Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl
Recently I read an essay about the importance of not skipping over the acknowledgments section in books because there can often be more insightful details besides thank yous to a bunch of people that you don’t know. My point of that statement is that I’m glad I read the acknowledgments of this book. And, since many listen to audiobooks, they might not have noted the website link for the archives of Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory at the University of Texas. I was completely entertained hunting around on this website. You can see the archives and read direct correspondence. You can also learn about other researchers who have archives there. Here are the links.
http://sites.utexas.edu/scripts/
http://sites.utexas.edu/scripts/abou...-finding-aids/ |
Very true
Bookworm_Girl And thanks for the links - they’re a great find!
Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
That said, I think she did as good a job as possible in making difficult concepts accessible, understandable and interesting.
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I think so too
issybird. I thought Fox also did an excellent job of portraying what a labour of love the decipherment was for each of them. To maintain that level of commitment for decades with so little progress to encourage them was amazing. Let alone the fortitude and powers of concentration they had to muster to tackle the scripts in the midst war and crushing workloads - truly remarkable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by astrangerhere
I am just spying on this discussion as I was too busy at work to get to this, but I thought I would pop in by way of contrast. Last year, I read Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World's Most Famous Detective Writer, also by Fox.
I enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps the narrative was made better by the sheer amount of first-person sources available to Fox in writing it. She quotes newspapers, diaries, and letters on virtually every page.
I also wonder if the aforementioned book was also the beneficiary of 5 years more experience as a writer at the New York Times (and perhaps better editing).
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astrangerhere - excellent points. And thank you for highlighting this book. It had been mentioned earlier, but I didn’t make the connection that Fox was the author. It sounds like fun, so great to hear how enjoyable you found it.