My summer reading list is a catastrophe this year. It’s too long, too diverse, and too saddled with obligations to be fun. Plus, I have work to do for most of the summer so no clear down time set aside to enjoy reading.
Oh well.
Here’s my summer 2014, 2013, and 2011 reading lists.
Archaeological Theory and the Contemporary World
(One of my favorite archaeology stories (see this week’s podcast) is when David Pettegrew brought (seemingly) two-thirds of his comprehensive exam reading list with him to Greece to read during our two field seasons. Of course, this was the year that the project’s Ford Escort died and we had to take three or four buses from Ancient Corinth to Neapolis in Laconia to take a ferry to Kythera. We had to overnight in Sparti and this involved walking, uphill, from the bus station to our hotel near the acropolis. David had to carry approximately 250 pounds of books across the city of Sparti on what must have been the hottest day of the year! I remember looking back at him lugging his bag and thinking, “I’m never going to take a stack of books with me to read in the field…”)
Benjamin Alberti, Andrew Meirion Jones, and Joshua Pollard, eds. Archaeology After Interpretation: Returning Materials to Archaeological Theory. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, Calif. 2013.
Robert Chapman and Alison Wylie, Material Evidence: Learning from Archaeological Practice. Routledge, New York 2015.
Chris Fowler. The Emergent Past: A Relational Realist Archaeology of Early Bronze Age Mortuary Practices. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013.
Andrew M. Martin. Archaeology Beyond Postmodernity: A Science of the Social (Archaeology in Society Series). AltaMira Press, Lanham, Maryland 2013.
William L. Rathje, Michael Shanks, and Christopher Witmore, eds. Archaeology in the Making: Conversations Through a Discipline. Routledge, London and New York 2013.
Ancient History and Archaeology
(One great thing about keeping up in the scholarship on Late Roman Greece and Cyprus is that it moves pretty slowly. There are a few books each year or two that are absolutely MUST READS and a gaggle of dissertations and a swarm of articles. Rebecca Sweetman’s book is a must read. The downside of this is that to understand Late Roman Greece, I find myself having to read a bunch of books from other regions. Mostly this is really fun, but every now and then the enormity of the scholarly output overwhelms me…)
Rebecca J. Sweetman, The Mosaics of Modern Crete: Art, Archaeology, and Social Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013.
Jonathan Conant, Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439-700. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2012.
For Flights and Fun
(My wife got me a Kindle Paperwhite for my birthday so I can read a bit more comfortably on flights and in poorly lit Cypriot and Greek hotel rooms!)
Werner Herzog and Paul Cronin, Werner Herzog: A Guide for the Perplexed. Faber and Faber, London 2014.
Neal Stephenson, The Seveneves: A Novel. William Morrow, New York 2015.
Thomas Pynchon, The Bleeding Edge. The Penguin Press, New York 2013.
Paul Kastenellos, Antonina: A Byzantine Slut. Apuleius Books, Garrison, NY 2012.
Poetry
(Follow the link!)
James Bradley Wells, Kazantzakis Guide to Greece.
Archaeology of the Mediterranean World 