March-Hare's sophomore jinx in 2014

Total pages read: 18,791




Total books (completed): 34

Total books (explored): 25

Total books (re-read): 0

I'm going to do a bibliographical domino challenge. What is a bibliographical domino challenge? I'm not entirely sure because I just made it up, but what I envision is starting with two randomly selected categories (well, not entirely random---more on that later) then switching to a new category based on the prevalence of that new category in the bibliographies of the books in the current category. In other words, there will be two separate chains (like dominos) of categories stemming from the first two categories. Of course, what counts as prevalent and new will be completely determined by my quirky and dictatorial pronouncements on the matter. The number of books in each category will also be subject to whim. I may also add a couple of wildcard categories if it starts to feel stifling. Clearly, I will once again be reading a lot of non-fiction so I will add one extra category to hold any fiction I read during the year.

Another aspect of this challenge is that I'll be forcing, no, that sounds wrong, motivating myself to write something about the books that I'm reading. I like to mull things over and I see this as part of that process. If I can't explain something I feel that I really don't understand it. I don't have a facility for writing capsule reviews, so I'm not sure what form this will take. I've seen some people do chapter summaries and I thought that was interesting but I know I won't do this for every book. I also have an irrational fear of the whole "thread continuation thing" so I'm a little worried about posting too much. We'll just have to see how it works out.

Now, as far as the challenge part, 2013 is pretty much a flop because I really don't read books through completely. (Other matters intervened as well, but I won't go into that.) Proposing to read X number of books to completion is just not going to work for me. I read parts, move onto something else, and so on. What I'm going to do is keep track of pages again. To make it challenging I'm going to set a goal of 25,000 pages. That's just shy of 500 pages a week, depending on when I start. It seems reasonable.

The starting categories:

1. Early Modern European State Formation
2. Intellectual History
3. German Idealism
4. Early Modern European History
5. Early Modern European Military History
13. Wildcard
14. Work Stuff
15. Fiction

added 12/7/13

6. World System Theory

added 12/14/13

12. RandomCAT

added 12/30/13

7. Literary Theory

added 1/20/14

8. Late Antiquity

added 4/12/14

9. A Hegelianism of Sorts

added 5/12/14

10. Foucault

added 7/7/14

11. Sociology

The numbers of the book under the category headings are the order in which books were started.

Books marked with an * are partial reads.

Books marked with an ** are skims. Pages for skims are not counted.

1. Early Modern European State Formation
27. The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe 10/27/2014*

reading

on deck

2. Intellectual History



18. The Idea of the Self 08/03/2014
36. Cosmopolis 09/11/2014
50. The Sources of the Self 10/06/2014
54. The Fragility of Goodness 12/14/2014*
55. The Therapy of Desire 12/14/2014*

reading

on deck

3. German Idealism

26. Between Kant and Hegel 09/19/2014
48. German Idealism The Struggle Against Subjectivism 10/20/2014
28. The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism 10/27/20148*
29. Friedrich Schlegel and the Emergence of Romantic Philosophy 10/27/2014*
49. The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy 10/27/2014*

reading

on deck

4. Early Modern European History



1. The European Dynastic States 1494-1660 12/02/13
6. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II Vol I 12/22/2013
7. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II Vol II 01/04/2013
14. The Grand Strategy of Philip II 04/21/2014*

reading

on deck

5. Early Modern European Military History



4. The French Religious Wars 1562-1598 12/04/13
5. The Thirty Years War 1618-1648 12/07/13
38. The Military Revolution Debate 07/01/2014
37. The Military Revolution 07/04/2014

reading

on deck

6. World System Theory



reading

on deck

7. Literary Theory



10. Lectures on Literature 03/10/2014*
20. Lectures on Russian Literature 04/06/2014
15. Mimesis 04/21/2014*
32. Nikolai Gogol 5/10/2014
51. The Gates of Horn 10/27/2014*
58. The Perpetual Orgy 11/23/2014
56. Reading Writing 12/14/2014*

reading

on deck

8. Late Antiquity



11. The Rise of Western Christendom 04/21/2014*
12. Framing the Middle Ages 04/21/2014*
13. The Corrupting Sea 04/21/204*
23. Rethinking the Mediterranean 04/21/2014*

reading

on deck

9. A Hegelianism of Sorts

30. The Struggle for Recognition 05/19/2014
31. The I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition 05/26/2014
25. The Logic of Desire 06/06/2014*
47. Hegel's Development: Toward the Sunlight 09/07/201

reading

on deck

10. Foucault



35. Michel Foucault 05/24/2014
33. The Lives of Michel Foucault 05/24/2014
52. On the Government of the Living: Lectures at the College de France 1979-1980 10/27/2014
53. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College de France 1981-1982 10/14/2014
57. The Final Foucault 12/14/2014*

reading

on deck

11. Sociology
40. An Anatomy of Power: The Social Theory of Michael Mann 07/07/2014
42. The Sources of Social Power Volume I 10/27/2014*
46. The Sources of Social Power Volume II 10/27/2014*

reading

on deck

12. RandomCAT



9. Through the Eye of the Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD 01/20/2014
16. The Little Prince 02/04/2014
22. Hymns to the Night 04/04/2014
45. Madame Bovary 09/10/2014
59. The Star of Redemption 12/14/2014*

reading

on deck

13. Wildcard



17. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious 04/21/2014*
41. How to Live or A Life of Montaigne 07/20/2014

reading

on deck

14. Work Stuff



2. Excel PivotTables and PivotCharts**
3. VBA and Macros Microsoft Excel 2013**
19. The Balanced Scorecard 04/21/2014*

reading

on deck

15. Fiction

24. Lolita 04/20/2014
8. Bleak House 04/21/2014*
34. Foucault's Pendulum 06/06/2014
21. The Brothers Karamazov 07/10/2014
39. The Dinner 07/16/2014
43. Simplicissimus 7/27/2014
44. Chateau d'Argol 08/04/2014

reading

on deck

What an interesting concept. It will be interesting to see where your first two books take you.

Looking forward to seeing how your challenge unfolds.

That is a very interesting idea - looking forward to seeing how it works out.

Very interesting concept! I love to play Mexican Train dominoes. :)

Sounds like a really neat idea! Good luck with the challenge :)

looks like an interesting idea

Thanks to everyone for stopping by and lending encouragement. I think I'm going to do a test run in my current challenge.

I agree with everyone, such an interesting idea to play with. Hope you have fun doing it, will be certainly interesting to watch!

Setting a goal of a number of pages per week - that should include reading LT posts if I would have anything to say about it!

> Hear, Hear !

Yeah, I need some kinda algorithm to convert LT time to pages.

# 27 don't we all?

Bibliographic domino challenge... what an interesting way to connect your category reading!

Starting categories are up. Now I just need to decide if I'm going to do an early start to get a leg up on those 25,000 pages.

I'm starting early again. First up is some background reading: 1. The European Dynastic States 1494-1660, 4. The French Religious Wars 1562-98, and 5.The Thirty Years War 1618-1648.

Those first books look very interesting, I'll be back to know what you think of them!

Agree with MissWatson -- looks like fascinating reading! If you're looking for additional reads on this general subject, I recommend The Armada by Garrett Mattingly, which is a very readable account of the Spanish Armada that also examines the political and religious cultures of England, Spain, and France at the time.

>32 MissWatson: Ok, my plan is to use edits to put my thoughts about a book in the post where it's first introduced. If I can figure out how to do it I'll put a link in the category list too.

>33 christina_reads: Oh boy, it's not even 2014 and I already have to add to my to read list. Thanks for the pointer, I'll check it out.

Started a couple of items in the work stuff category. 2. Excel PivotTables and PivotCharts and 3. VBA and Macros Microsoft Excel 2013. Some of the work stuff I will skim. I won't count the pages on these because it's too much of a pain.

Starting The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II Vol I. It appeared in the bibliography for The European Dynastic States 1494-1660. Wallerstein's books on World Systems Theory also appeared. Since these four volumes were already on my TBR I'm adding them as their own category. This should keep me busy for a couple of months.

The Braudel is on my TBR shelf, too. I'm looking forward to your comments...

So far, I'm completely engrossed. I would call this a must read if you like social history. Check out layabout's review on the book's main page if you want more flavor. I think it does a great job of capturing the feeling of the book.

Thank you for that tip, that gives a good idea of what to expect. Now I'm even more curious. But I've told myself I must finish my current non-fiction reading first.

Well it might be awhile if you are intending to read Proust. You might want to check out the group reads thread. I remember someone posting over there about a possible year long read of Proust.

Thanks, I'll see how that goes. I'm finding Proust something that needs to be taken in very small doses. Those convoluted sentences require several readings before I can figure out what relates to whom. Anyway, he's fiction. My non-fiction The great disorder runs to 900 pages and I'm not getting ahead as quickly as I wish.

Oops. Misread your post. Sounds like you have some great reading ahead of you.

Thanks for the encouragement. It's going to be a challenge, but so far it's interesting enough that I won't toss it aside.

I'm adding my January picks to the currently reading pile: 8. Bleak House which is a group read and 9.Through the Eye of the Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD which is for the RandomCAT. There is a danger here, I could be drawn away from my reading plan and into the maelstrom of late roman history. I was planning on starting Mimesis but I've swapped that out for 10. Lectures on Literature because there are lectures on Bleak House and Madame Bovary (another group read later in the year). I opened up an new category "Literary Theory" to house these. Still planning on getting to Wallerstein after the detour. Of course, there are some other books congregating at the near edge of the read next pool. More on that later.

Finished Through the Eye of the Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD for the RandomCAT. Thoroughly enjoyed this one. I may even post something if I can collect my thoughts. It's leading me to 11. The Rise of Western Christendom and 12. Framing the Middle Ages. Both of these are in the bibliography. I'm still not ready to leave the Mediterranean after Braudel so I'm also starting 13. The Corrupting Sea and 14. The Grand Strategy of Philip II. No bibliography here, just the Med connection. Bleak House is turning from a monthly read into a quarterly one. I'm also adding 15. Mimesis which I will read throughout the year. In keeping with the late antiquity theme I'll be looking at the essays on Ammianus Marcellinus and Gregory of Tours. Wallerstein is still there in the background so this collection could very well be my reading for the first half of the year.

Adding 16. The Little Prince for the February RandomCAT.

I've read books that lead me to want to read 5 or so books off the bibliography before. What an interesting concept for a challenge. & you have some interesting categories, but I can see why you don't necessarily finish them. They tend to be more intellectual books, and you're obviously a person who sees an "oooh shiny" idea and has to follow it. Have fun! Whether you finish the books or not.

oooh shiny

Yep. On the other hand, for me, the ideal is a sort of dwelling with the text. What to do?

Adding 17. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious based on a recommendation.

Finished The Little Prince for the February RandomCAT. Beautiful, a fairy tale for INFJs.

>49 March-Hare: Love The Little Prince too but what's INFJs ?

@ 50 -- electrice, INFJ is one personality type, as assessed by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

>51 christina_reads: Ah OK, thanks ! Worth to read a little bit more about it ...

Still adding to the currently reading pile and not finishing what I started....18. The Idea of the Self.

I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to be casting about rather than settling into a more focused reading pattern...adding 19. The Balanced Scorecard, 20. Lectures on Russian Literature, and 21. The Brothers Karamazov. I'm not planning to start the last mentioned until next month though.

Adding 22. Hymns to the Night for the April RandomCat.

You always have something to go forward to! My mother loved The Little Prince. I should read it again. I just remember the drawing of the snake that ate the elephant. Can you tell I just learned how to do that spoiler trick so I'm using it everywhere now?

Heh-heh.

"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again...Whenever I encountered a grown-up who seemed to me at all enlightened, I would experiment on him with my drawing Number One, which I have always kept. But he would always answer "That's a hat"."

Never give up on your drawing number one.

Adding 23. Rethinking the Mediterranean to my Late Antiquity category. Much of my current reading is touching the Pirenne-Braudel "thing" making this an obvious choice.

Couldn't be helped. Adding 24. Lolita and based on a recommendation 25. The Logic of Desire. The latter comes with a new category "A Hegelianism of Sorts".

The hope of any sort of coherent reading plan is fading fast.

>59 March-Hare: Oh, I would love to be able to afford that sort of shipment!

I just moved into a house last fall. I will be filling it with books. Hopefully the floor joists hold up.

Sounds like a very good plan!

Well I'm doing a little spring cleaning and sweeping the current reading pile clean. I'm getting back to my Early Modern Europe and German Idealism
categories by adding 26. Between Kant and Hegel and 27. The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe.

I'm getting into some serious reading now. Adding 28. The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism and 29. Friedrich Schlegel and the Emergence of Romantic Philosophy. A bit up thread I mentioned that I'm an INFJ. I'm also an enneagream four, so this stuff is intoxicating.

Adding 30. The Struggle for Recognition and 31. The I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition. Read parts of these last year. Decided to take another look.

More inveterate adding. A couple of recent purchases 32. Nikolai Gogol (which I already completed) and 33. The Lives of Michel Foucault which gets its own category.

Adding 34. Foucault's Pendulum for Eco month.

Also reading 35. Michel Foucault.

I'm going to kick off the second half of the year by getting back to my core category of Early Modern European History. To get warmed up, I'm re-reading 1.The European Dynastic States 1494-1660. Then, in addition to what I'm currently reading, I'm adding 36. Cosmopolis. 37. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West 1500-1800, 38. The Military Revolution Debate, and one additional work of fiction 39. The Dinner.

I'm also reading 40. An Anatomy of Power: the Social Theory of Michael Mann.

Adding 41, How to Live or A Life of Montaigne, 42. The Sources of Social Power Volume I and 43. Simplicissimus.

I came across this on another thread and had to take a look: 44. Chateau d'Argol.

Starting 45. Madame Bovary for the September RandomCat. Also moving on to 46. The Sources of Social Power Volume II.

So as I move into the last part of the year, I will transition from reading "books" to reading themes. Seems appropriate, or at least not out of place, in a category challenge. I start with the following:

“Platonism is one of the main lines of European thinking. We can define it superficially-although not entirely misleadingly-by contrasting it to Aristotelianism. Accordingly, we could say that that Platonic positions do not accept Aristotle’s ultimate orientation towards the concept of being as the most basic notion in theory and in the understanding of human life. By contrast, Platonism, identifies unity as the central concept from which all reasoning begins. One could say that Platonism is “henology” (to hen = The One) as opposed to “ontology”. ... For Aristotle, the concept of oneness is only an aspect of the particular. Every particular is “one”, insofar as it is indivisible and individual. “Oneness” in this view, basically depends on the meaning of “Being”. In Platonism, the reverse is true: the concept of The One is self-sufficient, so to speak, preceding the domain of particulars. Accordingly, The One accounts for the existence of particulars in a manifold that is somehow unified, structured, and determinate.”

Dieter Henrich Between Kant and Hegel

I'm going to take a peek at 47. Hegel's Development: Towards the Sunlight 1770-1801.

It's turning out to be more than a peek. Although it doesn't have direct bearing on my theme (being a survey of Hegel's early writings) I can't seem to put it down. I may use the rest of the long weekend to read this one through.

Adding 48. German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism and 49. The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy.

Adding 50. The Sources of the Self.

Taking a look at the section on Flaubert in 51. The Gates of Horn : A Study of Five French Realists.

Well, it's that time of the year when I start thinking about the new challenge. Since I plan to slow the tempo down a bit next year, I'm going to use the remainder of this year as a segue and focus on the following:

>79 March-Hare:
Oh, those are some nice little bites to polish off the year with. :)

A few other things I will be taking a look at before the end of the year:

Couldn't resist a couple more worth a peek:

Working on my last two reads for the year 60. The Romantic Absolute and 61. The Relevance of Romanticism.