Wednesday reading meme (a day late)

[selenay]

What are you currently reading?

The Library: An Unquiet History. It's research for my NaNo project. I'm also reading The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan, as a bit of light relief.

What did you recently finish?

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Lani Taylor. It's gorgeous.

What do you think you'll read next?

I'm not sure, but I've got The Yard by Alex Grecian on my stack from the library, so that's looking like a solid contender.

Comments

[tawg]

How are you finding "The Library"? It seems like an interesting topic for a book, but I've never quite been motivated enough to check it out myself :p

[selenay]

The early chapters are the most interesting and useful to me. The writer isn't too dry and he doesn't go into scary levels of detail, but he does discuss the earliest libraries and how/why they originated, with enough info for my purposes. It's giving me a better idea of how libraries began, how they were organised, and what I want to investigate further. He also isn't entirely all about the West in the early parts. Obviously, he covers Alexandria, but he discusses Mesopoptamia (specifically Nineveh) as well, and traces the development of libraries in the Muslim world as well as in Europe. There's even a discussion of early Chinese libraries.

I've just hit the mid-nineteenth century, though, and the book has become very North America-centric. The writer is from North America, so I understand it, but it's less useful to me because most of the novel I'm researching for takes place in Britain. Still, it's given me a starting point for what I need and I've been taking a lot of notes, so I can branch out and find more relevant information now that I know what I'm looking for.

[tawg]

Does it have a bibliography/reference list? I always heave a sigh of relief when history-ish books do.

And... In some ways, for me, a text being UK or US-centric is helpful for me, because that's where my fandoms are and so that's the kind of history I feel like I need to know for my projects. But it's very frustrating trying to access just about anything else, sometimes.

[selenay]

It has a very long sources/bibliography list :-) Basically, the last chapter is sources, sources, and more sources. I know exactly what you mean about being leery about history books that don't quote their sources. How do I know they're basing their conclusions on facts if they can't tell me where their information originated?

It's definitely UK/US-centric, so it would be good for writing about your fandoms :-) I was looking for something with more UK info, because that's where I'm basing a lot of my story, but I've got my eye on another book that might be better for that.

Finding anything that isn't US/Europe-centric can be so difficult :-( When people ask why we, as a fandom, don't explore outside our comfort zones, this is part of the problem. Finding the resources to get the details right can be next to impossible unless you've got the money to order in obscure books from halfway across the globe. And sometimes, even that doesn't work. Argh.