Roughing It by Mark Twain
Roughing It by Mark Twain
I have a new featured book for you this week. This one is an American classic called Roughing It by Mark Twain. It is one of Mark Twain's travel books which made him famous as an author. In this book he writes about his travels throughout the Old American West, his adventures with mining, newspaper editing and with the rough folk of the Old West. Of course, he fictionalizes it quite a bit, but that adds to the entertainment value.
What I find most interesting about this book is the way in which Twain portrays the Old West. He was a contemporary who actually did spend several years in the Old 'Wild' West and, although his account is fictionalized to some degree, it still shows us how people who lived during that era saw the west or at least wanted to see the west as compared to today's highly romanticized image of it.
19th Century Books from the British Library
Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
Source: Wikipedia
According to The Times, the British Library is currently undertaking a project to digitize their collection of more than 65,000 nineteenth century books in an effort to preserve them and make them available for free for public consumption.
The only catch is that you must own an Amazon Kindle which is something I find incredibly disappointing. I do not like the Kindle or eBook readers. I suppose the best part about it is that I can still buy regular paper copies that mimic the original books.
Here is part of the article:
MORE than 65,000 19th-century works of fiction from the British Library’s collection are to be made available for free downloads by the public from this spring.
Owners of the Amazon Kindle, an ebook reader device, will be able to view well known works by writers such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, as well as works by thousands of less famous authors.
[...]
While the British Library books — which will include Dickens’s Bleak House, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge — will be available free online, the public will also be able to order printed copies from Amazon.
Like the onscreen versions, the paperbacks, costing £15-£20, will look like the frequently rare 19th-century editions in the library’s collection — including their typeface and illustrations. Originals of works by Austen and Dickens typically cost at least £250.
You can read the full article on The Times.
Europe in the High Middle Ages
Europe in the High Middle Ages by William Chester Jordan
This week I have a new featured book called Europe in the High Middle Ages by William Chester Jordan. It is a very well-written book which details the Europe in the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It covers a range of topics from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, the Crusades to monasteries, the Catholic Church to the Holy Roman Emperor, and so on.
The book is written in a manner which is easy for the casual reader to understand and follow, but academic and detailed enough to be of value to the medieval field.
The Making of Europe
The Making of Europe by Robert Bartlett
I've just begun reading a new and so far very interesting book about European conquest, colonization and cultural change in the late medieval/early middle ages period. I will be spending a significant amount of time over my break pouring through this book as it is quite interesting.
It starts off talking about the expansion of Latin Christendom from Rome throughout the rest of Western and Eastern Europe. It also discusses the spread of European aristocracy and the constant conquests and "adventures" which they pursued including the Crusades. I haven't read much further than that, but what I have read has been really fascinating.
New Featured Book
I realized today that I haven't changed the featured book for quite a long time. So, I've changed it to another book about Native Americans called The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America by James Wilson. It is a fascinating history of the Native Americans that gives each region of the United States its own chapter from pre-contact with Europeans, to contact and beyond. Wilson did an excellent job writing and it was an absolute pleasure to read. I highly recommend it.
Cataloging with LibraryThing
So now that I have access again to my entire personal library, I have begun to catalog all of my books with LibraryThing. It is taking a while because I have quite a large number of books. Several of them are foreign which means that it is quite difficult to find them with LibraryThing. I can type in the ISBN and some of them still do not show up. I guess I will just not be able to add those.
Other than that little hurdle, the cataloging process is going smoothly. It just gets somewhat redundant and tedious after a while, so I have been taking a lot of short breaks so I don't wear myself out too quickly. I still have about half of my library left to catalog and already have 73 items cataloged (not including the foreign books, of course).
Here is a widget with some of my books:
It Happened in Colorado
It Happened in Colorado by James A. Crutchfield
Today I ordered a new book that looked really interesting. The book is called It Happened in Colorado by James A. Crutchfield. I am originally from Colorado and so I figured a book on the history of Colorado would be an interesting read. James A. Crutchfield always writes interesting books about the history of the American west which also helped persuade me to buy the book when I found it. One of my favorite books by him is called The Way West: True Stories of the American Frontier. Part of his collection of books are a whole bunch of "It Happened in [insert state name here]" books. I might have to invest in a few more if the one I ordered was interesting.
Mark Twain and 19th Century American History
As a student of history, I unfortunately do not have a lot of time to devote to reading fiction books of my choice. If I am reading generally it is either a specifically assigned book or text for a class or a book pertaining to something relavent to my studies (such as Der Dienst by Reinhard Gehlen which pertains to my most recent research project). Occasionally however, I am able to get a little bit of fictional reading in now and then and when I do, my favorite author is Mark Twain.
The reasons behind this are simple: not only is the man a great humorist, but most of his books takes place in my favorite time period, the 19th century. To me, Twain provides a fascinating view on 19th century culture and life that standard textbooks or academic journals cannot even touch because he was actually there, writing stories about everyday life with the careless ease of someone who does not have to critically examine details because he has experienced the times his whole life. I think that says something that modern scholars can't even come close to because they weren't there.
Twain covers several different countries during the 19th century including the American western frontier in Roughing It, Germany, Switzerland and Italy in A Tramp Abroad and Spain, the Christian holy land and northern Africa in The Innocents Abroad. He also gives us his usually witty and smart-aleck interpretation of what's going on and of the different areas. Of course, the reader does have to take into consideration that quite a bit of each story is in fact fiction; however, the fiction was made up within the confines of Twain's 19th century mind and travels.
For those of you who are interested in reading some of Mark Twain's collection, I recommend the following two books:
 Roughing It by Mark Twain |
 A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain |
They are by far my favorite as they deal with my two favorite parts of the world: the American western frontier and German-speaking Europe. They also, needless to say, take place in the mid-19th century.
For more books I recommend from Mark Twain, visit the fiction section of the History Rhymes store.
LibraryThing
So I broke down and decided to catalog my ever-growing personal library. I chose to use an online tool called LibraryThing because it seemed like a good way of keeping track of everything. There are other tools out there that I considered, many of which are offline, however most of the cost money and I didn't want to spend money on something when I can get it for free. LibraryThing seems like a good tool. I haven't cataloged my entire library yet, only what I happen to have on hand with me at the moment. All 38 books. I have a much larger collection of books that I still need to move to my apartment at some point.
If you are interested, you can view my library here. I will also be putting a link to my library catalog as a button on the right side of the blog so readers can view it at anytime.
If you have any books that you think I should add to my library or any comments, feel free to leave me a comment on this post or any other post.
Here is a widget with some of my books:
David Irving’s Translation of Der Dienst: Erinnerungen 1942-1971
For anyone who is going to be working with the memoirs of Reinhard Gehlen, do not use David Irving's translation of it, entitled: The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen. For a project I am working on, I have been dealing with both Irving's translation as well as the original book in German written by Gehlen himself (Der Dienst: Erinnerungen 1942-1971). I read the German version cover to cover for this project and have been attempting to use Irving's translation as a quick reference to check for facts, however, as I have been using the translation, not only is information missing from the original in his translation (I've had to check the original multiple times to verify it was actually there), but there are actually pages and pages of accounts and "memories" that don't exist anywhere in the original!
The accounts may be true for all I know, but they are presented as though Gehlen told them (though he did not in his memoirs) and there are no references cited. It has been most frustrating and I do intend to report this inaccuracy to the university. Perhaps they will dispose of the book as anyone who is unable to read the German version would have no idea otherwise, possibly leading to inaccuracy.
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