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Member: mcalister

CollectionsYour library (646), History - Medieval (138), History - General (123), Fiction (285), Biography and Memoir (32), Beyond the West (85), Not the Bard's English (48), Currently reading (1), To read (8), Currently borrowed (4), Currently lent (4), Read but unowned (19), Wishlist (8), All collections (675)

Reviews9 reviews

Tagsnon-fiction (279), fiction (272), history (215), medieval (114), fantasy (107), England (86), Europe (75), reading globally (60), 20C (53), Asia (48) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

Groups888 Challenge, Asian Fiction & Non-Fiction, Combiners!, Graduate Students, Group Reads - Literature, History at 30,000 feet: The Big Picture, History: On learning from and writing history, Medieval Europe, Reading Globally, Taggers!

Favorite authorsJane Austen, Marc Bloch, George Eliot, Robin Hobb, Ha Jin, Frederic William Maitland, Liza Picard, Henri Pirenne, Eileen Power, Terry Pratchett, R. W. Southern, J. R. R. Tolkien, Edith Wharton (Shared favorites)

Favorite bookstoresBarnes & Noble Booksellers - Briargate, Hooked on Books, Powell's City of Books, Tattered Cover Book Store - Colfax Avenue

Favorite librariesUCCS library

About meGrad student in medieval history

About my libraryThe photograph is of my grandmother (no, I'm not that old), who was probably primarily responsible for getting me reading.

I seem to buy far more books than I can read in any given year. Luckily, I don't seem to be alone in that here. On the other hand, it does expand the choices when I'm suddenly in the mood for {X}.

LibraryThing is at least partly responsible for my decision to go back to school in history, since it was when I started cataloging my books that I realized how much history I read. Thanks, Tim.

I have yet to enter books from certain categories (computer science, gardening, genealogy, etc) because they really mucked up recommendations prior to collections. Now that collections are finally here, I should rectify that.

My rating of books is very haphazard -- that is, I rarely do it. I find it easy to say 'good' or 'bad', but I find it a lot harder to know where the line is, say, between 4 stars and 5 stars. In essence, 3 stars is firmly in the middle; no stars means purely that I haven't bothered to rate it.

***** : Excellent ; a classic in the field
**** : Very good, recommended
*** : Average/Good
** : Below average; not recommended
* : Awful, dreadful, don't waste your money

Also ondelicious, WikiThing (LT)

Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway

Real nameDana

Location Colorado, USA

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/mcalister (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mcalister (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (110), Awards (231), Characters (2716), Places (583)

Member sinceApr 10, 2006

Currently readingMarriage disputes in medieval England by Frederik Pedersen

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That's sort of the problem - you can't write about feudalism in a single book because of how different it was in different places and times. Or if someone did sum it up in one book it would have to be something on the scale of Wickham or McCormick - thousand-page books that break things down. Reynolds does a nice job of debunking the "ism" (or system) out of the term but to figure out how it worked in a given region and time you have to read something about the social structures specific to that society.

The Poland book is on my wishlist. I have a couple of Eastern Europe books on my "to be read" shelf - Curta's Making of the Slavs is about 3rd on the list - and may pick that up if I get fired up while I'm reading those. That's the nice thing about doing this as a hobby. I can float from topic to topic as it suits me, though I do have to write an article on Western Europe in Late Antiquity for a Journal next spring so I suppose I'll have to keep up on that.
Kalamazoo is certainly an experience. For some reason this year I had a lot of trouble sleeping - probably didn't help that my room was right over the entrance to the dorm. And I think I lost a year of my life during a Cistercian session - I forgot to turn off my cell phone. I realized this in the middle of the session but if you turn it off it sounds a little jingle, and beeps at you if you put it on silence. This was a VERY serious, somber session with a bunch of folks in monastic garb, several priests, etc. I spent the last hour waiting for it to go off. I least I didn't have AC/DC's Highway to Hell as my ringtone.

I feel like I'm turning into a McKitterick groupie. I have 5 or 6 of her books now. This one's over 25 years old so I'm not sure how much I'll get out of it. OTOH, it was only $25. Hard to resist the price and she writes very well.
So Dana, hadn't heard from you - how'd you like Kalamazoo?

Curt
Always nice to find others interested in medieval history. I found your profile through the Medieval Europe group. Any particular book you would recommend? What's your favorite non-fiction book on medieval history? I'm always looking for new books to add to my library. Thanks.

Steven
http://steventill.com
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