The next Books & Beyond meeting will be Tuesday, March
29 at 6:30pm in the library’s conference room.
If you’d like to attend online instead, register your email at https://www.oneallibrary.org/event/5494758. The topic of discussion will be Academy
Award-winning films. Watch one, read
about one, read or listen to the book it was adapted from…the choice is yours.
This week, BAB met to talk about ancient civilizations. Have a look!
Lost Cities, Ancient Tombs: 100 Discoveries That Changed the World edited by Ann R. Williams
Blending high adventure with history, this chronicle of 100
astonishing discoveries from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the fabulous “Lost City of
the Monkey God” tells incredible stories of how explorers and archaeologists
have uncovered the clues that illuminate our past.
Venus and Aphrodite: History of a Goddess by
Bettany Hughes (not yet available in the JCLC system, request
via Interlibrary Loan)
Venus and Aphrodite brings together ancient art,
mythology, and archaeological revelations to tell the story of human desire.
From Mesopotamia to modern-day London, from Botticelli to Beyoncé, Hughes
explains why this immortal goddess continues to entrance us today -- and how we
trivialize her power at our peril.
The
Inheritors by William Golding
From the author of Lord of the Flies, The
Inheritors is a startling novel of the lost world of the Neanderthals,
and a frightening vision of the beginnings of a new age.
Dance of the Tiger by Bjorn Kurten (not
available in the JCLC system, request
via Interlibrary Loan)
Kurten draws on recent anthropological discoveries and his
vivid imagination to create a compelling novel of life thirty-five thousand
years ago, telling the story of Tiger as he seeks revenge for a savage attack
on his tribe.
Written
in Stone: A Journey Through the Stone Age and the Origins of Modern Language
by Christopher Stevens
In snappy, lively, and often very funny chapters, Written
in Stone uncovers the most influential and important words used by our
Neolithic ancestors and shows how they are still in constant use today - the
building blocks of all our most common words and phrases.
(Great
Courses) Ancient Civilizations of North America
In 24 exciting lectures, you’ll learn about the vibrant
cities of Poverty Point, the first city in North America, built about 3,500
years ago, and Cahokia, the largest city of ancient North America. You’ll
explore the many ways in which the Chacoan environment provided cultural and
religious focus for peoples of the southwest. And you’ll learn about the
Iroquoian source of some of our most basic “American” values.
(Great
Courses) Maya to Aztec: Ancient Mesoamerica Revealed
Immerse yourself in this epic story with 48 exhilarating
half-hour lectures that cover the scope of Mesoamerican history and culture.
Although the Spanish eventually conquered all of Mesoamerica, much remains of
the original cultures. This course is the ideal way to plan an itinerary,
prepare for a tour, or simply sit back and enjoy a thrilling virtual voyage.
(Great
Courses) Lost Worlds of South America
Take an adventurous trek to these wilds of South America and
the great civilizations of the ancients. In 24 eye-opening lectures, you'll
take an in-depth look at the emerging finds and archaeological knowledge of
more than 12 seminal civilizations, giving you rich insight into the creative
vision and monumental achievements of these wellsprings of human life.
Gods
of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
In the company of the strangely alluring Mayan god of death
and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a
cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of
Mexico City—and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld.
Certain
Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Welcome to Mexico City, an oasis in a sea of vampires.
Domingo, a lonely garbage-collecting street kid, is just trying to survive when
a jaded vampire on the run swoops into his life. Atl, the descendant of Aztec
blood drinkers, is smart, beautiful, and dangerous. Domingo is mesmerized. Do
Atl and Domingo even stand a chance of making it out alive? Or will the city
devour them all?
Four
Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz
Acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on
an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life.
Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the
rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated
civilization.
Walls:
A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick by David Frye
Alternately evocative, amusing, chilling, and deeply
insightful as it gradually reveals the startling ways that barriers have
affected our psyches. The questions this book summons are both intriguing and
profound: Did walls make civilization possible? And can we live without
them?
1177
B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric Cline
A compelling combination of narrative and the latest
scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave
rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late
Bronze Age―and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece.
Babylon:
Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek
Bringing the people of this land to life in vibrant detail,
the author chronicles the rise and fall of power during this period and
explores the political and social systems, as well as the technical and
cultural innovations, which made this land extraordinary.
GENERAL DISCUSSION:
Red:
A History of the Redhead by Jacky Colliss Harvey
The brilliantly told, captivating history of red hair
throughout the ages and across multiple disciplines, including science,
religion, politics, feminism and sexuality, literature, and art.
·
In medieval historian Michael McCormick’s
opinion, the
worst year to be alive was 536.
Life
as We Knew It by Sarah Beth Pfeffer
Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a
meteor knocks the Moon closer to the Earth. How should her family prepare for
the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the
continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic
winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother struggle to hold on to the
most important resource of all, hope, in an increasingly desperate and
unfamiliar world.
The
Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb,
Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that
the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow
longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into
disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is
also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life.
Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård)
celebrate their marriage at a sumptuous party in the home of Justine's sister
Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland). Despite
Claire's best efforts, the wedding is a fiasco with family tensions mounting
and relationships fraying. Meanwhile, a planet called Melancholia is heading
directly towards Earth threatening the very existence of humankind...
Don’t Look
Up (requires Netflix subscription)
Two astronomers go on a media tour to warn humankind of a
planet-killing comet hurtling toward Earth. The response from a distracted
world: Meh.
The
Toilet: An Unspoken History
It's a problem as old as civilization itself, the unspoken
question on the pages of every history book. From the latrines of the Roman age
to the conveniences of the future, this documentary takes its viewers on a full
sanitary experience, visiting countries as diverse as China, Japan, the
Netherlands, Spain, India and Britain, meeting all manner of people who work...
with toilets.
Grad students studying disease ecology, Erin and Erin found
themselves disenchanted with the insular world of academia. They wanted a way
to share their love of epidemics and weird medical mysteries with the world,
not just colleagues. Plus, who doesn't love an excuse to have a cocktail while
chatting about pus and poop? We
discussed the rabies episode in particular.
Rabid:
A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik
In this fascinating exploration, journalist Bill Wasik and
veterinarian Monica Murphy chart four thousand years in the history, science,
and cultural mythology of rabies.
The documentary
I was trying to remember is Chasing the Equinox and it is a National Geographic
documentary on Disney+. Description: “The
ancients hid the secrets of their incredible knowledge of astronomy in their
temples and palaces, built to align with the sun, on the same day, all over the
world. Revealing our species' obsession with the sun, across thousands of years
and every continent, this is architectural magic on a cosmic scale.”
The Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of thirteen ancient
books (called "codices") containing over fifty texts, was discovered
in upper Egypt in 1945. This immensely important discovery includes many
primary "Gnostic Gospels" – texts once thought to have been entirely
destroyed during the early Christian struggle to define "orthodoxy" –
scriptures such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel
of Truth.
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