Summer is almost here and it's once again time for #AHAReads, the annual summer reading challenge
for historians organised by the American Historical Association. Last summer was a bit too full for me to finish but I greatly enjoyed participating in previous years.
Here's this year's challenge!
The goal of the challenge is to complete three challenges--one per month--between 1 June and 2 September--Labor Day in the United States, and the traditional end of summer for many Americans. This year's suggestions are to:
- Read a history of a place you’re visiting this summer.
- Read a history by a scholar whose day job is outside academia.
- Read a co-authored history.
- Read a history of Indigenous people.
- Read a piece of historical fiction (novel, story, poem, play) set in the time or place you study.
- Learn from a historian presenting their scholarship in an amicus brief, digital collection, exhibition, podcast, video, or another format outside traditional academic publishing.
Setting a few bonus guidelines for myself, as I did last year:
- No
purchasing books for the challenge. I must either borrow or own the books I read.
- Print books only! Summer reading challenges are supposed to be fun, and for me, reading an ebook is not.
- Blog about what I read and finish writing all posts by 2 September.
So which challenges have I chosen and what am I reading?
First of all, I want to read a co-authored history: The Bookshop of the World: Making and Trading Books in the Dutch Golden Age, Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen's history of the book trade in the seventeenth-century Netherlands. At nearly 500 pages, this is going to be a challenge, particularly since de Bibliotheek Utrecht (from which I borrowed it) only allows two renewals before books have to be returned.
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| The Bookshop of the World |
Secondly, I aim to read a piece of historical fiction (novel, story, poem, play) set in the time or place you study. My goal here is to read and blog about W.H. Auden's poem "Under Sirius", because it contains a reference to the late antique poet Venantius Fortunatus. Also, Brian Brennan, who writes some of the best articles about Fortunatus, has recently published "Yes, these are the dog days, Fortunatus": W.H. Auden and the Latin Poet Venantius Fortunatus"; and I want to make time to read and enjoy it. Plus, as previously established, I love Auden.
Lastly, I want to learn from a historian presenting their scholarship in an amicus
brief, digital collection, exhibition, podcast, video, or another format
outside traditional academic publishing. I subscribe to a few history shows on my podcast app so I may just leave this open. Or, I'll listen to the interview Peter Brown did about his autobiography, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History.
