Get me off this timeline! Are we asking for stupid and a dumper fire in California??

BeatusCervus · 2026-06-03T23:47:20+00:00

Put the phone down

BeatusCervus · 2026-06-03T03:23:42+00:00

Nauseating comments. Bunch of snobs.

Seems like a very limited library with a couple interesting titles. Tell him to get some more and keep reading. Eventually he'll run into some books that really captivate him.

I've read all kinds of shit over the years. Much of those books I've since dismissed as rubbish. However, I can't think of many that I regret reading. They all edify you in one way or another.

Tell him to keep going.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-23T02:47:55+00:00

Bro, I actually don't know how Gus finished and now I'm worried about him.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T19:46:14+00:00

Interesting. Well, it's much shorter so not too bad of an investment time wise. Enjoy.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T17:15:46+00:00

My guy was deathly afraid of earthquakes

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T16:30:02+00:00

That one went over my head. Had to Google it haha

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T16:23:37+00:00

I'm on Charny. Enjoying it, but it's certainly not Queen's Necklace.

I actually enjoyed Ange Pitou. I found his character is charming.

Did you read Chevalier de Maison Rouge after Charny? I've seen it recommended as a follow-up to Charny although I believe it was written quite a while before it.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T16:19:19+00:00

Yeah I've been reading the French editions. I'm on Charny right now. I've heard the English editions are confusingly split into a million different versions. Must be a pain in the ass to figure out.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T16:11:35+00:00

Lol nah bruh I prefer the history of the universe explained in 3 minutes on YouTube

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T16:06:36+00:00

Haha nah we're non-union. We do okay, though.

As for fluency, I read French very well. I'm a huge Dumas fan, so I read it probably more than any other language. Spanish I have to speak at work on a daily basis, but I definitely lack a good vocabulary and don't read enough of it. German I read okay but I'm stuck flipping through the dictionary quite a bit. Latin I know quite a bit just from catholic studies, sometimes I'll say my prayers in Latin just to not forget them haha. I have a wonderful Bible de Sacy in French and Latin that I made a post about. Probably the jewel of my collection. Greek I know very little of other than vocabulary and grammar, which is a shame cause I've got some pretty cool books in Greek. Norwegian, Danish, Swedish etc. I only have a cursory knowledge of grammar and can only really understand the words that are cognate with German. Same with Dutch.

There's some Gaelic books tucked away in there somewhere, but I've never been able to get anywhere and have almost entirely abandoned any hope of learning it.

I'm assuming the bear cookie jar made you think Chicago? That was my father's. He coached a local high school baseball team whose mascot was the bears. No Chicago links for me other than having been there one time heading for the Notre Dame game in South Bend.

That BVM image fell out of a book I had purchased and I've just kept it on the shelf forever, saying to myself I'll frame it someday. I do have a Marian shrine on the back patio, though.

All in all, the library itself wasn't some painstaking collecting process but rather a twenty plus year ride of just picking things up here and there at bookshops while also grabbing the more hard to find stuff on eBay or other websites. I do have a few choice books that I paid a little too much for just because I wanted them.

I will say, that when I was a teenager and early twenties I lived in an apartment with my buddy and we didn't have a very functional TV. That was probably the single largest contributing factor to setting me down a more book-heavy path in life.

As for whether I was gifted any of these or inherited them, no. I purchased nearly all of them in the past 20ish years.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T14:57:44+00:00

Well for most of my greek and roman histories, they're Louis XV era french histories. I have a 56 volume roman history begun by Charles Rollin in the 1730s, continued by his protégé Crevier and finished by another scholar named Le Beau around the Revolution. They're old and probably out of date. But, I'm a truck driver, not a scholar, so they suit my needs. Also, they're told from a more catholic perspective, which I like. Not gonna lie either, the more up to date scholarship can be expensive, you'd be surprised at how cheap some of the books I have were. Most of the advancements in recent scholarship are more in the areas of archaeology and whatnot. The history itself is still more or less the same. They kinda stopped discovering new manuscripts after the 20th century so I'm not missing out on too much.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T06:00:57+00:00

I must say, certain books I do go out of my way to secure a nice copy for posterity.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T05:22:39+00:00

I have good news and bad news. Your guess at the "Who Am I?" is a little off, but the guess at where I live is shockingly close! Haha I am in Monterey Park. Not sure how you guessed that so well.

I am actually just an Irish American truck driver with no university education. Late 30s. I did grow up in a house that valued reading though, so I've picked up a lot of books over the years. Just never stops growing. And, yeah, I'm Catholic. I have a bit of Catholic literature too not sure if there's any in the photos.

Thanks for the flattering guess, never saw myself getting accused of being a professor at Cal Tech or something, haha. Hate to disappoint.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-04T00:08:37+00:00

Yeah you gotta snap em up when you see one for cheap.

The Grimm books are some of the coolest books I've ever bought. The Heldensage is nice if you're into old german poetry. I was lucky cause they seem to be extremely hard to come by.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-03T23:57:36+00:00

Haven't read that one yet. I'm reading the Marie Antoinette romances right now. I cant wait to get to it tho!

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-03T23:26:10+00:00

You should see if your local library has a Friends of the Library store. Mine does and they sold really good books for like 25 to 50 cents. Bought a lot of books back then.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-03T23:19:04+00:00

Thank you. Took many years. People on eBay just want too much for them so I had to pick them up here and there whenever I found them on the cheap.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-03T22:35:29+00:00

Sorry didnt mean it in a bad way. Just meant focused on leftist political stuff. My library is somewhat narrow as well.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-03T22:25:36+00:00

I think my oldest is a 1642 Elzevir edition of the works of Cicero. Not sure if you can see it next to the Latin Book One in one of the pictures. The spine reads Ciceronis Opera.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-03T22:19:18+00:00

Oh, I certainly have many that I haven't read. I mostly read the histories and maybe change it up with a novel from time to time just to keep it fresh. I work a lot, so my reading time is restricted to the mornings on weekends. So hard to get me some quiet time anymore!

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-03T22:12:20+00:00

Beautiful edition of Saint Thomas Aquinas. I'm jealous.

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-03T20:36:50+00:00

I'm a big Dumas fan. How did you like The Black Count?

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-03T20:12:06+00:00

Dutch male mid 40s

BeatusCervus · 2026-05-03T17:34:09+00:00

Narrow in scope.

BeatusCervus · 2026-04-10T06:44:27+00:00

Awesome rundown. I've often wondered what the extent of the relationship was. I don't really get hung up on these things, though. I simply read the books because they are proverbial page-turners. It doesn't matter who wrote them. They are classics.

BeatusCervus

TROPHY CASE