Applauding Myself for Actually Finishing a Book (or two!)

It is hard to find time to read books just for fun, and not because I've assigned them to my long-suffering students. So I was excited yesterday to take a bit of time and finish off a pair that I have mentioned in previous posts.

One was Jeremy Adler's recent study of Goethe, which was a nice piece of intellectual history, placing Goethe in the context of his age and showing his immense cultural influence in a range of areas. On at least two previous occasions, I have begun a different book on Goethe and then gotten bogged down in other work, so that I never managed to finish the book. I was determined not to let that happen a third time!

The second was a very enjoyable book about bilingualism and biculturalism by François Grosjean, A Journey in Languages and Cultures. It is a combination of memoir--the author turns out to have a very interesting family background, including a father who was a double-agent in World War II--and summary of linguistic studies of bilingualism. It is a pretty quick read, and Grosjean also has a website with lots of information and writings available on it.

I ought to celebrate--it is not often that I manage to finish off two books in one day!

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Plague Time

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