New acquisitions 😊
Six books: The Library of Alexandria: The History and Legacy of the Ancient World’s Most Famous Library by Charles River Editors, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Lincoln by D. Herbert, Flawed Giant: Lyndon B. Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973 by Robert Dallek, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62 and Central Europe by William T. Vollmann.
The library of Alexandria was a library in Alexandria, Egypt. It housed thousands of papyrus scrolls. It had books from Egypt and Greece. The library was eventually destroyed, probably by a fire during a Roman conquest. If I could travel in time, I would probably choose to travel here and salvage some of the scrolls. I bought a short little book to learn more about this.
This is an iconic work from the Enlightenment, in which Smith explains how nations build their wealth. Written at the start of the industrial revolution, Smith offers a defence of free trade and a critique of mercantilism. It includes his famous metaphor of ‘the invisible hand.’ This is a very long, quite complex book which I might get around to reading some day, but it’s good to own anyway.
I bought a biography of Lincoln, who led the United States through the civil war, defeated the confederates and abolished slavery. I thought that it’d be good to read about one of the USA’s most iconic presidents.
Lyndon B. Johnson became president after JFK died. His landmark achievement was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination based on race, colour, religion or sex. It outlawed discrimination in employment, housing and voting rights. It was a major victory for the civil rights movement. He also created Medicare. He had his grand vision about ‘the great society’ and ‘the war on poverty.’ He was an unpopular president at the time, mainly because he increased troops in Vietnam, but he is generally seen as one of the most successful presidents.
I bought a book about Mao’s cultural revolution, but to complement it I also bought this book about the dreadful famine, ‘the great leap forward.’ It left a death toll of between 15 to 55 million people, making it (if the higher figures are correct) the largest famine in human history. It was an attempt to turn China into an industrialised society by collectivising agriculture (the Soviet Union also created huge famines by collectivising agriculture).
William T. Vollmann won the National Book Award
for this, a novel about WWII. I quite like long, sprawling, complicated novels, even if I have no idea what I’m reading half the time, so I look forward to reading this eons from now. Also, Dmitry Shostakovich is a character in this book, which is cool.
New acquisitions. 👍
One book: Memoirs by Kingsley Amis.
One record: Crescent by John Coltrane.
Amis here writes about his life here and his encounters with other writers, intellectuals, artists and politicians. He was quite a cantankerous and literate man, so I thought that it'd be interesting to read his account of this period.
This is one of my favourite albums. I own the CD version of this and I play it a lot. I found this record of it and I thought it'd be a good item to own
I received some money for my birthday, so I thought that I'd spend it on this Captain Beefheart box set. It is comprised of four records (Lick My Decals Off Baby, The Spotlight Kid, Clear Spot and Outtakes).
