Reading Update #39

[desertvixen]

It’s been a long time since I posted a reading update.  I have been reading, just not writing much about it.

 Nancy Drew #48, The Crooked Banister was fairly entertaining, although nothing too spectacular or realistic.  Typical fare for Nancy Drew.

 What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? by Michael Berube was good, an interesting look into the world of college that I skipped out on to come into the Army.

 The Cave Painters by Gregory Curtis was an excellent book about the study of the prehistoric cave paintings, their discovery and the study of them currently.  There’s decent photographic coverage, but probably the most entertaining part of the book is coverage of some of the personal issues various scientists and archaeologists had with each other.  They don’t take over the book, however, and because the author was not personally involved in any of them, the coverage is not spiteful. Definitely recommend this one.

 The Invisible Sex byJ.M. Adovasio, Olga Soffler, and Jake Page, is a good look at the role of women in prehistoric times, AND how it has been studied.  One of the things gone into is the general debunking of the Clovis myth.  It is pretty even-handed in its treatment, and readable.

 Already reviewed HP#7 by itself.

 The Age of Revolution by Winston Churchill is the third volume of his History of The English Speaking Peoples, was worth keeping for the historical value, but not particularly readable.  Also, he’s a big fan of the Great Man in History theory, especially when it comes to John Churchill, 1^st Duke of Marlborough – which kind of overpowered the book for me.  I understand why, naturally, he would be so enamored of the Duke, but it started to annoy me.

 A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom was very good – an enjoyable read.  It was also a good reminder that the current perception of marriage is different from what it has been throughout much of history.  The focus is mostly on Western Europe.

 Lunch Lessons by Ann Cooper and Lisa Holmes is a look not only at what’s going wrong with school lunches, but also what is going right in some places, as well as recipes for school lunches.  I would recommend this one.

 Queen Victoria by Walter L. Arstein is a condensed history of Queen Victoria, serving as more of an overview than anything else.  I would recommend Christopher Hibbert’s biography above this, but this is a good short one and the cover art is stupendous.  It is the state portrait from 1859 and shows a confident, mature Queen in her state robes – not a giddy young girl or the notoriously black-clad plump widow.

 The World Without Us by Alan Weisman is a look at what would happen to the Earth is we suddenly just disappeared.  Parts of it are really good, and parts of it didn’t hold my interest.  One thing that seemed off was that the author is still using the Clovis premise, which to my understanding has been put away.  However, the overall message – that humans have changed the Earth and all these changes would not just go away – is worth reading about.  It’s a little eerie, however.

 The Regency Underworld by Donald A. Low was relatively good, but not focused on what I was expecting, which was the criminal element, not the seamier side in general.

 Who Let the Dogs In? by Molly Ivins was hilarious, as her writing generally is.  If you liked Molly, and you don’t already own this, you probably should.

Regency Etiquette: The Mirror of Graces by “A Lady of Distinction” was an interesting read – a reprint of an original source.  The book is cloaked in Greek mythology metaphors, but eminently readable, with quite a few snickers along the way.

  DV

Comments

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Thank you for doing these. I read through, and anything that looks interesting, I request from the library, or through ILL. (Now that I can do ILL requests online, wheee!)

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of some service.

DV

Him again.

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

The Invisible Sex byJ.M. Adovasio, Olga Soffler, and Jake Page, is a good look at the role of women in prehistoric times, AND how it has been studied. One of the things gone into is the general debunking of the Clovis myth. It is pretty even-handed in its treatment, and readable.

I haven't read this book, but I've read another one by Adovasio about his pre-clovis archaeological site. As far as I can tell he has two things:

1) A genuine and well-dated pre-Clovis archeological site. Not the only one either; there's Monte Verde in South America and maybe a couple of others.

2) A bug up his ass about the Clovis horizon. He mixes in a lot of kewl-to-buck-conventional-wisdom, underdog-fighting-dogma rhetoric about it. It may well be (pretty well has to be at this point) that there were some humans in the Americas before the Clovis culture. But _something_ happened with the Clovis people, and it was pretty major. One (geological) second you've got practically no traces of human habitation, an eyeblink later there are Clovis points and human campsites all over the place. Adovasio gets going on the subject sometimes as if archaeologists coined the Clovis idea just to get his goat.

Re: Him again.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

To be honest, all of the archaelogists seem to have a bug up their ass about something.

I lean towards the arrived by boat theory in the Pacific NW, but we'll probably not be able to confirm that in our lifetime.

Not so much the Clovis, but the overkill theory - and the primacy placed upon what the males were doing is the major tack of Invisible Sex. The problem, of course, with studying female contributions is that stuff like baskets and textiles didn't survive, for the most part.

Adovasio is a little adversarial.

DV