Bibliography, January 2010

Acquired (5)

V. Nabokov, Pale Fire
Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History (4 vols)



Read (13)

BOTM - E. Burke, Reflections on the revolution in France


D. Botting, The island of Dragon's Blood
M. Bradbury (ed.), Penguin book of short stories
V. Brittain, Testament of Youth
A. Christie, They do it with mirrors
A. Christie, Mrs McGinty's dead
H. James, The Aspern Papers
H. James, The Turn of the Screw
S. Little, Isms
S. Mitchell, Rocky Horror: from concept to cult
Themistus, Politics, Philosophy and Empire in the Fourth Century
(tr. P. Heather & D. Moncur)
G. Tyrell, Medievalism
K. Ward, Priests and People


Unread remainder - 181


To focus the mind, I'm now counting down. I had thought I'd got this below 100, but examination of the history shelves revealed a lot of books I'd claimed were 'academic collection' or 'Reference' but were clearly nothing of the sort. So, a purified list now reveals 181 books to get through by the end of the year, assuming I don't buy any more (unlikely). For the record that's about 10% of the eligible collection (c.11% are reference works). Anna's books are excluded from all considerations. Astute calculators will realise this implies a bit of throwing out if I'm to be done by December, but I think that's healthy.


Anyway. this month threw up some good stuff, but Burke was the best. I'm not entirely sure why I haven't read Burke before, given his place in Conservative thought. Part of me was expecting it to be a bit shit, but it was a wonderful, savage, attack on the ideals of the revolution and all they stood for. I loved it. I did carefully note the passages that I loved most, but my bookmarks have been dislodged in the journey back from France (I read it 'on location' as it were) so cannot reproduce them. However, a quick search online has located my favourite one:

Thanks to our sullen resistance to innovation, thanks to the cold sluggishness of our national character, we still bear the stamp of our forefathers. We have not (as I conceive) lost the generosity and dignity of thinking of the fourteenth century; nor as yet have we subtilized ourselves into savages. We are not the converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius has made no progress amongst us. Atheists are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers. We know that we have made no discoveries, and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality; nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born, altogether as well as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould upon our presumption, and the silent tomb shall have imposed its law on our pert loquacity. In England we have not yet been completely embowelled of our natural entrails; we still feel within us, and we cherish and cultivate, those inbred sentiments which are the faithful guardians, the active monitors of our duty, the true supporters of all liberal and manly morals.

Ace.