“History is not just about the analysis of evidence, unrolling vellum documents or answering exam papers. It is not about judging the dead. It is about understanding the meaning of the past—to realize the whole evolving human story over centuries, not just our own lifetimes.”
– Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England.
Stop calling people freaks. Stop making fun of bad people for morally neutral things like being socially awkward, not having proper spelling or grammar, struggling with hygiene, or being an adult and living with their parents. If you actually want to criticise bad people, talk about the harm they do and stop throwing disabled people under the bus. Not using the r slur isn’t good enough. Make an effort.
“Why should I shy
away. If fate is kind
or cruel, man still must try.”
– from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. by Simon Armitage.
The mortifying ordeal of trying to shove all your shit back in your wallet so the next person on line can get rung up at the grocery store.
“
The UU Library is theoretically the largest in the universe or, indeed, any conceivable universe; it has a diameter of about one hundred yards but, as far as we can determine, an infinite radius. The presence of so much stored magic does to time and space what a hot iron does to a pound of butter, so that you may well encounter places where the floor is now the wall, the books have turned into small clay models of hedgehogs and you yourself appear to be a device for coring apples. Students will therefore find it convenient to stick to the routes marked with chalk and the occasional banana skin.
We must warn you that many students have cleverly worked out that since the Library does, somewhere, contain any book that will ever or could ever be written, their own doctoral thesis must be in there on some distant shelf. This is true. Setting out to find it is, however, an extremely unwise move. We can assure you that, however long it takes, staying here and writing the damn thing is a lot easier in the end.
”
– Terry Pratchett & Stephen Briggs, The Ankh-Morpork Archives.
So, I’m always happy to
get an opportunity to yell about books and this was really fun. Thank you for the
tag @lettersfromthelighthouse! I appreciate it because I’m trying to interact more with people on here but I’m really bad at it.
1.
The Stone Age: One of the first books you ever remember reading.
The
Alfie series by Shirley Hughes. I don’t know if they were actually the first
books I ever read but they were certainly one of the first. I do
remember having a special blanket just like Alfie in Alfie Gives a
Hand. And also a stone that I called Bonting after the one Alfie finds in one of
the other books.
2.
Ancient Greece: Your favourite myth inspired book.
I
enjoy myth and fairy tale inspired books a lot so it’s really hard
for me to pick just one! For straightforward retellings I like
Stephen Fry’s Mythos and Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology a lot, and
Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes is
always a classic. Angela’s Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales is great too.
For
things that are more ‘inspired by’ though: Madeline Miller’s
Circe, Ragnarok and The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S.
Byatt, The Bloody Chamber (Angela Carter again), The Snow Child by
Eowyn Ivey, Edith Pattou’s North Child, and Witches Abroad by Terry
Pratchett. There are probably more I’m forgetting.
I’m
mostly drawn to Arthurian-inspired material though, if I’m honest.
Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence, T.H. White’s The Once
and Future King, and The Buried
Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro are all favourites. Plus
the weird and wonderful retellings of the Mabinogion published
by Seren Books. I
think if I had to choose just one though it would be Merlin Dreams by
Peter Dickinson. It’s not very well known, or at least I don’t
see it discussed much, but it’s absolutely gorgeous.
3.
Roman Empire: A book that features an impressive Empire or a Kingdom.
I
suppose this kind of depends on your definition of impressive? I find
a lot of the kingdoms in Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium very
striking, particularly Gondor and Rohan and the elven kingdoms of the
first age. And there’s also Númenor of course. Like @lettersfromthelighthouse pointed out though, the decline of
empires seems to be more prominent than their glory in Tolkien and I tend to find that side
of things more interesting to read about.
Otherwise,
Fantastica from The Neverending Story maybe? For non-fiction I would
dearly love to read more about the Mongol Empire and the medieval
empires of West Africa (Ghana, Mali, Songhai).
4.
The Middle Ages: A book that is an absolute bummer (positive or
negative).
This
is probably just me being a bit thick but I’m not exactly sure what this
one is asking for? I suppose the most depressing book I can think of
is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. While I did finish it it was a hard
read. There’s not a scrap of hope anywhere in that story.
5.
Renaissance: A book that you have learned a lot from OR a book that
made you think a lot.
I’m
definitely cheating by mentioning an author rather than a single book
but I find basically all of Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing very
thought-provoking. Her science-fiction (The Left Hand of Darkness,
The Word for World is Forest, The Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed)
really got me thinking about big issues like identity,
environmentalism, gender, and political systems for the first time,
and her essays have informed a lot of my opinions on writing itself.
Oh,
and I’ve got to mention Terry Pratchett’s entire Discworld series
here too. So, so wise.
6.
The Enlightenment: A book about knowledge, science, discovery, or
exploration.
Does
Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons count for that last one?
There are aspects of it that I’m kind of uncomfortable with now but
it captures the wonder and freedom of childhood exploration very
well.
If
not, then Frankenstein for science and knowledge? (Lol, I really
couldn’t have come up with two more different books if I’d tried!)
7.
The Industrial Revolution: A book featuring an invention or a concept
that you would love to have in your own life.
Dæmons
from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. I’ve always liked the concept of witches’
familiars and I feel like dæmons are sort of a very
intense form of that. Having one would make it very hard to be lonely, I think, which really appeals to me.
8.
World War I. and II.: Your favourite historical fiction book
featuring either of the world wars.
Again, there’s more than one book I want to mention here.
I was actually kind of surprised at how many titles came to mind
because tbh I’m all about medieval and earlier when it comes to
historical time periods.
Strange
Meeting by Susan Hill is short but easily one of the most subtly
devastating books about WWI I’ve come across. It’s sad
(naturally) and very sort of claustrophic and it haunted me for a
long time after I’d finished reading it. All Quiet on the Western
Front by Erich Maria Remarque is also considered a classic for very
good reason. At least in my opinion.
I
haven’t really read as much set during WWII but Goodnight Mister
Tom by Michelle Magorian was a childhood favourite that I still find
very touching. In fact, a lot of her other books are set either
during or after the war and I’ve enjoyed them all. Carrie’s War
by Nina Bawden. Markus Zusak‘s The Book Thief is one I find myself
coming back to a lot as well. Oh, and The Silver Sword by Ian
Serraillier is wonderful!
9.
Present day: A book you think everybody should read in present day.
Hmm,
I don’t think there’s one single book that I’d recommend to
everybody or one that I think everyone should read. We all have
different preferences and opinions, and want different things from
our reading. I do think it can be good to try books outside of your
usual favourite genres every now and again though. That’s not to
say anyone should force themselves to finish something they’re not
enjoying but sometimes being open-minded can lead to nice surprises.
I never expected that I would like hard science-fiction, for example,
but I really enjoyed Isaac Asimov’s robot stories.
I don’t really know anyone well enough to tag them tbh!
Kirk Douglas introduced me to Vincent Van Gogh.
Sad he’s gone.
I’m glad that Tumblr as a whole recognises that the Norse people weren’t just drunk, smelly barbarians, but I think we might be swinging too far in the other direction and romanticising them. Especially when it comes to women’s rights. Norse women had it comparatively better than many of their contemporaries, but their society didn’t have perfect gender equality. It’s also important to remember that they kept slaves, and the legal protections and status of free women did not apply to enslaved women.
