Leeds Stack

As is my habit, born of many birthdays and other gift-related occasions, here is the stack of new books, arranged neatly, from Leeds. All but two of these will have to stay in Oxford when I go back to Canada for what is left of the summer break.

Not as heavy as it looks

Of particular interest, because of their improbable availability is the one at the bottom, and the green one in the middle. Paul Watson, the publisher of the Harlaxton proceedings took over as the publisher for the Richard III society and they gave him some of the back-stock from Sutton Publishing (now absorbed into History Press). The Sutton stuff is uncommon and when it does appear it is way out of my price range. This stuff was well within that range.

Also, being a rare example of print-on-demand being a good thing, is the trade edition of Klaassen’s Transformation of Magic which is not otherwise available outside hardback. That one is coming home to live with the other esoteric stuff and, if conditions allow, to get ‘inscribed’ by the author himself. Although I will probably have to help build his cabin to compensate for cheaping out with the trade ed.

And honestly, I will actually write something for the blog in the relatively near future, once I get out from the oppressive… oppressions that I currently labour beneath.

 

March review

While I am determined to maintain the habit of the monthly review, I can’t say I take much pride in the contents of this one. Naturally, I have only myself to blame for both the results, and my own disappointment. Judge all you want, I’m not particularly concerned about the course of public opinion. And, if that obviously defensive introduction does not deter you, read on for the month of March.

November Review

With a certain ominous inevitability reserved for Greek tragedy, the monthly review has returned to PBS bearing in its ropey arms the trophies and wounds of another 30 days of a DPhil in Oxford. Apparently the review carries some repressed literary aspirations as well. Rest assured, that early flourish is probably all it can muster. Rest in the warm, if dry, embrace of a largely inconsequential update of the last month.

Stick to the script… or not, whatever.

Script or no script? That is a question I have answered to my satisfaction, but opinion will vary based on personal taste. The conference last Friday was my 6th conference paper and the 3nd paper to be read from a script. Like the 1st one (actually, the 2nd one chronologically but you get the meaning), it felt clumsy, I read too quickly, I lost my place twice, and I’m not sure the audience was following me. From now on, it’s point-form notes only.

It’s hard to keep up with the thinking…

This has been a full week, which is good, but it does cut into my lower priority writing time and that includes PBS blog updates. I have found a few minutes to rub together so here is an update.

Conference concentration

Writing for a conference audience is hard. You would think, for all the conference papers I have written over the years (the count is 6, if you include the forthcoming one), that this would get easier but It isn’t, yet.

The problem, or so it seems to me at the moment, is that you aren’t writing for a reader, you are writing for a listener and that means your structure and organization can’t follow the patterns you typically use in other writing.

Can’t we all just get along?

The ICMS (k-zoo for short) is a very interdisciplinary conference and what’s more, it welcomes a large number of non-academics and ‘independent researchers’ who attend sessions and present papers. K-zoo is filled with a heady mix of traditional historians interested in the great men and important events of the past, social historians who dabble in anthropology, specialists in archeology, classics, material studies, along with literary scholars, philosophers, engineers, and monks. Yes, monks (and nuns to).

And we are back

I survived the huge conference this week without any major trials of endurance, and returned with a mildly shameful quantity of books. One of the titles in the stack was actually free. It’s a review copy for one of my associations. Try and guess which one is the review book.