thereof
Still keeping up with the morning books; only about a hundred pages to go in Ancrene Wisse, and Sallust is still the most enjoyable part of the morning (some frantic ladies praying nervously today), while Descartes is cute but becoming a bit dull (though a partially abridged version of anyone’s optics would probably be dull). Have a stack of three large-ish history books that I want to get to sooner rather than later and chose Wilson’s Heart of Europe because it had the lowest ratings (of the three) on Librarything; it would probably be disappointing for anyone looking for narrative history, because it is broken into thematic chunks (starting with, as Wilson puts it, the eagle’s vantage, though there is really something more of the vulture in the dismemberment of a fallen state), but it seems good of its type (not as good as Israel’s Dutch Republic, but then few doorstoppers are).
Austin is perhaps a bit too clever for comfort and there is a certain slyness to his style that is less appealing than it once was (although still very attractive). Here Jung provides a tonic, because he is all charisma and no style but still manages to get right to the heart of why some deities are so disconcerting (hint: they contain multitudes rather than moralities). An odd assortment, but it helps get things firing for the day, brainwise.