Thank you for your comment. A varied reading list keeps boredom away and helps to improve mood. After all, it is said that “variety is the spice of life”.
@bookstodon Maybe everyone already knows this, but in case you don't: there is a great way to search for library e-books you might like.
If you have Libby, do a filtered search for whatever you like in general. While perusing the results, tap on any book you have already read and enjoyed. Scroll down past the description, and it will give you suggestions of other books you might like. This really helped me.
This only works in filtered search, not direct search.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon I'm not opposed to getting recommendations, and I have found new favorites, but that usually comes from you or others I'm following on SM. Then I will investigate, but I don't feel the need to seek a "if you like X you should check out Y" sort of search. I have more than I will ever read already, a print library of at least 1500, maybe 1200 on Kindle, some of those being duplicates.
“Where do national myths originate? They do not emerge by happenstance. Rather their creation and spread are an exercise of power. Influential historical actors, from antebellum slaveholders to the moguls of Hollywood and those Slotkin calls the ‘political classes’, have attempted to develop and disseminate broadly acceptable myths to serve their own interests.”
“But the four men who rode atop the wave of the Gilded Age were Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan. Their business activities during the final four decades of the nineteenth century drove America’s ascension into the most powerful industrial nation on the planet. And they shaped the rules that governed the US economy for decades to come.”
God’s Ghostwriters by Candida Moss review – did enslaved scribes write the New Testament?
“And if the Roman family that purchased them as a scribe had subsequently converted to Christianity, either openly or secretly as many did in the first and second centuries CE, they may well then have been drafted in to write down the words of the great Christian missionary preachers who criss-crossed the empire and came to its capital, including of course Paul.”
“…what bothers me about this educational approach—the “problem” approach, the “STEAM” (STEM + arts) approach—is what it leaves out. It leaves out the humanities. It leaves out books. It leaves out literature and philosophy, history and art history and the history of religion. It leaves out any mode of inquiry—reflection, speculation, conversation with the past—that cannot be turned to immediate practical ends.”
“The fakes created during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century tell us another story, one of the rediscovery of the ancient Near East within the Orientalism movement. This fascination about the Orient and the past led certain individuals to create some fantastic stories and theories, such as those published by the writer Zecharia Stichin (1920–2010) who took the mythological battles of gods related in the authentic Babylonian Epic of Creation to be real astronomic phenomena.”
Michel, C. 2020. Cuneiform Fakes: A Long History from Antiquity to the Present Day. In: Michel, C. and Friedrich, M. ed. Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 25-60. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110714333-002
“The fakes created during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century tell us another story, one of the rediscovery of the ancient Near East within the Orientalism movement. This fascination about the Orient and the past led certain individuals to create some fantastic stories and theories, such as those published by the writer Zecharia Stichin (1920–2010) who took the mythological battles of gods related in the authentic Babylonian Epic of Creation to be real astronomic phenomena.”
Michel, C. 2020. Cuneiform Fakes: A Long History from Antiquity to the Present Day. In: Michel, C. and Friedrich, M. ed. Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 25-60. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110714333-002
As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West – review
"In As Gods Among Men, Guido Alfani examines the history of the rich in the West from the Middle Ages to modern times, including paths to wealth, societal perceptions and their resilience against shocks."