'the mills of yesterday'...would that make a good title for something on the huge industry in the New England of a hundred years ago? They haven't all disappeared, Ella. Many are there still to be seen, some looking pretty desolate, others converted into condos or business sites.
Thanks for the PBS/CCC doc tonight, Marcie. I had it marked on my calendar, but I probably would have forgotten it, what with all the new reading I've acquired in the last week or two, at the annual bookfairs here in town. At least fifty new titles, all over the bibliomap. I've made a start on half of them.
I've just put down FREUD'S WIZARD, a biography of Ernest Jones, who did so much to make Freud acceptable to the English speaking world.
Two more biographies of fascinating characters, Dante and Savonarola, both of Florence fame. That's why the suggested Florence book mentioned here caught my eye. And wasn't Florence the U.S.A. of Europe five hundred years ago, providing capital and culture to all the world. Even provided someone like Machiavelli with plenty of material for a manual on politics.
How about something with the title, Captain Bigh's Portable Nightmare, with an account of his adventures after being thrown off his ship by those nasty mutineers? Naturally he saw them all hanged when he eventually got back to England.
Law and the courts always fascinate me so I got From the Diaries of Felix Frankfurter, as well as the The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection. These two kept showing up in Frances Perkins life, and they did pursue an active political life, exerting considerable influence in politcal affairs. I also got a bio of Learned Hand, such a prominent name in U.S. legal matters. And a recent book by Jeffrey Toobin, The Nine; Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. I should be able to practice law if I finish all these.
For distraction I got Ulysses S. Grant's Personal Memoirs, and Goethe: Die Reisen, to brush up on my German. I believe he takes his readers to Florence and Rome.
I'll be back with the other 37 titles another time. How about, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian? It's hilarious. The 80-something widower who is snared by a young golddigger, which really complicates the lives of his two daughters. Hey, you gotta have some light reading too.