I didn't do it! He started it!
Many months ago,
@Knucklehead sent me the two books,
1491 and
1493. Although I've been struggling to complete writing a book of fantasy fiction, and can't allow myself to read other fiction until it's done, reading history is okay--by my personal rules.
The way history has usually been written for elementary school, high school and even college, we are exposed to an endless sequence of isolated events: reigns, revolutions, wars, famines. Seldom is the recounting of these events ever connected to the rest of the world. What was happening in China when Columbus landed in the Caribbean? How large were the native populations of the Americas, the day that Columbus landed?
I read those two books. Instead of a collection of events, I enjoyed a panoramic view--a slice through time, like a CT scan of that point in history. More! I want more!
Put
@Knucklehead's deed alongside
@ChinaVoodoo's revelation of the existence of ThriftBooks.com, and I was hooked.
[When I lived in Berkeley, California, back in the 1970s, one of my favorite passtimes was to browse through the numerous, enormous, used bookstores that stretched down Telegraph Avenue. I preferred that to sports or cinema. I would spend several hours browsing on a Friday evening. I have a photo of my son, as a 3 month old, asleep in a baby carrier strapped to my chest, with the endless shelves of Moe's Bookstore spread as a backdrop.]
After reading
1491 and
1493, I began to discover other history
YEAR books listed on ThriftBooks.com. The stack in the above photo is the result. Two down; the rest to go.
Bob