It's amazing how pregnancy can just sideline me. Like my body's all, "yeah, you thought you had plans today. You had all this stuff you wanted to do. Hahahaha. You're going to wind up in bed all day. Lol." I'm not knocking it. My belly is happily sticking out blocking any views of my feet, and after two previous losses (21 weeks and 8 weeks), I'm thrilled to be 24 weeks pregnant. It's just hard to make any plans or keep any goals, and my to-do list is a joke.
So, one of my goals has been to go through my Amazon wishlist as much as I can before the baby arrives. This is tough because much of my wishlist is over five years old, and there's constantly new stuff I want to read, too. I really think I should take a class in speed reading, because life is just so short, and there are just so many good books.
This week I finished Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra, a Life, which had been on my list for a long time. And man, I really wanted to love it, but I just couldn't get into it at all. I guess because there is so little actual information on Cleopatra, so much of it is conjecture, and so instead of guessing too much, Schiff puts together a narrative of the Roman world at that time, which was in the midst of civil wars, and then speculates on what Cleopatra would have been doing at each stage given what we do know about her. The problem is that I don't know an awful lot about Roman history, so a lot of it was just lost on me. She mentions generals and battles, and really, the whole thing just went over my head. It took me ages to slog through it, and I needed to reference wikipedia more than once.
Things were better this week on the music front. I discovered three new albums that are going to be part of the regular rotation.
First, Purcell: Music for Queen Mary from the King's College Choir. When I lived in the UK, one of my favorite things to do was hop on a train to Cambridge on a Sunday, and go to the Evensong service at King's College. It was just so magical, hearing the service sung in their ancient chapel with its flying buttresses and imposing organ. This CD is of music written for Queen Mary from 1692-1695. Purcell has an entire society dedicated to him in the UK, but the thing I like about him best is that he seems to sit right in between Early Music and Baroque. It's exciting - I still hear some of the harmonies that would be familiar to people listening to music 80 years earlier; and it's not quite Bach yet, but there are definite hints of the ornateness to come in the next generation of composers.
The second is Bach, Telemann and Weiss, a recently released album of baroque guitar music played by Benjamin Valette (who is very easy on the eyes, I must say). Anything with Telemann in the title gets me, because he's one of my absolute favorites. I also love the lute music from this period, so a mix of Telemann and the lute is sure to be a winner. Sylvius Leopold Weiss was unfamiliar to me (I don't think he has his own society in London); but apparently he was German, one of the most prolific lute composers of his day, and got in an improv competition with the Big Daddy, JS Bach. I've found that this album is great to listen to while I'm working.
Finally, non-classical, I've discovered Jo Hamilton, and her album Gown. It was recommended to me on Spotify because I listened to an Icelandic singer, and Jo Hamilton comes from Scotland - I've been to both Iceland and Scotland, and while I can say that both countries are green and mountainous, and share some Viking history, I'm not sure what algorithm paired Jo Hamilton with Hafdis Huld. Either way, I'm a fan. The last song, the radio edit of Think of Me is emotional yet poppy at the same time. In the description of her on Spotify they say she's a mixture of Bjork singing Sarah McLachlan, and she's one of the chamber folk scene's most eclectic performers. I had to hear that, and I'm not disappointed. This is more of a "listen to while driving" album, and it will definitely get rotation in the car.
So that was my Week in Books and Music. I'm going to read another Shakespeare play this weekend, though I'm still not sure which.
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