November Dewey: 900-939

Nov Dewey: 900-939:

Welcome to the November Dewey. As we approach the end of the year, November brings us to the first part of the 900s in the Dewey system. In researching my topic, the major groups within this part are:

900-909 - History in general:
910-919 - Geography & Travel
920-929 - Biography & Genealogy
930-939 - History of the Ancient World (to ca. 499 AD)

For further breakdowns, try this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes#Class_900_.E2.80.93_...

900-909 - History in general:

I found a few sites that said that 900-909 was Geography and History, so it can be interpreted a few ways, it seems. In searching LT I found that there are 22 lists of various types of historical fiction for those of you who are reading fiction for the Dewey.

Fiction:
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (about the Black Plague)
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (French Revolution)
The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillippa Gregory (Anne Boleyn)

Non-Fiction:
God’s War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman (909.07)
Lost to Time: Unforgettable Stories That History Forgot by Martin Sandler (904)

910-919 - Geography & Travel:

Fiction is a tough one here – all stories take place somewhere. I think if you are reading fiction then perhaps the geography of where the book takes place should be part of the focus of the book.

Fiction:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson uses geographic evidence to piece together the mystery
The Collected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen (YA)
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Non-Fiction:
Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky (910.914)
Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thrubon (915)
River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler (910)
On the Map by Simon Garfield (912.09)

920-929 - Biography and Genealogy

This seems to be fairly self-explanatory.

Fiction:
Genealogical Fiction:
Family Tree Series by Patricia Sprinkle
Jefferson Tate Series by Steve Robinson
Biographical Fiction:
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

Non-Fiction:
Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn (920)
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt (929.208)
The Warrior Queen by Antonia Fraser (920.72)

930-939 - History of the Ancient World (to ca. 499 AD)

Fiction:
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The Illiad and The Odyssey by Homer
Pompei by Robert Harris

Non-Fiction:
Stonehenge and Neighbouring Monuments by R.J.C. Atkinson (936.2)
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacey Shiff (932.021)

Don’t forget to post to the wiki: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/2016CC_DeweyCAT

Note: I couldn’t find a picture for just the first part of the 900s, so I used one for all.

On a personal note:

Since geography is part of my month, I thought I’d share this story of why I love geography and maps.

Geography always makes me think of maps, all kind of maps: road maps, topographical maps, world maps, etc. and I find them all fascinating. When I was in middle school (7th & 8th grade for me), geography was a separate subject and Mr. Kimball was my geography teacher. (And, many years later, my driver’s ed teacher – but that’s another story) And one of the things I still remember is Wednesday was map day. Every Wednesday we drew maps. We started by drawing our house and street. The next week was our street and neighborhood. Then we moved on to our town, our county, our state…on and on, expanding our world little by little. States and capitals, world countries and capitals, rivers, lakes, oceans, mountains, natural resources. Which way was north and which was south. Longitude and latitude. I owe a lot to Mr Kimball – and more I think than just my knowledge of where things are in this world. In some ways, I think I’m more open-minded because of my geography class. I learned early in life that there’s more than just my little corner of the world – it’s a big place.

(And I’m a great navigator on a road trip)

>2 dudes22: Sounds like a great teacher and a wonderful memory. I like maps too.

I woukd have loved Mr. Kimball's class, too! I am another map lover. However, I'm going for genealogy this time. I'll me reading Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing.

I love that story! :)

My choice for this month is Nation Maker, the second of two volumes about Sir John A. MacDonald. Fortunately, I read another book by Richard Gwyn recently so I hope that will be sufficient motivation to get to it this month!

I think I'm going to read A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes.

I work in a genealogy library, so I'll read something from our collection. There's only 30,000 books to choose from! :)

>2 dudes22: That's a great story and I'm a bit jealous I didn't have Mr. Kimball as a teacher! :-)

I was planning to focus on the "travel" portion of this month.

I also have a fictional travel book as an option:
A Walking Tour of the Shambles / Neil Gaiman

Other options (nonfiction, travel):
Blue Highways / William Least Heat-Moon
Road Trip Rwanda / Will Ferguson

ETA: Oops, I need to check the actual Dewey numbers on these...! Ok, I took out the one that didn't fit. Road Trip Rwanda doesn't have a Dewey number here on LT, but it's got to fit. It's actually the one I really want to read most of these, but I own the Gaiman, and the other has been on my tbr so long, I really should get to it.

And I forgot to say what book I'll be reading - Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman. Glad you guys liked my story - he was a great teacher.

ETA: having trouble with the touchstone - if only I could spell.

I have always been the "official" map-reader and navigator in our family and I miss those old well folded maps now that we have GPS! I'm going with the travel theme and will read The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America by Bill Bryson. (917.9)

>11 DeltaQueen50: - I have that on my TBR list, (but not the actual pile) but won't get to it soon, I'm afraid. There are a few of Bill Bryson's books I'm still trying to get to.

I'll likely read genealogy too. Lots of options, and since I need to finish my book which will eventually fit in this category, I won't be choosing until I finish that and get it into the hands of my reviewers. It will be in November, but I'm not sure when yet. I guess it depends on whether I can finish everything but the last little bit of legal research during the week and get to UT's law library on Saturday and finish those two sections Saturday.

A little early, I know. I finished an excellent story of exploration, Men of Salt which takes place mostly in Mali and follows a camel caravan to salt mines deep in the Sahara. Gives new meaning to the expression, "back to the salt mines"!

A possibility for a fiction travel book is Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad…

I suspect my focus for this month is going to be historical fiction set in the ancient world.

I'm planning to read History's People: Personalities and the Past by Margaret MacMillan.

And starting Caesar Dies by Talbot Munday, a novel set in the reign of Commodus (2nd century AD).

I'm reading Last train to Zona Verde: my ultimate African Safari by Paul Theroux and plan a biography as well, just not sure which one.

>19 VivienneR: - I have his book To the Ends of the Earth in my TBR pile and this one sounds interesting too.

>20 dudes22: This is a sort of sequel to Dark Star Africa. Theroux went back to Africa after 10 years to see how things had changed. It's very interesting and I love the way he writes, as if to a friend. I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would.

COMPLETED Caesar Dies by Talbot Mundy

Just a reminder that we are still looking for monthly hosts in next year's CATs. Several categories are still up for grabs. Being a host is easy and low-pressure. On or about the 15th of the preceding month, you just open a thread with some information about the next month's topic and some reading suggestions. Pictures are entirely optional. It's fun! So consider being a host. Here are the threads where you can volunteer:

CATWoman: Three months are open, listed here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/235638#5777873

AwardsCAT: Four months are open, listed here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/235636#5779874

CultureCAT: A whopping ten months are open, listed here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/235637#5772459

(Yes, you can volunteer for more than one month and in more than one CAT!)

Ghost Ships: True Stories of Nautical Nightmares, Hauntings, and Disasters / Richard Winer
3 stars

The title pretty much says it all. This is a collection of stories of various types of ships that have disappeared or had some kind of disaster befall them. Of course, a disaster can then potentially result in ghosts in some cases.

It was ok. There was some sail-speak that went over my head. Also, because the stories are so short, if I lost focus even for a short time, I really ended up missing a lot. As with a book of short stories, some were more interesting than others.

Because this month has a wide range of topics, I'm including this biography as a second book (even though it has the Shakespeare dewey number 822.33): Shakespeare: the world as stage by Bill Bryson.

STARTING Daughter of the Gods by Stephanie Thornton. Biographical novel about Hatshepsut, Egypt's most successful female Pharaoh.

I just finished Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure by Matthew Algeo. As this book is both about travel and a biography, I believe it fits this DeweyCat.

I'm reading Why History Matters: Life and Thought (901) by Gerda Lerner for this challenge. It's a collection of essays she wrote between 1980 and 1996, and is a follow-up to her The Majority Finds Its Past, essays she wrote from 1960-1979, which I read when studying her in a historiography seminar in the early 1980s.

Blue Highways: A Journey Into America / William Least Heat-Moon
3 stars

In 1978, William Least Heat-Moon lost his job and his wife. He decided to take a road trip through the entire U.S. He followed the roads less travelled – that is, the “blue highways” on the map, the ones that mostly avoid the big cities. He headed east from where he lived in Missouri, then made a big circle around the outskirts of the country, following the blue highways. In each place, he chatted with the people and learned about the cultures in each part of the country.

It was ok. It wasn’t fast-moving, and with so many different towns and people, it felt a little like short stories (which are not my favourite thing). Like with short stories, some people/places/stories were more interesting to me than others.

I've just added Land of a thousand hills: my life in Rwanda by Rosamond Halsey Carr. It has history, travel, and biography - a natural for this category. It was excellent, highly recommended.

COMPLETED Daughter of the Gods by Stephanie Thornton (ancient Egypt).

Starting The Taexali Game by Nancy Jardine (Roman Scotland)

I have just finished The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson. As a huge fan of road trips, I really enjoyed the trip!

Impératrice fits the biographical fiction slot: it is the life of Empress Wu Zhou, told by herself, from her birth, her years as a concubine and then wife of a Tang emperor, until she takes the throne herself and is finally toppled by an intrigue. It's a remarkable life, which we know only through the distorting mirror of Confucian, misogynic males. One of the most interesting aspects of this was the constant re-writing of history, as the Empress posthumously assigns titles and nobility to her ancestors.

I've started in on Philip Marsden's Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place (914.237048612). It's much less of a traditional travel narrative than the other books of his that I've read, but I'm enjoying the ramble around Cornwall all the same.

A Walking Tour of the Shambles / Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe
2 stars

This is a walking tour of a fictional area in Chicago. Unfortunately, I just found it boring. There were a few nice illustrations. Was it meant to be funny? I’m not sure. I just didn’t find it interesting at all.

I decided to add another one to this category:

The outsider: my life in intrigue by Frederick Forsyth

Forsyth had a lot of lucky breaks in his life, but he also prepared well in order to reach his goals, so those breaks were earned and deserved. As a child he decided he wanted to be a pilot, flying a Spitfire for the RAF. He earned his wings, and finished a two-year stint with the RAF at barely twenty, going on to be a foreign correspondent with Reuters. A job as correspondent with the BBC didn't work out as expected and finding himself broke and unemployed, he wrote a book. Using the real story of an assassination attempt on De Gaulle from his days as a journalist he wrote The Day of the Jackal. He had no idea of how the publishing business worked but one of those lucky breaks (and persistence) got the book published and his new career had begun. The details of the agreement for book and film are especially interesting in hindsight.

This is a fascinating story, told in short chapters, that will entertain, especially if the reader is familiar with The Day of the Jackal or any of Forsyth's other books. The downside is that this James Bond-type life story never gets to the heart of the man. There is so much left unsaid. And some accounts have an almost adolescent expression. Still, I can recommend it strongly.

On a personal note: Forsyth earned his pilot's licence at Rochester at the same time that my father worked there. I can't help wondering if they ever met.

Thanks to AnnieMod for this recommendation.

Starting I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai, which at least one library lists as 920.

COMPLETED I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

I finished History's People: Personalities and the Past by Margaret MacMillan. This is a collection of essays based on her 2015 CBC Massey Lectures. It is quite short and entertaining and it seems a good introduction to her lengthier works.

I finished On the Edge of Survival: A Shipwreck, a Raging Storm, and the Harrowing Alaskan Rescue That Became a Legend by Spike Walker. This is nonfiction of Malaysian-registered Panamax bulk cargo ship chartered by the IMC Group that ran aground off Unalaska Island in western Alaska's Aleutian Islands on 8 December 2004 after its engine failed and the rescue by the U.S. Coast Guard. It was a disaster that I confess to not knowing about. I enjoyed this quick audio. These pilots and the rescue swimmer did an extraordinary job of rescuing men who were not cooperative in the efforts and they all acknowledged that it was providence that resulted in so few lost life.

>40 Kristelh: That sounds interesting.

I finished Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman about who decided when she was 48 to sell all her possessions and travel the world. And interesting book about how she interacts with local people.

COMPLETED The Towers of Trebizond, which is a novel by Rose Macaulay, but I think fits the travel theme.

Starting Pompeii: A Tale of Murder in Ancient Rome by Robert Colton, which is in our historical period for this month.

Euphrat Queen is classified as 910 and proved to be a great read. It tells the story of an expedition with two steamboats on the Euphrates in 1836-1837 and proves again that real life writes the most amazing stories. You couldn't make this up.

The East India Company is looking for ways to shorten the lines of comunication with India (the Suez Canal hasn't been built yet), and Thomas Love Peacock (yes, him of Nightmare Abbey) comes up with the idea of taking two of these new-fangled steamships, disassemble them, ship them to the coast of Syria, transport them across the desert to the Euphrates, reassemble them, travel down the river and from there through the Red Sea to India. An excitable Irishman, Francis Rawdon Chesney, is named to command the expedition, and a young German couple, natural scientists, also travel along. Nothing goes according to plan, of course.

The autor draws extensively on the diaries and memoirs of the the expedition members, and especially on the travelogue Pauline Helfer wrote on behalf of her husband. She was the only woman on board and spent part of the time in men's clothes, since the fanatical Muslims of the area would have stoned her otherwise. This gives a rather impressionistic view of the whole expedition, just the highlights, so to speak. The most interesting bits come when she shows the same event from different perspectives.

However, the best part, in my mind, comes at the end when she relates what became of the various survivors: James Fitzjames ended up as captain of HMS Erebus and perished with the Franklin expedition. James Estcot took part in the charge of the Light Brigade. Lt. Lynch married a daughter of the English resident and became eventually the grandfather of Harry Kessler. Pauline returned to Germany a widow and met her hero, Alexander von Humboldt, before she married into one of the most important families in Prague. Six degrees of separation, indeed. One of the most intriguing and romantic figures in this ensemble must have been Lynch's father-in-law, Robert Taylor, who actually eloped with and married a Persian princess. I've noted down at least six books that I want to read now.