Bibliography, February 2010

Books acquired (1)

The Bible (KJV)

Books read (14)

BOTM: R. Gildea, Children of the Revolution

L. Ayres, Nicaea and its legacy
Aurelius Victor, tr. H. W. Bird, De Caesaribus
A. Cobban, A History of Modern France, vol 1: 1715-1799
Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History
John Chrysostom, Selected Homilies
M. Edwards (tr. & comm.), Lives of Plotinus and Proclus
M. Gladwell, Outliers
N. Gordimer, Writing and being
Mgaloblishvili, Ancient Christianity in the Caucasus
Nimmo Smith, A Christian's guide to Greek culture
A.F. Norman, Antioch as a centre of Hellenic culture as observed by Libanius
C. Stewart, Cassian the Monk
D. Thomson, England in the Nineteenth century

Unread remainder - 150

Note the purging. I have a read decent number this month, but I've thrown as many. Actually, scrutinising the historical collection has been illuminating. I've accumulated a number of books in areas that I am not actually very interested in and imbalanced in others. Specifically

• I'm just not that interested in Nazis, yet I've a barrage of books on the Third Reich. They've gone, leaving Shirer's This is Berlin as the only one to read*


• England and its politics is just really boring. I'm fooling myself that I'm ever going to read biographies of Henry VII, Paddy Ashdown, Geoffrey Howe or Edward Heath. Gone. I've kept Macmillan and Thatcher but even that might be a push - and may not make the end of the year.


• I really don't have enough books on France

It appears I would have been better asking my eighteen year old self what to read than any later edition. However, that would have deprived me of a decent collection of C19 history, from whence this month's best book comes from. Had I done any modern continental history, Gildea would have taught me at Oxford, which from this book would have been great fun. Books where the politics is dispensed in the first third are usually of limited interest, but this was engrossing, partly one suspects because it's closer in time to the present, and the contours of society are nearer to the surface, but he also has a skillful eye of startling statistics and facts.

I'm conscious this echoes my praise for Robb's The discovery of France in 2008, but Gildea's is a more weighty tome and more analytical in its approach to key issues of religion, policy, and economics. Together they work well. Roll on December when I can add more to my French collection. I think I need a biography of Napoleon III, a few regional studies (perhaps about Brittany on account of the parental villa, but also something on the south), and something on royalism in the post 1815, and probably post 1848 world. Bring back the party of Order.

*I should stress this doesn't mean I'm not grateful for the books I have already read on the subject, of which Klemperer's diaries probably the best
**P.S. Actually, the best book I read this month isn't on this list at all. Following sanity checking, I don't include books I read in academic libraries in this list, which excludes most of my academic reading, but David Gwynne's The Eusebians, which I read on Thursday, was the best thing out there this time. It is, of course, entirely inaccessible to the general reader so probably best not to record it.