I finished Volume 36 of the Harvard Classics last night. My closest friends know full-well my obsession with this set of books, as I've been reading them for better than a decade now. A slow pace, I admit, but I am trying to read and comprehend as I go, and since there are no timetables I'm attempting to keep I am able to immerse myself in this my true bit of "pleasure reading". The works are fascinating to me and I've often called this collection the best book investment I've ever made.
Anyway, Volume 36 consists of The Chronicles of Froissart (a nice read for the history lover, especially the section on "Wat Tyler's Rebellion"), The Holy Grail by Sir Thomas Malory (one of the most respected accounts of all things King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table), and A Description of Elizabethan England (written for Holinshed's Chronicles) by William Harrison. In this last section a great picture of the way things used to be is painted masterfully. I've read where Shakespeare drew a lot of his imagery from this particular work, and it is quite an enjoable read for the fireside and coffee. The one thing that stood out to me in the Description, though, is that "the more things change, the more they stay the same".
Now I'm off to dive into Volume 37 and see what I can glean from the likes of Machiavelli, More and Martin Luther...
1 comment:
I'm impressed that you have stayed with it for this long. And it looks like you're fixin' to read some real political classics. Not to mention that Luther fellow that I like pretty well.
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