In WAYR?, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…
Permanent Reading List:
The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
I am reading:
Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present by Frank M. Snowden- Finished the section on the bubonic plague which was very interesting from the various treatments (such as they had them) for the plague, the veneration of certain saints that increased because of the plague (especially notable was St. Sebastian) to changes in hygenie and housing brought about by the plague to the centralization of political power…Next up on the pandemic list in Snowden: smallpox.
...a city beseiged by a major plague epidemic became a perfect dystopia. Bonds of communty and family ties were severed. Religious congregations found their churches bolted, their sacraments unavailable, and bells silent. Meanwhile, economic activity halted, shops closed, and employment ceased, increasng the threat of hunger and economic ruin. The political and administrative practices of normal life did not survive as authorities fell seriously ill, died, or fled. Worst of all, above every other concern towered the menace of sudden and painful death made vivid by the stench in the streets and the dying sufferers who often lived out their final anguish in public.
Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simeon- Need to read a murder mystery after all of this deep shi*...the beginning of this doesn’t help...and yet it helps so mucn.
Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas