Perry Mason turns up with CCTV footage right at the end showing the victim being shot dead, but by a totally different guy! Roll credits. Do referees, umpires etc, get muddled up in personal thoughts and feelings, whether the runner was out, in cricket or baseball? Is the decision subjective or objective. If they get it wrong sometimes, even only rarely, does that prove all decisions are subjective or objective?? or were they just looking at it through an individual lens?! You just do not read serious history enough or do not really care about the reality of the content of serious history books enough. Serious history books tend not to hang out on so-called interpretation (not good for careers), they ground the text in evidence. And that is objective, to a reasonable person in a reasonable state of mind, and not merely subjective. I've just finished a book by an Oxford tutor on the English Reformation(s), and how many times does he use the word "perhaps"? Sometimes several times in a single paragraph, and over the course of the entire book "perhaps" hundreds of times. Pun intended. Sure it takes everyone to make up a nation. And each individual experience of an era, epoch or event is different, obviously. If you wish to invent questions that are impossible to answer, about life in the past, that only God could answer (assuming for now he is paying attention), then you can throw on the table your coloured lenses and make a case, (not via existence outside the mind, please). But individual experience of today, this year, covid etc will vary, again obviously. And the history of today with reference to US federal government policy, could include a vast kaleidoscope of experiences. Or are we nearly talking theory here. Pick a policy. It will affect a small number of discernible groups of perhaps millions of people in slightly? different ways, and individuals within or without, eventually in unique ways. All thoughts are appreciated?
Kelly mentioned how awful the selection was at this library book sale! Les Mis, a lovely copy! Haha! “The only time I want to a library sale where there wasn’t Rushdie.” That made me chuckle, Jason. Thank you for sharing.
Always a pleasure to hear from you.
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is remarkable. Love it.
I’m glad your book search wasn’t a complete bust. You found some gems for yourself, Jason. 👋
The Wake really is a gem -- I find myself wishing Robert Eggers and Mark Rylance would team up on it.
I started Sea of Poppies a few times, but got distracted every time. I will finish it someday though 🙂 I did read The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh and loved that. I am rather good at chosing my books, so almost all the books I read I love, hahahahaha.
I read Stoner and loved it. In the same vein I read Any human heart, also a very good read.
I'll add Any Human Heart to my TBR.
You will enjoy the Willa Cather by Hermione Lee, who has written some grand biographies. Just a brief warning Antonia Frazer writes well, but her history is sometimes a little shaky. Be prepared for that, and her books are enjoyable and unusual in that she writes from a Catholic perspective, a slightly different slant, but fascinating. A very interesting video, Jason, as in the UK libraries are funded from local taxes and therefore their sales are of worn out or surplus library stock and sold very cheaply. I shall look for "The Wake" as it sounds interesting. After reading James Joyce's "Ulysses" , experimental fiction holds no fears for me, chuckle.
'The modern historiography of English Reformation was revolutionised in 1964 when A G Dickens published 'The English Reformation'. He told the familiar stories of parliamentary statutes, English Bibles, the Protestant Prayer Books, but he added the men and women who experienced religious change, and showed how and why new religions appealed to some of them.' This will I hope be recognised as of some relevance to my previous Comment and thread below.
I am so glad that the library made a safe way for you attend a book sale, although I hate that it ended up being a dud. I can't help but wonder if your library moved to selling their donated book online during the pandemic (like my local library) and that may have accounted for some of the low volume. The Wake sounds so intriguing, while also sounding a bit like a nightmare. I think for something like that, I would need to pair the audio book with a physical copy. Which, now that I think about it, might be a way for me to give A Clockwork Orange another go. Thanks for sharing your finds!
I still need to get my hands on the other two novels in the trilogy begun by The Wake.
I wonder if the selection of books was "lacking" because the library wasn't accepting donations during the height of COVID?
I always thought library sales were just deaccessioned books from the libraries themselves, but sounds like from what you are saying that a lot of the 'treasures' are actually donations.
I know that in parts of the UK at least, charity shops stopped accepting donations for a while - at least of certain items. Could that be it?
Anyway, glad you managed to find a few items to add to your shelves.
I actually asked them that upon checking out, and they said they’ve been getting more donations than ever the last two years, to which I replied: you’d never have known it from the number of books on the shelves. 🤷♂️
@@OldBluesChapterandVerse Weird…with government ‘funding’ of libraries being what it is these days, maybe they held back all the gold to add to their own shelves. 😅
This is a milestone! Two and 1/2 years is a long time. It’s nice to hear that they were still being precautions about crowding and yes that $20 goes for a good cause. Sorry that the pickings were so scant! It looks like you got some great books nonetheless! I am intrigued by The Wake
Yeah, I’m finding myself more and more intrigued for that re-read…
How fun that you got to go back to a library book sale. Too bad there wasn’t as better selection and quantity (how odd!) but $20 entry fee…. Ouch!
Tragic description of William the Conqueror. Alas English society was NOT "broken apart" and systems were definitely NOT "turned on their head". And indeed if it was in any way, it was in the positive: the Normans emancipated the slaves etc etc! A hundred at a time in some royal and ecclesiastical manors in the West Country. Alas fiction allows for propaganda under the radar where the author that we find is our friend; whom we might trust.
I love that about fiction, though. That it gives us history at a slant. We accept that it’s an invention, designed to situate our sympathy in whatever pocket the novelist appoints. But then non-fiction does that, too: eras and epochs and events are all subject to colored lenses in even the most objective history texts. I’ve got no problem with Kingsnorth telling a version of history (what he is doing is not unlike what Hilary Mantel does with More and Cromwell in her books), in part because, in the end, who is to say this interpretation of events might not have been the interpretation subscribed to by a given character back in the day?
@@OldBluesChapterandVerse If you talk about the evidence for belief in Catholicism and Protestantism for example across the English Reformation(s), in the Tudor period, you are simply not looking at that history through a coloured lens. Says I. The post-modernists, do talk about how any claim to objectivity is spurious, in history.
I think this is very wrong. If you will allow. It muddles up the individual with dictionary definitions in short. We encounter a dislike of the individual and a liking of collective identity. All professional historians, unless they are post-modernists are unethical and subjective says mad Mr Derrida. (Wittgenstein was of course mad - at least according to Mr Pinsent a student friend for a time). The subjective is "based on personal thoughts and feelings, not impartial or objective"; whereas the objective is not depending on, or influenced by, personal opinions or prejudices; and therefore much as in a court of law - think a jury - based on evidence. Hypothetically we the jury really thought the guy was guilt for most of the trial, based on the evidence, (juries are overwhelmingly not biased/prejudiced), until Perry Mason turns up with CCTV footage right at the end showing the victim being shot dead, but by a totally different guy! Roll credits. Do referees, umpires etc, get muddled up in personal thoughts and feelings, whether the runner was out, in cricket or baseball? Is the decision subjective or objective. If they get it wrong sometimes, even only rarely, does that prove all decisions are subjective or objective?? or were they just looking at it through an individual lens?!
You just do not read serious history enough or do not really care about the reality of the content of serious history books enough. Serious history books tend not to hang out on so-called interpretation (not good for careers), they ground the text in evidence. And that is objective, to a reasonable person in a reasonable state of mind, and not merely subjective. I've just finished a book by an Oxford tutor on the English Reformation(s), and how many times does he use the word "perhaps"? Sometimes several times in a single paragraph, and over the course of the entire book "perhaps" hundreds of times. Pun intended.
Sure it takes everyone to make up a nation. And each individual experience of an era, epoch or event is different, obviously. If you wish to invent questions that are impossible to answer, about life in the past, that only God could answer (assuming for now he is paying attention), then you can throw on the table your coloured lenses and make a case, (not via existence outside the mind, please). But individual experience of today, this year, covid etc will vary, again obviously. And the history of today with reference to US federal government policy, could include a vast kaleidoscope of experiences. Or are we nearly talking theory here. Pick a policy. It will affect a small number of discernible groups of perhaps millions of people in slightly? different ways, and individuals within or without, eventually in unique ways. All thoughts are appreciated?
@@richarddelanet Note to self: Richard Goodman not interested in readalong of The Wake. ✏️ ✔️😉
@@OldBluesChapterandVerse mm mh
@@richarddelanet 😄