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johndavidbooks.bsky.social
JohnDavidBooks
@johndavidbooks.bsky.social
120 followers 11 following 340 posts
Here for the books and book people. #Booksky 💙📚

Twitterland emigre. Former educator. Desiderata. Gargantua and Pantagruel.

BookTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/nicholasofautrecourt

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4357283-john-david
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johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Oh, what a tangled web is his weave! He is the only one deceived.

#RandPaul #KentuckyWhatIsYouDoinGirl
July 24, 2025 at 3:52 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Kafka slaying like the diva he was. #Booksky 💙📚

#BookSky #Books #BookTube 💅💅💅
July 9, 2025 at 8:11 PM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938-2025)

#BookSky #Books #BookTube 💙📚
May 28, 2025 at 8:45 PM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Tonight: Diving into Thomas Hardy's break-out success, "Far From the Madding Crowd". My first Hardy novel!

Are you a admirer? A hater? Let's spill some Victorian literary tea.

#BookSky #Books #BookTube 💙📚
May 7, 2025 at 2:45 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
A few pictures from my central Texas garden in late April:

How many million Aprils came
Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
A bed of squills, how blue!

-Sara Teasdale, "Blue Squills"

#Gardening #NativePlantGarden #BookSky #Books #BookTube #Historathon 💙📚
April 21, 2025 at 3:37 PM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Now reading: Catherine Hanley's biography "Matilda: Empress, Queen, and Warrior" (from @yalepress.bsky.social).

Her father Henry I made her the heir, but his barons weren't on board - then her cousin Stephen of Blois swooped in and had himself crowned instead.

#BookSky #Books #BookTube 💙📚
April 17, 2025 at 1:02 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
On my nightstand: "The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages" by @saracharles.bsky.social (from @uchicagopress.bsky.social). Fascinating details about writing culture, script types, and - most importantly - de-romanticizing medieval life.

#BookSky #Books #BookTube #Historathon 💙📚
April 11, 2025 at 3:00 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
The look on my face when C.S. Lewis says in "The Discarded Image" that Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae is a "work of very mediocre intelligence."

#BookSky #Books #BookTube #Historathon 💙📚
April 8, 2025 at 3:21 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
It's just one of those days.

#catsofbluesky #caturday
March 29, 2025 at 6:26 PM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Just started Francesca Wade's "Square Haunting" (@penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social) detailing the lives of five intellectuals - Virginia Woolf, Jane Harrison, Eileen Power, H.D., and Dorothy Sayers - navigating politics, relationships, work, and personal independence.

#BookSky #Books #BookTube💙📚
March 26, 2025 at 6:06 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
On March 20, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris after escaping from Elba and began his Hundred Days.

#OnThisDay #BookSky #Books #BookTube #Historathon 💙📚

Painting: "Napoleon Leaving Elba," Joseph Beaume (1836).
March 21, 2025 at 1:24 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
I can't say that I agree with the sentiment, but it's beautifully stated nonetheless.

#BookSky #Books #BookTube #Emerson #Transendentalism 💙📚
March 21, 2025 at 12:55 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
#BookSky #Books #BookTube 💙📚
March 13, 2025 at 11:08 PM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Coming out in March 2025 from @uchicagopress.bsky.social, G.A. Loud's new biography of the fascinating medieval Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (r. 1155 - 1190), who expanded his empire, fought the Papacy, and drowned while on Crusade at age 67!

#BookSky #Books #BookTube #Historathon 💙📚
March 11, 2025 at 5:17 PM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Requiescat in pace, Athol Fugard (1932-2025), South Africa's greatest playwright.

I still remember reading "The Road to Mecca" with the fondest of memories.

#BookSky #Books #BookTube #Drama #AtholFugard 💙📚
March 9, 2025 at 8:43 PM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Interesting to note the ubiquity of Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Hasek wrote this in the years immediately following WWI.

#BookSky #Books #BookTube #GoodSoldierSvejk #JaroslavHasek 💙📚
March 6, 2025 at 12:27 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Coming out later this month from @uchicagopress.bsky.social, @adapalmer.bsky.social's re-assessment of the Renaissance! Can't wait to dig in during the second quarter of Historathon2025. Always up for some revisionist periodization!

#BookSky #Books #BookTube #Historathon 💙📚
March 3, 2025 at 12:37 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
This is how you start a novel, folks.

#BookSky #Books #BookTube #Historathon #FrederickBuechner #Godric 💙📚
February 24, 2025 at 12:43 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
#BookSky #Books #BookTube 💙📚
February 21, 2025 at 3:35 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
I finished this last night. Butler gets near-universal praise, but for a few reasons it fell flat for me. Because of the character limit, I'll have to wait to flesh things out in a review.

Has this let anyone else down?

#BookSky #Books #BookTube 💙📚
February 19, 2025 at 12:33 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Happy Valentine's Day, you fallen, sinful husks of humanity.

#BookSky #Books #BookTube 💙📚
February 14, 2025 at 9:52 PM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
For the third year in a row, @princetonupress.bsky.social is supporting Historathon's effort to read history all year long! Four books - one for each quarter. What did I get? Video coming soon!

#BookSky #Books #BookTube #Historathon 💙📚
February 10, 2025 at 9:04 PM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
It's been a LONG time since I've read any fiction. For Black History Month, I'll be picking up Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" tonight.

Is it as great as I've heard? Any thoughts? SF is utterly new to me, so any guidance is appreciated!

#Booksky #Books #BookTube #BlackHistoryMonth 💙📚
February 10, 2025 at 2:35 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Happy birthday to the greatest diva the opera world has ever known, Leontyne Price. 98 has never looked so good!

Listening to Un Ballo in Maschera in her honor.

#Opera #ClassicalSky #BlackHistoryMonth
February 10, 2025 at 1:40 AM
johndavidbooks.bsky.social
Up for tonight: Looking forward to learning more about French and German contributions to liberalism's legacy instead of just the usual Anglophone suspects!

Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century (@princetonupress.bsky.social, 2018).

#Booksky #Books #BookTube 💙📚
February 6, 2025 at 2:02 AM