Sunday, August 31, 2008

Book Reviews

Yes, I'm still here; no, writing is not going well at the moment. I'm stuck in chapter 14, and keep finding other things to do. Such as writing book reviews... so here are two short ones. I'm linking to LibraryThing now instead of direct to Amazon - check it out!
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Early Irish Farming (Early Irish law series)by Fergus Kelly, 1997, 770 pages.

An outstanding source of information on early Ireland, this book (based on the irish laws) covers far more than farming. Chapter headings include: Livestock; offenses by/against domestic animals; accidents, diseases, etc; crops; hunting and gathering; diet and cooking; farm layout; land-tenure; farm labour; tools and technology; and a number of appendices and indexes. Highly recommended to anyone interested in early Ireland.
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From Medieval to Modern Wales by R. R. Davies, 2004, University of Wales Press, 256 pages.

Medieval chapters include: the medieval Welsh world-view; the identity of 'Wales' in the 13th century; mobility and marriage in a border society; the interpretation of late medieval houses in Wales (=all post-1400). Also includes chapters on renaissance/modern topics. I got this book through interlibrary loan and found it interesting. I'm not sure I'm going to buy it, though, since a lot of it concerns post-medieval things and it's not cheap ($49.95 on amazon). The chapter on houses is pretty good, with some nice diagrams. What I found most interesting, however, is that although they have now found several hundred houses in Wales that are at least partially medieval, none of the wooden ones dated by tree rings are earlier than 1420 - all post Glyndwr's Rebellion!
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As to what the problem is with chapter 14 ... that's another post.

-GRG

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