An update to my book list "On the end table" was long overdue. The list hasn’t really reflected what I’ve been reading for quite sometime. In reality I haven’t been doing much reading these days, but I’ve recently changed that. Perhaps its the slide into winter, or my fear that my brain is starting to atrophy.
The book list now shows really what I’m currently reading. Mostly it is MacDonald’s book on Passchendaele. Mostly a collection of personal remembrances by British soldiers it is well laid out. It goes with my current revival of interest in the Great War as I prepare to travel to Vimy this spring (I hope). Passchendaele was, of course, one of the great slaughters of the Great War, fought in a sea of mud. A massive bombardment destroyed the drainage system and when the winter rains came it turned the place into one massive, stinking, festering mudhole. Many of the soldiers who died there drowned in shell holes, their bodies lost forever.
My grandfather fought at Passchendaele, the Canadians once again distinguishing themselves and their finally making the objectives probably saved Field Marshal Haig’s career. It came at a cost of 16,000 casualites (killed, missing and wounded) in the space of only about a months time. One of the stories I remember from my Grandfather was how he had been knocked into a mud filled shellhole at Passchendaele and disappeared. When he made his way out his battalion was gone, and when he rejoined them he found that he had been listed as missing.
I’ve only been at Souter’s book on Audubon in dribs and drabs and probably won’t make a real effort until after I get through the Passchendaele book.
I find Stap’s discourse on Bird Song fascinating but something always seems to get in the way of me just sitting down and reading it. One thing I’m taking away from it is just how little we actually know about bird song.
And there is always a poetry book kicking around. I was flipping through one of ee cumming’s and the collected poems of Dylan Thomas the other day when I was (supposed to be) putting books on the shelves. But most often these days I just pick up Good Poems and read one or two.
Mmmm. Books.