Ah plays. I bought Copenhagen in 2009 at the glorious glorious book sale in my hometown (oh my God that book sale, I dream about it sometimes) because it was fifty cents or something and I like plays, and then I chronically didn’t read it for a year and a half, and then I moved to New York and left it behind because I didn’t love it because I hadn’t read it, and then in January when I was at the library getting plays I was all, Dammit, I need to read this damn play. So I checked it out…
6 CommentsReading the End Posts
The problem with nonfiction is that I always want specialized stuff and the libraries don’t want me to have it. Or, the other problem with nonfiction might be, there’s just not enough of it out there. I wanted to read loads more books about looting and other cultural property issues, because I enjoyed Stealing History and was interested in the issues it raised. I don’t think I appreciated it enough for portraying the complexities of the issues, like the compromises archaeologists have to make with collectors if they want to have any opportunity whatsoever to study looted antiquities. Then I…
12 CommentsStealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World, by Roger Atwood, was a very interesting book all about looters and what gets lost when ancient sites are torn up and their contents sold off to wealthy collectors around the world. It used Peru as a focus to discuss the global problems of looting and collecting, but my main takeaway from it is that the Met is a big jerk about repatriating local artifacts. And now when I go to the Met and don’t pay full price, which I’m entitled to do because the admission fee is…
30 CommentsY’all have heard me bitch about the New York Public Library in the past, and I will probably bitch about it in the future. Here’s the big thing about the New York Public Library, and I will preface this by saying that I am well aware these are problems created by a larger system and a greater number of patrons, rather than some sort of inherent crappiness on the part of the NYPL. I KNOW THAT. The big thing about the New York Public Library that makes me not love it is that I cannot get a large number of…
26 CommentsSometimes I do a quick search through my blog archives and find that I have somehow, in four years (four years!!), not reviewed a book that I love more than I love eating cheese fries while watching The Good Wife (in this case, more even than I would love eating cheese fries while watching Kalinda plan and execute a cold-blooded takedown of Dana). Watership Down is one such book. It is also an example of the phenomenon that a late conversion can make you more of a fanatic about something than if you loved it all along. My mother told…
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