I almost had a panic moment today after I went to see the last of the promising listings with my agent. The place is a new condo conversion but all units are laid out in an unwieldy, ineffective fashion that nearly renders their fabulous neighborhood meaningless. We saw all units and hated every one of [...]
A few quotations from Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill.
To what point Islam has advanced in this development is a question beyond the scope of this book. But it may be said without fear of contradiction that Islamic society and Christian society have been generally bad neighbors now for nearly fourteen centuries, often [...]
I got my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows the day it was released and I settled down to read it that afternoon. I finished the next morning after forcing myself to put it down at 2AM. I’ve waited a week to write about it because I needed it to settle first. After [...]
He’s taking Julius’ month away from him. This week the new movie, fifth in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix comes out, and the week after that, the last book of the series. It’s been about ten years, right, since the first book.
Because I remembered so little of the last book [...]
I try to read everything. I do, especially if it gets good reviews and sounds like my favorite kind of literature, which is lengthy narrative (I also love ancient history, scholarly reads but that’s another subject). From The Iliad to Harry Potter, I’ve read them all. Recently, I’ve been on another reading kick (it comes [...]
The King Tut exhibit opens this Saturday. In its honor, the university’s museum hosted a lecture tonight by Dr. Zahi Hawass (link included for the sake of completeness, be aware it has a lot of exclamation points). This guy is quite possibly the closest thing to Indiana Jones in real life– without the Nazis– but [...]
When I was in high school, an essay assignment in English class asked us to answer if Jane Eyre benefitted or suffered from a comparison to a fairytale. Contrary to what most of my classmates wrote, I said that though the character of Jane had a lot in common with fairytale heroines, the book did [...]
I never pay full price for books, preferrring to wait until they come out as paperbacks or getting them through Amazon for a huge discount. I just paid full price for this one– Anthony Everitt’s Augustus. It made me do it! I’ve been waiting for this book since reading his Cicero and in the meantime [...]
The National Constitution Center is one of Philadelphia’s great resources. I went on Friday for a forum with one of the New Yorker’s journalists Larry Wright and some local politicians who had taken part in the 9/11 Commission. The friend who had given me a heads up on the event loves the Constitution Center and [...]
I got up at 630AM on a Saturday. I must surely be mad. I walked through drizzling rain to the U of Penn Museum for the symposium. Various different leaders in the field of Afghanistani archaeology were there to present what must have been papers for archaeological journals. There must have surely been other pros [...]
I’m currently reading “The Gallic War” by Julius Caesar. The weight of years is amazing. Through the neat, articulate descriptions of the Gallic campaign, I imagine Caesar in a tent in the cold Gallic winter writing this so people in Rome would begin to accept what his ambition demanded. This and “The Civil War” have [...]
What I’m attempting to read right now:
1. Istanbul: The Imperial City/ John Freely
2. Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling/ Ross King
3. Harry Potter e Il Calico di Fuoco/ JK Rowling
4. The latest Smithsonian magazines
Now I need to get on it and read. Thing is, ever since I got the cable reconnected, all I do is watch [...]