Patrick Murtha
Reader
This is a very broad field, and could be sub-divided; in fact, I’ll put film history in a separate post. In general, this is one of my most intense areas of interest and therefore one of my richest provinces in reading. Here are some titles that I have been engaged with lately.
Kurt E. Armbruster, Before Seattle Rocked: A City and Its Music (reading now)
Thomas Beer, The Mauve Decade: American Life at the End of the Nineteenth Century (see next post)
C.M. Bowra, The Greek Experience (still an excellent place to start)
Mark Cocker, Loneliness and Time: The Story of British Travel Writing
Bruce Cole, Giotto and Florentine Painting 1280-1375
Peter Demetz, The Air Show at Brescia, 1909 (the adventures of Kafka, Brod, Puccini, d’Annunzio, and others at the titular event in northern Italy)
Donna L. Halper, Boston Radio: 1920-2010 (in the Images of America series)
S.B. Kennedy, The White Stag Group
Preston Lauterbach, The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll (reading now)
Tom Lewis, Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (absolutely loved this)
Jan Morris, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere (Morris is always good)
Carol J. Oja, Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s (comprehensive and enlightening)
Samuel Ramos, Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico (a big influence on Octavio Paz)
Arthur Ransome, Bohemia in London ( a personal turn-of-the-century perspective)
AL Rowse, The Elizabethan Renaissance: The Cultural Achievement
David Schuyler, Apostle of Taste: Andrew Jackson Downing 1815-1852 (the growth of concern for landscape design in the US)
Barbara Sicherman, Well-Read Lives: How Books Inspired a Generation of American Women (a little academic, but worthy)
Mike Stax, Swim Through the Darkness (this bio of Craig Smith is very informative about the pop music scene of the Sixties)
Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World (exciting)
Fraser Sutherland, The Monthly Epic: A History of Canadian Magazines (sounds dull? Isn’t!)
Solomon Volkov, St. Petersburg: A Cultural History (superb)
Kurt E. Armbruster, Before Seattle Rocked: A City and Its Music (reading now)
Thomas Beer, The Mauve Decade: American Life at the End of the Nineteenth Century (see next post)
C.M. Bowra, The Greek Experience (still an excellent place to start)
Mark Cocker, Loneliness and Time: The Story of British Travel Writing
Bruce Cole, Giotto and Florentine Painting 1280-1375
Peter Demetz, The Air Show at Brescia, 1909 (the adventures of Kafka, Brod, Puccini, d’Annunzio, and others at the titular event in northern Italy)
Donna L. Halper, Boston Radio: 1920-2010 (in the Images of America series)
S.B. Kennedy, The White Stag Group
Preston Lauterbach, The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll (reading now)
Tom Lewis, Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (absolutely loved this)
Jan Morris, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere (Morris is always good)
Carol J. Oja, Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s (comprehensive and enlightening)
Samuel Ramos, Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico (a big influence on Octavio Paz)
Arthur Ransome, Bohemia in London ( a personal turn-of-the-century perspective)
AL Rowse, The Elizabethan Renaissance: The Cultural Achievement
David Schuyler, Apostle of Taste: Andrew Jackson Downing 1815-1852 (the growth of concern for landscape design in the US)
Barbara Sicherman, Well-Read Lives: How Books Inspired a Generation of American Women (a little academic, but worthy)
Mike Stax, Swim Through the Darkness (this bio of Craig Smith is very informative about the pop music scene of the Sixties)
Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World (exciting)
Fraser Sutherland, The Monthly Epic: A History of Canadian Magazines (sounds dull? Isn’t!)
Solomon Volkov, St. Petersburg: A Cultural History (superb)
