Reading
A bit of an experiment this, which I'll try for a while and may delete later. I'm keeping a note of what I'm reading at the moment - both for my own records, and because people do occasionally ask me.
Please remember that just because I list a book here, it doesn't mean I'd recommend it. Unless I specifically say so. I also refuse to wholly edit out the trash novels.
I'll try and update each month.
May 2010
Ovid: The Serpant's Teeth
Mary M. Innes (trans.)
Penguin Epics
Putting the Women Back into the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. (essay)
Lillian Doherty
in, Laughing With Medusa: Classical Myth and Feminist Thought, Vanda Zajko, Miriam Leonard (eds). Oxford Classical Presences 2006.
Reclaiming the Muse (essay)
Penny Murray
in, Laughing With Medusa: Classical Myth and Feminist Thought, Vanda Zajko, Miriam Leonard (eds). Oxford Classical Presences 2006.
The Angel's Game
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Phoenix, 2010
- OK I suppose. Some nice moments, but also a lot of extraneous stuff. I like reading brand-new novels, though.
Leigh Bowery: Looks
Fergus Greer
Thames and Hudson 2002
Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed
Harold Koda
Metropoliton Museum of Art 2001
Mithras and His Temples on the Wall
Charles Daniels
Museum of Antiquities / Society of Antiquities, University of Newcastle, 1989 expanded and updated edition.
April 2010
Darkness and Light
John Harvey
Arrow Books 2007
- I don't know why I keep reading these.
Bronze Head from Ife
Editha Platte
British Museum Objects in Focus, 2010.
- very useful (along with the exhibition, running March-June 2010 in BM), in presenting relationships between objects, thinking, and culture.
The Odyssey
Robert Fitzgerald Translation
Everyman Library, 1992 edition
The Object of Performance: The American Avant-Garde since 1970
Henry M Sayre
University of Chicago Press, 1989
- I bought this a while ago, but (suprisingly for me) it's one I go back to. Not sure why yet.
Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America
James Allen, Hilton Als, Congressman John Lewis, Leon F. Litwack
Twin Palms Publishers, 2008
- There's a quote on the front of this book from Richard Lacayo, Time Magazine:
"Without Sanctuary is a great and terrible book. It's an album of peacetime atrocities, during which thousands of Kodaks clicked."
I think if you can bear to read Without Sanctuary, you should. If you can't bear it, maybe you should still read it.
Revolution on Paper: Mexican prints 1910 - 1960
Dawn Ades and Alison McClean
British Museum Press 2010
March 2010
The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries
Manfred Clauss, Richard Gordon
Edinburgh University Press, 2000
Roman Britain: A Very Short Introduction
Peter Salway
Oxford Paperbacks, 2000
Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier: Vindolanda and its people
Alan K Bowman
British Museum Press, 2004.
Hadrian's Wall: History and Guide
Guy de la Bedoyere
Tempus, 1998
Bones and Silence
Reginald Hill,
Harper Collins, 1990
2666
Roberto Bolano
Picador 2009
- This is a strange one. I haven't made my mind up about it. It might be genius. But then again, it might not. One to revisit, when I have the time.
February 2010
Garnethill
Denise Mina
Bantam, 1998
- This is awful! Kind of funny at times... It's a murder mystery set in Garnethill in Glasgow. I guessed whodunnit though...
Imaginary Conversations and Poems selected and introduced by Havelock Ellis
Walter Savage Landor
Everyman's Library 890 (1933 edition)
Recollections
Maureen Almond and Glyn Goodrick
Flambard Press, in Association with the Museum of Antiquities of the University and Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle. 2008.
Roman Mithraism: The Evidence of the Small Finds
Lindsay Allason-Jones (Marleen Martens and Guy De Boe [eds])
Suiker Museum, Tienen; Institut Archeologisch Patrimonium; Musem Het Toreke
Autobiography and Performance
Deirdre Heddon
Palgrave, 2008
From Melos to My Lai: War and Survival
Lawrence A. Tritle
Routledge 2000
The Little Stranger
Sarah Waters
Virago, 2009
Ancient Songs and Ballads, from the reign of King Henry the Second to the revolution
Ritson J
Printed for Payne and Foss by T Davison, 1829.
From the Jeffrey Collection, Mitchell Library, Glasgow (ref only)
Grecian Legends and Early History
G Grote
1843
From the Jeffrey Collection, Mitchell Library, Glasgow (ref only)
Costume, A Cyclopedia Or, Dictionary of Dress, Including Notices of Contemporaneous Fashions on the Continent
Planche
1879
From the Jeffrey Collection, Mitchell Library, Glasgow (ref only)
January 2010
POPism
Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett
Penguin Modern Classics (2007 edition)
The Houding of David Oluwale
Kester Aspden
Vintage, 2008.
- Please read this. It's important.
The Strangeness of Tragedy
Paul Hammond
Oxford, 2009
Trickster Makes This World
Lewis Hyde
Canongate 2008
- just re-reading this, looking for a specific bit (which of course I can't find). More interesting than The Gift, I reckon.