Author Topic: The Library (Read 2085126 times)

bellamarie · « **Reply #17080 on:** July 05, 2016, 11:44:28 AM »

The Library

Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is always out.
Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with us.

We look forward to hearing from you, about you and the books you are enjoying (or not).

Let the book talk begin here!

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I don't think I could ever live in a library, I would be constantly thinking of all those books I would be anticipating to read.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #17081 on:** July 05, 2016, 03:39:11 PM »

I have often said to the librarians that I could never have their job, I would have lists and lists of TBRs. Well, I do anyway, but, my gosh, to see hundreds of potential reads everyday!?! I think my brains would blow up. 😳😳

Jean

bellamarie · « **Reply #17082 on:** July 06, 2016, 02:35:07 PM »

Jean, I agree! Working in a library or bookstore for me would be exciting, but my OCD would kick in and I'd freak out because I could not read fast enough. So..... instead I go and browse, pick up a couple books and go home, til the next visit.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #17083 on:** July 06, 2016, 05:57:39 PM »

Me too, Bellamarie, and it's a pleasant, happy event. I'm not much of a shopper, I only go 'shopping" when I have something specific that I think I need, but for people who like to shop, i guess the feeling of anticipation I get at opening a new book/story must be like the way shoppers feel at buying a new product. LOL

Jean

bellamarie · « **Reply #17084 on:** July 08, 2016, 09:13:36 PM »

Well, we had what people call a "staycation" which means we stayed at home this week and postponed our trip to Florida until the weather is less hot and humid. My daughter told me the humidity where she lives in Port Richey is just unbearable. So I planted more perennials in my backyard, finished reading my book called Family Pictures by Jane Green, went to the casino and donated my hundred bucks, enjoyed our pool, shopped at the farmer's market for some healthy food, and found some great sales at Kirkland's one of my favorite stores. All the kids and grandkids took separate vacations this week, so me and hubby were left on our own. Oh gee, golly whiz, I think we managed quite well. Here in Ohio we've been nearing 90 degrees with a feels like 100. How's everyone's temps? Stay cool and hydrated!

ginny · « **Reply #17085 on:** July 09, 2016, 05:32:48 PM »

I love Staycations, you can read in peace all you want.

It's boiling here, about 100 and plenty of humidity.

I've just started a great escape book. It's fun and light and it's Peter Mayle whom I love and somehow I missed this one, it's The Corsican Caper. Not sure how I missed it, but it starts with a bang. Picture this: you're sitting on your porch which overlooks the French Riviera, in your magnificent palatial home once owned by Napoleon, when you see a huge yacht round the corner of the harbor and stop right in front of your house. On it you can see people on deck staring at you. You're used to that, but what's on that ship may not be what you think.

On board we find not a Greek magnate but a Russian one, it's like a 007 movie, I can almost hear the music, he has the usual complement of beautiful assistants and henchmen, and he has been looking for a house on the coast. Having spotted yours, that's it: he wants it. Flies over it with a helicopter from the yacht taking photos. Then he decides to throw a party on board the yacht as his entryway into Cannes. White jacketed faux Vicomtes...I mean what does it not have? And that's just the first few pages, the chapters charmingly (in the paperback) illustrated by a small drawing of a yacht.

"A delight to read... A romp exhorting the pleasures of the French country side....Bon appetit," reads one of the reviews and they're right. Perfect escapism. So far.

PatH · « **Reply #17086 on:** July 09, 2016, 07:00:57 PM »

I think I'll just sit on my porch looking at that magnificent scenery, ignoring the ghost of Napoleon, and forget about the rest of the action.

My temperature is like Bellamarie's. I only went outside to get the newspaper.

JoanK · « **Reply #17087 on:** July 09, 2016, 07:25:45 PM »

I've just finished reading a book "The Year of Lear" by James Shapiro which points out how much of Shakespeare's writing in the year he wrote the play "King Lear" (1605-6) refers to the political issues of the day. I loved it, but it's kind of interfering with my enjoyment of the Shakespeare sonnets in poetry as purely poems: I want to know what was going on when he wrote them.

The first big issue was whether England and Scotland should join. King James I, the Scottish king who had just taken over the English throne after Queen Elizabeth died, wanted them to, but parliament was dragging their feet, Shakespeare, whose acting group had been appointed "King's men, wrote King Lear, on the perils of dividing a kingdom.

Then came the Gunpowder Plot, when Catholic rebels tried to blow up the king and parliament and foment a Catholic rebellion. Shakespeare writes Macbeth, on the evil plotters who kill the king and their doom (of course keeping very quiet about his Catholic background, in the wave of persecution of Catholics that followed the plot).

There's a lot more. Very interesting. It makes me glad I didn't live then, with the killing on both sides of people of a different religion. The details of who hates whom change, but the burden of hate continues. At least we give lip service now to the idea that hate is wrong. Then, if you had the power, you just killed the people you hated.

bellamarie · « **Reply #17088 on:** July 09, 2016, 09:57:42 PM »

Ginny, your book sounds fun!

PatH., It was really nice today, only in the mid 80's with nice wind. We went to a Marina Cafe by the water for dinner.

JoanK.,

Quote

It makes me glad I didn't live then, with the killing on both sides of people of a different religion.

Oh Joan, I'm not so sure we aren't living it today with all the terrorists attacks from ISIS in the name of their religion.

I'm ready to begin a new book and not sure which one from my pile I should choose. Shall I just go eeny, meeny, miney, mo......... or close my eyes and just pick one? Has to be a light fiction for sure.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #17089 on:** July 10, 2016, 12:45:35 PM »

Our f2f Book Club, (general reading not Mystery) has come up against a rock and a hard place! We have regularly only one man in our club; however, he is willing to read anything that is suggested. One of our female members mentioned that we seem to read an awful lot of "chicky" type books (no, not romances) but with basically strong female characters, or stories that appeal more to women. Then we got into what we might read for next month, that would be more "male-oriented". Someone came up with "Catcher in the Rye". Several of us rolled our eyes...my sentiments exactly. I absolutely hated that book, finally finished on my second try, and still hated it. I think if I heard the phrase "and all" one more time I would upchuck! However, it is on the agenda for next month. Yuck! So, my dear friends, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to throw out some titles you think would be male-oriented, in the realm of general fiction. (We have read some Ray Bradbury).
We actually have had some good ones in the past "Doc" and "Epitaph".

evergreen · « **Reply #17090 on:** July 10, 2016, 01:06:13 PM »

Why not let the gentleman choose the book?

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #17091 on:** July 10, 2016, 01:08:33 PM »

He did! and it's Catcher, and we're reading it for next month. He has chosen many of our books, even ones that are more female oriented (he chose and narrated "The Rosie Project")

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #17092 on:** July 10, 2016, 01:20:51 PM »

Anything by Hemingway or Ian Fleming or David Foster Wallace or Alexandre Dumas.

Cormac McCarthy books can be rough and where men are OK with the brutality of life women may not.

There is always Jack London or Fyodor Dostoevsky or Mark Twain (he wrote far more than Huck Finn) or John Grisham is always a good read.

Has a bit of crime and not a chick novel - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil or the mountaineering story Touching the Void - the hit of Broadway is in book form Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda or the 2013 Mann Booker prize winner The Luminaries: A Novel

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #17093 on:** July 10, 2016, 01:49:03 PM »

Thanks Barb. However, we always have to keep in mind our club's limitations: The library must have adequate number of copies for us to check out; the book shouldn't be over 400 pages preferably less;(that would eliminate David Foster Wallace); Grisham would be a pick for our separate Mystery Book Club. We've read a couple of Cormac McCarthy. I would love to read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil for Club. Maybe I'll recommend that for October (Sept. already chosen). Thanks again, Barb! Good choices.

Frybabe · « **Reply #17094 on:** July 10, 2016, 04:04:25 PM »

Tome, you must have a large library. Our county system rarely has more than four copies altogether of any book. Is your group open to non-fiction or historical fiction?

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #17095 on:** July 10, 2016, 04:11:16 PM »

Checked the library for "The Luminaries", but it is 834 Pages. That's a no-go. Jack London books, there is one book that has both "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang" but at 6 copies that may not be enough. Last meeting we had 10. Did some checking on Larry McMurtry, and "Horseman, Pass By" and they have 5 copies, 192 pages. Or, "Leaving Cheyenne" at 304 Pages would work, but only 1 available copy. Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" at 332 pages, they have 20 copies available. "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" 6 copies available, and 388 pages would work well for us. How often the libraries take the older books, and sell or get rid of them otherwise, which is sad. But they can't keep everything. Our group prefers that we don't have to "buy" a copy of the chosen book.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #17096 on:** July 10, 2016, 04:13:39 PM »

We've read a couple of Sci-Fi's but not a favorite genre with our group.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #17097 on:** July 10, 2016, 05:58:28 PM »

Thank you, Ginny!

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #17098 on:** July 10, 2016, 06:02:57 PM »

Sounds to me like you need to search from the other end - instead of looking for authors and titles look to find which books the library has multiple copies and how many pages - then you make the choice.

Frybabe · « **Reply #17099 on:** July 11, 2016, 05:54:43 AM »

Barb, I am wondering if libraries are able to do a sort function on page count and number of copies held.

Our branch is small and about to get a little smaller, thanks to the commissioner deciding to carve a little more space for a township meeting room out of the space that we thought we were going to get. We can't complain too much, since the township donated time to get the room remodeled. Some of the expense is being paid for by the county library system and some is being paid for by Friends of the Library. I suspect that had we known that we would end up with less space, we may not have requested the space switch. Right now we are still up on the second floor. Since the township building is closed on the weekends, we do not have weekend hours. When we move downstairs this will change. We are going to have Sat. hours with a door directly out to the parking lot, they will be able to lock the rest of the building and leave the library and senior center open (if they wish) for weekend activity.

Oh, I got off point

Since we got a new library manager (over from the main branch), our staff has been diligent about removing books that haven't been read for a long while and moving anything over 18 months from the new shelves to regular shelving. The only thing that bothers me about that is the series books. It makes for difficulties for those of us who begin reading a series but then discover that some of them are no longer available. That may stop some readers from continuing the series.

I, for one, don't like to buy a book in a series unless I have the whole series. Unfortunately, my series books have become a mixed lot of e-books and print, also not much to my liking. I guess I am getting used to it now that I have to keep my expenses down and have definitely run out of shelf space. Saturday I officially started a third shelf (and only half of it available on that shelving unit) of SciFi.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #17100 on:** July 11, 2016, 10:31:56 AM »

Do not know how your library system works - here we have many many branches and each month I, as anyone who has a library card, gets an email with what is taking place in each branch and then there is a clickable so that we can look up any book and find out how many copies, which library has the copies and if they are checked out. So for instance the system may have 20 copies of the Sun Also Rises and 5 are at Windsor 3 are at Spicewood 8 are downtown at the main library etc. and then it shows the 5 that are at Windsor 3 are checked out and so forth so that each of the 20 books are accounted for. I've never done it but with that kind of data I am sure I could call and get access to the data from a different perspective rather than just by looking up a title but rather by looking at lists of books probably in alphabetical order and get the number of books the system owns so that i could choose those books with an adequate number in the system.

If your town is small with only one library it may be that all the books are not accounted for on some sort of data program - that is where you might find a volunteer to set up a power point for you and then a group of volunteers help the staff enter all the books onto the power point - however if the staff is already culling books then they may already have some sort of system in place.

ginny · « **Reply #17101 on:** July 11, 2016, 01:28:31 PM »

I am absolutely loving the Corsican Caper, but I like Peter Mayle. It's just plain fun and escapist. I hate to see it getting shorter to the end.

Joan K, that sounds like a wonderful book on Shakespeare. I bet it sort of clears up a lot of things, too. I've always wondered about the historical background/ influence of those plays.

I'm also reading some serious stuff which I'm taking a Corsican break from hahaha because (is it true?) the brain can only absorb 7 new pieces of information at once? Well mine certainly quits before 7, and if I want to be able to remember some of this stuff. I need to take it in small doses.

(And maybe go for a walk afterwards, they say now that exercise helps remember things).

Anyway, I'm also reading Cicero and His Friends: A Study of Roman Society in the Time of Caesar, and it was written in 1897. It's dense. I'm about 2/3rds of the way thru. It was recommended last spring in an article in the Wall Street Journal, which was on current politicians and how they are like the ancient Romans. It has several wonderful and startling points, many more than 7 in a day's read, and I am really enjoying some of the chapters on things I have always wondered about.

Am also reading Cicero's letters to Atticus which I find impossibly poignant. Poor guy. Such a poor judge of character, it's almost unbearable at times.

But I didn't come in for any of that. I came in to ask your thoughts on the robot which brought down the Dallas Police killer? Apparently there's a hubbub about having used one. I think it's an amazing idea, did you ever think we'd actually be living in such times? I'm all for it.

Frybabe · « **Reply #17102 on:** July 11, 2016, 01:47:29 PM »

Barb, our county stystem has 6 librarys plus ours which is designated a branch of Fredrickson. I noticed that is is not at all unusual for a book to reside in four or less of the libraries. Only on occasion do I see five or more. I just did a survey of my TBR wishlist on the site. I counted five books with five volumes and one with six out of 22 on the list. Better than I thought. Well that is just the books I am interested in. I don't seem to have the same taste in books that others do.

Just out of curiousity, I checked Stuart Woods, a popular mystery writer around here. Gasp, altogether the system holds 19 of his Family Jewels, which I think is his latest. Amazing! People seem to like the cookie-cutter potboilers.

Ginny, just saw your post. I just ordered Mary Beard's Confronting the Classics from the library. I am just starting the Sherwin-White book, Roman Foreign Policy in the East. He cites D. Magie's 1950 book Roman Rule in Asia Minor as a significant source for him. Sherwin-White's book was published in 1984.

bellamarie · « **Reply #17103 on:** July 11, 2016, 09:47:16 PM »

Ginny, As sad as it is we have to deal with more technological ways to apprehend or kill a criminal who has just murdered multiple people, I think if there is no was of taking him alive then why not use the robot. It can save lives and injuries of humans.

TomReader, My thought for a male interest book would be tackle some president books by Bill O'Reilly, or some we have read. You can click on our archives section and skim through. My hubby LOVES history. He must be some special guy to hang in there with chicky books. My hubby would be gone in a second.

pedln · « **Reply #17104 on:** July 12, 2016, 11:21:09 PM »

Tomereader -- a few suggestions -- 1) Anything by Dave Eggers -- such as Zeitoun, about the Syrian painter who was caught up in bureaucratic brutality during hurrican Katrina, 2)Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown -- about the Univ Wash rowing team that went to the 1936 Munich Olympics, and 3)House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus II -- a woman loses her house when it is sold to Iranians for back taxes.

marjifay · « **Reply #17105 on:** July 13, 2016, 09:03:43 AM »

Ginny, I put The Corsican Caper on hold at my library. Ordinarily I would just pass on any book that got only 3+ stars at Amazon, but since you sounded so enthusiastic about it, and because it is set in Provence, France, my most favorite place to have visited, I will read it. Thanks for mentioning it.

I have not posted for a while. Have been catching up reading some of the books I purchased. Have just been reading THE FIRM by John Grisham. One of the best and most suspenseful mysteries I have ever read; it is even better than the movie made from it, and I thought the movie was really good. I really liked the main characters, Mitch and his wife Abby, and was so sympathetic with them when they find out what the lawyer firm that Mitch joined was really about and they became so terrified of what might happen to them.

Marj

Frybabe · « **Reply #17106 on:** July 13, 2016, 10:02:51 AM »

Marj, I haven't read any of Grisham's books, but my sister is a big fan. I did see the movie, Pelican Brief, and thought it was great.

marjifay · « **Reply #17107 on:** July 13, 2016, 11:09:49 AM »

Some recommendations for books that males (and females) might like:

Newt Gingrich (whose politics I dislike) has written some good books one of which I read and really liked, co-authored with William Forschen: Pearl Harbor, a Novel of December 8. Written from the Japanese point of view, it also talks about some interesting Japanese culture and some of the events leading up to Pearl Harbor. (366 pp, 2007)

Bringing Down the House; Six MIT students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich (215 pp)

We Die Alone by David Howarth (1955) Very exciting true story that took place in Nazi-occupied Norway during World War 2. A Norwegian resistance fighter tries to escape some Nazi's who are after him. He has come from England to help the resistance, and all his friends were killed except him, but the Nazies are looking for him. With the help of some brave Norwegian men who risk their lives and lives of their families, he runs through freezing arctic weather in an effort to escape to Sweden. This book may not be easy to find in libraries as it is not a recent one.

Those two books you mentioned by Mary Doria Russell sound very good. I'll give them a read.

Marj

ginny · « **Reply #17108 on:** July 13, 2016, 11:14:12 AM »

Marjifay, I wondered where you were, good to see you back here!

i hope you like the Corsican Caper. It IS light and perhaps will not have the depth you normally seek, but it's perfect for me this hot summer and I am still reading it before sleep and still enjoying it. Personally sometimes I want something light and fun.

I also just re-watched the entire Rosemary and Thyme series because they are showing it on PBS in snatches and I enjoyed it, too. I especially like the episode titled "They understand me in Paris." hahahaha

Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don't.

Have you read any of Peter Mayle's other books on Provence? If not I'd read his first one, A Year in Provence, covering his move there. I understand that due to his lyric writing the forgotten little place he lived in is overrun with tourists now wanting to see and experience what he did. He wrote a good one about art, Cezanne or something, a mystery/ caper type of thing, it was his first break with the non fiction type writing I think. I really enjoyed it, too.

Fans of Reliquary and Relic and Preston and Child, did you SEE that they HAVE opened a subway under Central Park?!? There WAS one? And they HAVE just reopened it? !? hahahaa Oh wow. You'd have to have read Reliquary to understand what that means, but I can't WAIT to get on it and I may reread Reliquary again (in the day time, it's horrifying) just for the experience.

But now am hooked on Bleak House the movie, never having read the book! How IS it, Barbara just put in here a snatch of Dickens not so long ago, how IS it I have never read Bleak House? Or seen the movie? I see we read it here some time ago in our book club. I recall it was Deems's favorite book. How can I never have read it? I think the movie will help me get into it this time, I have it on my shelves, yellowing.

AND if all that is not enough yesterday brought Julian Fellowes's Belgravia to my door thanks to Amazon Prime. I love his books and of course he wrote Downton Abbey, but his books are excellent. He's put some history in this one and so it's billed historical fiction. Strange thing about historical fiction, I never read it. However, here, he's talking about the neighborhood of Belgravia in London (home of Eton Place, and the Bellamys of Upstairs/Downstairs fame) and how it came to be. Since I know nothing about Victorian London, not one thing, and nobody is going to hold me account for any inaccuracies, I feel delighted to plunge in and enjoy. It it's not accurate, I don't care. Maybe this is the start of me and historical fiction.

What's everybody reading this HOT HOT summer?

Frybabe · « **Reply #17109 on:** July 13, 2016, 11:49:56 AM »

Ginny, yesterday I noticed that someone had posted on YouTube a 2005 series called Julius Caesar. I don't think I ever saw it, so I guess you know what I will be doing the next night or so. Also, I ran across Shakespeare's Corolianus done up in modern day (Ralph Finnes stars). I watched a few minutes of it, enough to be impressed but was not, at the time, interested watching oppression, riots and the like.

Mary Beard's Confronting the Classics is now residing on my chairside
table. I plan on starting it this afternoon.

ginny · « **Reply #17110 on:** July 13, 2016, 11:53:43 AM »

OH shoot, Frybabe, I meant to comment on your Sherwn-White books and didn't. I don't know that film, I'll go look, it would be nice if somebody besides Rex Harrison did a Caesar that's watchable. hahaha

Did you read S.P.Q.R, too? I think that one is a triumph. A gift, really.

I don't know Sherwin-White, I know you have mentioned him before in connection with a book on racism, what do you think of the book of his you're now reading? Do you recommend it?

I liked Confronting the Classics. But I like Mary Beard. Good choice!

ginny · « **Reply #17111 on:** July 13, 2016, 11:58:11 AM »

I don't see the 2005 Caesar, let us know how you like it, but I found an excellent cartoon (yes, cartoon) from the BBC in 1990 of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and now I want the entire thing. It's excellent, so far but I like that play. https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/Julius-Caesar-Animated-Version-Part-2

Frybabe · « **Reply #17112 on:** July 13, 2016, 12:27:18 PM »

Okay, it's called Julius Caesar's Rome. History Channel production, six part History Channel documentary. When I am on my computer next I will post the links on the Classics Forum.

OH,oh look. There is a 2015 summer lecture from Cornell about Caesar's death, lecturer is Barry Strauss. He apparently has a book out on the subject.

marjifay · « **Reply #17113 on:** July 13, 2016, 06:14:02 PM »

No, Ginny, I've not read any books by Peter Mayle. I wish I'd read his A Year in Provence before I went there. Didn't know about that book until I came back and suddenly people all over were recommending it when I said where I'd been traveling.

I'd also never heard of the series Rosemary and Thyme. I just put it on my Netflix queue, along with Bleak House.

Good to be back and finding all the recommendations for good reading.

Marj

JoanK · « **Reply #17114 on:** July 13, 2016, 06:23:10 PM »

I love "Rosemary and Thyme." about the two women gardeners who solve mysteries. I enjoy both the gardens and wonderful settings and the mysteries. The only problem is, I always seem to turn it on late, and if you miss the first few minutes, you can never figure out who the characters are.

I hated it when they cut Pam Ferris (the actress who played Thyme) from "Call the Midwife." I thought she should have had a larger role.

Dana · « **Reply #17115 on:** July 13, 2016, 08:19:04 PM »

When we were in S. France last year we got talking to a French guy who told us that Peter Mayle was hated by the French where he lived because they thought he made fun of them (which the BBC series certainly does do), I think he said he had to move (might be wrong about that....) I don't remember much about the books, but the TV series is very British being funny about the frogs .....watched again when we came back from Provence ....

ginny · « **Reply #17116 on:** July 14, 2016, 06:49:40 AM »

Dana, huh. He must be miserable, then, because as far as I know, he still lives in Provence. He had to move from the first house because of his fame.

He's on record as being disappointed in the BBC series. It's been a long time since I read A Year in Provence but his books, all of them on Provence, always seemed to me to sing with the joy of Provence. Perhaps that person is speaking for himself.

I've always wondered, idly, in sort if a reverse situation, what people think who visit America, and run into this or that person on the street who expresses an opinion that may or may not be accurate, and that traveller returns home with that thought in his mind forever. Because that's the kind of thing one remembers.

Quote

It is, he says, the reason why he and Jennie decided to sell it.

Visitations. From The Baltimore Sun:

"We had people coming up the drive from Japan, from Australia, from Germany, from Sweden, from England, from America. At the beginning, it was really quite exciting... Then it just increased in volume until we were getting four, five, six visits a day."

The final straw came, he says, when he was sitting down with friends for a Sunday lunch and heard some splashing sounds coming from his pool. "When I went round to see what was going on, it was a couple of Italians with a video camera in the pool. They were taking photographs of each other with our house in the background."

He sighs, a polite sigh that reflects his polite, genial nature. "Well, I just didn't want to deal with these visitations for the rest of my life," says Mayle unapologetically. "And it was just impossible to get away from it."

He should have listened to his wife, he says, who warned him before publication of "A Year in Provence" that it might be a good idea to change names and to leave out the exact location of their house.

JoanK, I know what you mean. I like that old series about two independent women of a certain age going out and solving mysteries, too. I think it was a little before its time. I was very surprised when they canceled it.

Thank you, Frybabe, I'll look that movie up. Interesting on the Strauss lecture. I'm going to have to look at that because his new book on Caesar has not been all that well received and he's got credentials from here to the moon, so it's going to be interesting to see what he says.

Frybabe · « **Reply #17117 on:** July 14, 2016, 07:43:46 AM »

I watched the Strauss lecture last night, Ginny. I was not all that impressed. Let me know what you think. Going to see what I can find on Nicholas of Damascus.

From the Eyewitness to History website article on Caesar's assasination http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/caesar2.htm

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Nicolaus of Damascus wrote his account of the murder of Caesar a few years after the event. He was not actually present when the assassination occurred but had the opportunity to speak with those who were. He was a friend of Herod the Great and gathered his information during a visit to Rome. His account is thought to be reliable.

ginny · « **Reply #17118 on:** July 14, 2016, 08:07:18 AM »

T. P. Wiseman on the assassination of Caesar would be my choice. I know I harp on him, but some people haven't heard about him. He's the scholar you saw Mary Beard interviewing in that British Museum movie a year or so ago in theaters. (He's supposedly also the prototype for Dumbledore since J.K. Rowling had him in classics at Exeter). His articles "The Ethics of Murder," and "After the Ides of March," I personally think, have not been equaled, and give an authoritative platform from which to view all the others since. Lots and lots of citations right on the page written out. My kind of article.

He, to me, is like Arthur Quiller Couch, remember Helene Hanff of 84 Charing Cross Road? She got a book of his lectures he had given at Cambridge, and she said they changed her life about understanding English literature. That's kind of how I feel about Wiseman. (I got a book of Quiller Couch's lectures when we read 84 Charing Cross Road here in our book club and they ARE rich, she was right.

I still regret we did not write her, but we did not know she was still alive and somewhat forgotten, if that's possible to imagine. Always write and express admiration is my new motto. You never know what it might do for the recipient.

ginny · « **Reply #17119 on:** July 14, 2016, 08:23:42 AM »

But I have to say, on the subject of classics, that this Frenchman, Gaston Boissier, is another one, he really is. He had (from the mid 1880's) quite a few books in print, most of them in French. Cornell has a digital library which contains some of his works.

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Author Topic: The Library (Read 2085126 times)