Posted: May 20, 2021 2:39 am
1. Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition – Sophia S.A. Marmaridou
2. Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany and Japan - Randall Hansen
3. Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics – René Dirven and Marjolijn Verspoor (Eds.)
4. Age of Static: How TV Explains Modern Britain – Phil Harrison
5. The Secret of Our Success: How Culture is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating our Species and Making us Smarter – Joseph Henrich
6. Heroic Failure and the British - Stephanie Barczewski
7. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain - Maryanne Wolf
8. Language Soup: A Taste of How Diverse People Around the World Communicate - Kathryn A. T. Knox
9. A Place for everything: The curious History of Alphabetical order – Judith Flanders
10. Contrastive Analysis - Carl James
11. Impossible Languages- Andrea Moro
12. Languages in the World: How History, Culture and Politics Shape Language – Jukie tetel Andresen and Phillip M. Carter
13. HHhH - Laurent Binet (Translated from the French by Sam Taylor)
14. Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offense – Jonathan Culpeper
15. Ethosyntax: Explorations in Grammar and Culture – N. J. Enfield (Ed.)
16. Second Language Speech Fluency: From Research to Practice – Parvaneh Tavakoli & Clare Wright.
17. At Day's Close: Night in Times Past – A. Roger Ekirch
447 pp.
In this book the author describes the way that people in preindustrial Europe and America experienced night. It is hard for us to comprehend now, but nights in those times were a wholly different world. Artificial lighting was weak and expensive and prone to failure and darkness was often total. Combined with the dangers of pratfalls losing one’s way and fatal accidents, night was a time of real terror to people in those superstitious times. Devils, demons, witches, sprites, fairies and Satan himself were commonly believed to work their mischief in the hours of darkness. Another great fear of people in those days was fire, with naked flames and combustible materials combining with sleep and drowsiness to create a constant hazard. Indeed, people learned that when being assaulted or robbed at night, it was better to shout ‘fire’ than ‘murder’.
Crime was also a constant fear and brigands, robbers, highwaymen, housebreakers, pilferers and arsonists all made night a time of real anxiety for these pre-modern people.
Ekirch also discourses on the nature of sleep and recounts how people, before the advent of plentiful artificial light, would have first sleep and then be active for a while in the wee small hours before retiring again for second sleep. He also notes how people saw the quiet of night as a time for reflection, study, meditation and other kinds of inner life, and the importance of dreams in those days.
The text is compendious with references from sources spanning the centuries. The author quotes them and retains the archaic spelling which really brought those voices alive for me. For in the nyght there are manie and divers dangers. Sinfulle menne and darke spirits alike do form in league to fright the goodmen of the parishe. Many are the murthers and robberies that do occurre in the darke of night and all manner of obsceene and wanton harlots do ply their filthie vices under the shade of nightes cover.
One thing that really struck me was the effects of light pollution in cities which render the night skies a black expanse without stars or galaxies. Here in Osaka only the major constellations are visible on cloudless and moonless nights. When I do find myself in rural areas and see the night skies in all their splendor I am always taken aback and overawed.
A fantastic, monomaniacal book, capturing the spirit of times past in an evocative way.
2. Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany and Japan - Randall Hansen
3. Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics – René Dirven and Marjolijn Verspoor (Eds.)
4. Age of Static: How TV Explains Modern Britain – Phil Harrison
5. The Secret of Our Success: How Culture is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating our Species and Making us Smarter – Joseph Henrich
6. Heroic Failure and the British - Stephanie Barczewski
7. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain - Maryanne Wolf
8. Language Soup: A Taste of How Diverse People Around the World Communicate - Kathryn A. T. Knox
9. A Place for everything: The curious History of Alphabetical order – Judith Flanders
10. Contrastive Analysis - Carl James
11. Impossible Languages- Andrea Moro
12. Languages in the World: How History, Culture and Politics Shape Language – Jukie tetel Andresen and Phillip M. Carter
13. HHhH - Laurent Binet (Translated from the French by Sam Taylor)
14. Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offense – Jonathan Culpeper
15. Ethosyntax: Explorations in Grammar and Culture – N. J. Enfield (Ed.)
16. Second Language Speech Fluency: From Research to Practice – Parvaneh Tavakoli & Clare Wright.
17. At Day's Close: Night in Times Past – A. Roger Ekirch
447 pp.
In this book the author describes the way that people in preindustrial Europe and America experienced night. It is hard for us to comprehend now, but nights in those times were a wholly different world. Artificial lighting was weak and expensive and prone to failure and darkness was often total. Combined with the dangers of pratfalls losing one’s way and fatal accidents, night was a time of real terror to people in those superstitious times. Devils, demons, witches, sprites, fairies and Satan himself were commonly believed to work their mischief in the hours of darkness. Another great fear of people in those days was fire, with naked flames and combustible materials combining with sleep and drowsiness to create a constant hazard. Indeed, people learned that when being assaulted or robbed at night, it was better to shout ‘fire’ than ‘murder’.
Crime was also a constant fear and brigands, robbers, highwaymen, housebreakers, pilferers and arsonists all made night a time of real anxiety for these pre-modern people.
Ekirch also discourses on the nature of sleep and recounts how people, before the advent of plentiful artificial light, would have first sleep and then be active for a while in the wee small hours before retiring again for second sleep. He also notes how people saw the quiet of night as a time for reflection, study, meditation and other kinds of inner life, and the importance of dreams in those days.
The text is compendious with references from sources spanning the centuries. The author quotes them and retains the archaic spelling which really brought those voices alive for me. For in the nyght there are manie and divers dangers. Sinfulle menne and darke spirits alike do form in league to fright the goodmen of the parishe. Many are the murthers and robberies that do occurre in the darke of night and all manner of obsceene and wanton harlots do ply their filthie vices under the shade of nightes cover.
One thing that really struck me was the effects of light pollution in cities which render the night skies a black expanse without stars or galaxies. Here in Osaka only the major constellations are visible on cloudless and moonless nights. When I do find myself in rural areas and see the night skies in all their splendor I am always taken aback and overawed.
A fantastic, monomaniacal book, capturing the spirit of times past in an evocative way.