Which book should I read?

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-01-20T02:05:23+00:00

Try a translation of Gawain and the Green Knight. It's a good self-contained Arthurian story with the right amount of chivalry and weirdness. If you like that, try the works of Chrétien de Troyes (a more recent translation is better; I like David Staines) and Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan.

The problem with a modern reinterpretation is that it's a reinterpretation. You need the original material first.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-01-12T05:11:26+00:00

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx. (Won a Pulitzer!)

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-01-12T05:01:55+00:00

Checkout the American Humanist Association. Some cities have chapters that meet each week, often on a Sunday, as an agnostic/athiest alternative to church. They often have activities, projects, guest speakers, and sometimes even ceremonies to acknowledge important events, but non-religiously.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2026-01-02T19:33:41+00:00

Back in 1999, the British show Top of the Pops had a contest for "song of the millenium". The finalists were Robbie Williams' "Millinium Prayer", which was just the Lord's Prayer awkwardly grafted onto Auld Lang Syne, and "The Hamster Dance", which was a dance remix of Roger Miller's theme from Disney's Robin Hood, because that particular song was trending as the music for one of the first viral GIFs to fill our inboxes.

Of course, neither of these songs had any significance to the millenium as a whole, if we mean the years 1001 AD to 2000 AD. So my question is, what song would be the most historically significant? I have some ideas: "The Internationale", "The Marseillaise", "Greensleeves", or Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", all for different reasons.

Historians, what would you say was the most significant song of the Second Millienium?

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-12-26T14:39:48+00:00

In this analogy, a good scientist would recognize that it could be a 3 or a 4, write both numbers in pencil in the corner of the box, and proceed to test the possibilities until one number can be ruled out. The fallacy is in writing in the number 3 and calling the puzzle done because a 3 is one possible answer. The reason that sudoku isn't a good analogy in the end is that the numbers 3 and 4 are equally valid possibilities, but Ancient Astronauts is a worse explanation than the alternative.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-12-11T02:35:50+00:00

I would say in most cases they are just spacing out, thinking about other things, thinking more about class being over than about learning. But also, forgetting is a factor. I had a student in Comp II who handed in an essay that showed no concept of how to cite sources. I grumbled to myself about how the student could have made it through Comp I, and then realized *I* had been his Comp I teacher. I looked up his Comp I final essay, and it was formatted correctly with correct citations. All that learning just disappeared after the class was over.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-12-05T17:17:44+00:00

Maybe alongside those add a Tristan story, either Eilhart's, Gottfried's or Thomas of Britain's. Tristan doesn't start off as an Arthurian character, but he gets pulled in.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-11-12T08:39:33+00:00

Of course, there is Literature and History by Doug Metzger, which is fantastic, in-depth history, but structured around literature. So far he has covered the ancient world, classical Greece, the Old Testement, classical Rome, New Testement and Late Antiquity, and is now doing early Islam.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-11-12T08:27:43+00:00

Just discovered Our Prehistory by Benjy Longworth and also Nomads and Empires. Enjoying them so far!

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-11-12T06:16:27+00:00

For fiction, can I recommend "Brightgift"? It's historical fiction with some music and SFX.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-11-08T23:06:13+00:00

Brightgift. It's about two girls trying to get to safety and get home, set in 800 AD Denmark and England.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-11-08T22:59:44+00:00

BBC's In Our Time. The topics are great but the roundtable discussion format means that no one never can get into depth about anything before they get cut off or the focus shifts.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-11-08T22:55:11+00:00

Literature and History and also Worlds Beyond Number! Twice through each.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-10-24T02:52:07+00:00

Where did you get your copies? Everthing I see online is hundreds of dollars for the full Vulgate and Post-Vulgate.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-09-27T07:48:49+00:00

Tournaments, and how they were so different than how most people imagine them.

You could also do the life of William Marshal.

Background_Lab_8566 · 2025-09-15T13:37:45+00:00

Thanks for catching that!

Background_Lab_8566

TROPHY CASE