My latest preciousssssss research text, The Letters of Psellos: Cultural Networks and Historical Realities, has arrived! The editors and contributors seem to be passionately confused, emphatically giddy, and desperately impatient for the world to more deeply understand the personal correspondence of Michael Psellos. God bless the geeks for Greek. I think it's going to be worth the $140 that everyone thinks I was crazy to pay for a textbook when I am not in school for credit. But I have an 11th century thriller to write, and that's more fun than a degree, so there.
Although editor Marc Lauxtermann has worked hard to create this resource for English readers, he implores us in his preface to, "for heaven's sake, learn Greek."
But I will not. At least, not yet. First of all, that would take a long time, and my novel is already taking long enough. Second, it is my God-given right as an American to remain ignorant of non-English languages. If I learned any Greek at all, I could no longer use high quality recordings of Yanis Varoufakis giving economic lectures in Greek as my ASMR stimulus, and I'm still enjoying that way too much.
So. What are YOU reading this summer?
Well, Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia's in my purse. A bunch of YA books are on my nightstand, and I've got my phone loaded up with romance novels about black princesses, Bollywood playboys, and regency dames with vinegar blood.
ReplyDeleteThat is one hot and spicy reading list! In so many ways.
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