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Old 05-15-2020, 09:51 AM   #3
issybird
o saeclum infacetum
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirok View Post
Like many people during the lockdown I was challenged to list ten books that I loved. Pft! That's like asking Giacomo Casanova to list the loves of his life! I listed the books that changed my life and one of the first of them was the Vol.8 of "The Book of Knowledge", the set of encyclopedias that we had at home when I was in primary school. (Wierd, I know)

However it got me thinking about the Great Books of the Western World which I lusted after for years. A night's Googling (that was fun) found this website that showed that most of the books were available from the University of Adelaide (that was good) but following their link I found that their online library has been closed down (that's TERRIBLE!).

Such a travesty cannot be allowed to go unchallenged! That gave me my next reading project. No I'm not going to read them all - I'm retired so I'm not sure I have ten years for a reading plan like that! - but I can at least find them, precis them, and record for others what I have found. I've started a Google Sites website for it but I'll hang fire on making it public for a while if you don't mind.
Fantastic shoutout to The Book of Knowledge! They were already far out of date when I was a kid but I was entranced by them. I’d do some of the projects, cook some of the recipes, and learned a lot from them. It was one of those things I didn’t question at the time, but I have to assume that our set had been the childhood books of one of my parents. As I type, I can reach out and touch my own edition of the books, purchased decades later when I ran across them in an antiquarian book store. I shall have to see what is particularly beguiling about Volume Eight later today.

Just this morning, I read a piece in the New York Times called “Let Books Create Your Summer.”

Quote:
It may be tempting to binge-watch our way thorough these next months. But TV washes over you. Reading draws you in. Books that absorb us, books that calm us down, books that comfort us, books that remind us we are not alone but part of the grand sweep of history, books that surprise and enchant us — this is what we’re looking for. Maybe this literary summer will mean reading a succession of fiendish thrillers; or maybe it will mean finally tackling Trollope. Whatever works. We are making this up as we go along.
Well, I went back to reading Trollope a few years ago now, but otherwise I’m on board and your project seems to be similarly motivated. The “grand sweep of history” seems a double-edged sword, but it may be all we’ve got.

I’ll look forward to your website; I’m just going to make a tiny reminder that when it’s time to link to it, that you post it in the self-promotion forum. Although you can certainly discuss issues with the collection and the individual books here.
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