206 replies to this topic

[Pattie]

I put down Mithraic Art: A Search for Unpublished and Unidentified Monuments by Al. N. Oikonomides (a nice Irish boy) in favor of A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine by J. K. Nelson.

I went from dry to arid.

And have picked up A Year... again and am determined to get to the end.
(Figuring 3 years later it might have improved by sitting on a shelf.)

[TheAznValedictorian]

I have finished reading A History of the Roman World From 30 B.C. to A.D. 138 by Edward T. Salmon

Edited by TheAznValedictorian, 24 April 2011 - 01:45 AM.

[Pattie]

I have finished reading A History of the Roman World From 30 B.C. to A.D. 138 by Edward T. Salmon

Anything on Mithras in there??? (It's a little early, but ya never know. )

[TheAznValedictorian]

Anything on Mithras in there??? (It's a little early, but ya never know. )

Sorry Pattie, but I couldn't find anything about Mithras in the book

[Pattie]

Sorry Pattie, but I couldn't find anything about Mithras in the book

It's okay. It really was too early, but I thought I'd try. Thanks for checking!!

[William O'Chee]

Still working my way through The Aeneid.

[f0ma]

I'm currently juggling:

China: A History by John Keay
Medieval Chinese Warfare 300 - 900 by David A. Graff
Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens
The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia by Peter Hopkirk

Edited by f0ma, 19 June 2012 - 01:56 AM.

[f0ma]

Just found these waiting for me on my return home. Can't wait to get stuck into the Holcombe book! Other than that, I polished off Graff the other week, though I still have Keay to struggle on with. I'm also currently reading Clements on Wu, and I have two other books on the sidelines, one on the history of Beijing and the other on Qin Shihuang. Academically, I've been reading far too many articles and books to list, most of which are incredibly dull economic and diplomatic treatises. Finally I'm hoping to order another batch of books next week, which includes Wang Zhenping's 'Ambassadors from the Island of Immortals', which I'm very excited to get my hands on. Phew! I definitely read too much.

[kaijuan]

My favorite author though is terry pratchett, his Discworld novels something I can always read. The Falco books by Lindsey Davis are great love them. Busy reading some of the xanth books.

Edited by kaijuan, 09 August 2012 - 04:55 AM.

[f0ma]

The next expansion to my library, including:

Wang Zhenping (2005) Ambassadors from the Islands of Immortals
Charlotte von Verschuer (2006) Across the Perilous Sea: Japanese Trade with China and Korea from the Seventh to the Sixteenth Centuries
Rosemary Quested (1984) Sino-Russian Relations: A Short History
Joshua A. Fogel (2009) Articulating the Sinosphere: Sino-Japanese Relations in Space and Time
Charles Holcombe (1998) The Genesis of East Asia, 221 B.C. - A.D. 907
Richard Edmonds (1985) Northern Frontiers of Qing China and Tokugawa Japan: A Comparative Study of Frontier Policy

Very happy with the Edmonds and Quested purchases - got them very cheap (about £5 each) when all the other copies were £70+! It pays to go bargain hunting Still have three books by John Whitney Hall to arrive also. Currently stuck into Holcombe's book on Eastern Jin thought - incredible stuff.

[Churchill]

Imperial China 900-1800 by FW Mote.

"This is a history of China for the 900-year time span of the late imperial period. F.W. Mote highlights the personal characteristics of the rulers and dynasties and probes the cultural theme of Chinese adaptations to recurrent alien rule. The book offers a synthesis of generational events, personalities and the spirit of the age, to yield a comprehensive history of the civilization, not isolated but shaped by its relation to outsiders."

Publication Date: 5 Dec 2003 | ISBN-10: 0674012127 | ISBN-13: 978-0674012127

[ghostexorcist]

These are obviously not about Chinese history, but the ancient Chinese considered the gibbon to be symbolic of Confucian gentleman and Daoist immortals:

* The Gibbons of Khao Yai: Seasonal Variation in Behavior and Ecology (2009) by Thad Q. Bartlett

* The Lesser Apes: Evolutionary and Behavioural Biology (1985) by Holger Preuschoft

After reading about it in a book on Chinese martial arts history, I recently purchased the following to learn more about the martial environment of the Ming Dynasty, when many boxing styles started to be recorded. I'm not sure when I will get around to reading it, though:

* Bandits, Eunuchs, and the Son of Heaven: Rebellion and the Economy of Violence in Mid-Ming China (2004) By David Robinson