Books 2010: cities of ghosts
Jul. 15th, 2010 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbBooks 2010: 64-67
64. Jim Hines, Red Hood's Revenge.
Fun. Very good fun.
65. Aaron Allston, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast.
Fun. There is something to be said for fun with no redeeming value whatsoever and a pretty decent supply of one-liners.
66. Christie Golden, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen.
See above.
non-fiction
67. Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430-1950, Vintage, London and New York, 2006.
The history of the nationalists is all about false continuities and convenient silences, the fictions necessary to tell the story of the rendevous of a chosen people with the land marked out for them by destiny. [p439]
This isn't that kind of history. This is a marvellously well-researched history of Ottoman and then Greek Salonica (Thessaloniki), from the denuded streets of the conquered medieval city to the bustle of its early modern heyday and the frankly cataclysmic discontinuities of the early 20th century.
Greek Salonica is a modern creation, born of the great fire of 1917, the forced exchange of populations with Turkey in 1922-24, and the extermination of the city's Jewish population in 1943. Today the largest university in Greece lies over the unmarked site of the 53-hectare Jewish cemetary, and where dozens of white minarets existed only one remains.
It's a fascinating book and, I think, a very valuable one.
Due to critical lack of give-a-damn, I appear to be mostly on hiatus from the internet and possibly from other people in the actual physical sense as well. Feeling like a babbling idiot is not conducive to good social relations.
64. Jim Hines, Red Hood's Revenge.
Fun. Very good fun.
65. Aaron Allston, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast.
Fun. There is something to be said for fun with no redeeming value whatsoever and a pretty decent supply of one-liners.
66. Christie Golden, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen.
See above.
non-fiction
67. Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430-1950, Vintage, London and New York, 2006.
The history of the nationalists is all about false continuities and convenient silences, the fictions necessary to tell the story of the rendevous of a chosen people with the land marked out for them by destiny. [p439]
This isn't that kind of history. This is a marvellously well-researched history of Ottoman and then Greek Salonica (Thessaloniki), from the denuded streets of the conquered medieval city to the bustle of its early modern heyday and the frankly cataclysmic discontinuities of the early 20th century.
Greek Salonica is a modern creation, born of the great fire of 1917, the forced exchange of populations with Turkey in 1922-24, and the extermination of the city's Jewish population in 1943. Today the largest university in Greece lies over the unmarked site of the 53-hectare Jewish cemetary, and where dozens of white minarets existed only one remains.
It's a fascinating book and, I think, a very valuable one.
Due to critical lack of give-a-damn, I appear to be mostly on hiatus from the internet and possibly from other people in the actual physical sense as well. Feeling like a babbling idiot is not conducive to good social relations.
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-19 08:47 am (UTC)Oh, you too?
***
You were saying something ages and ages ago about wanting more scifi/fantasy that is about more internal/local politics rather than grand sweeping world changing politics, yes? Dunno if this would count (or if you've read it already, as I seem to be very late to the party) but the Queen's Thief series seems to fit the bill. (so far) And it's a breezy read. (so far)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-19 07:02 pm (UTC)Does the Queen's Thief series have an author? If I can find it, I'll check it out.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-19 08:55 pm (UTC)For me, it's more a matter of: it's taking enough effort to keep from dumping it on people at work (and that isn't going so well at that.)
"Does the Queen's Thief series have an author?"
Megan Whalen Turner
And a warning: like a good portion of what I read, it is middle grade/young adult fiction.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-19 08:59 pm (UTC)Whalen Turner. I have heard of this person. I will make a note.