uninspired & insipid

Some days I feel like a particularly bad educator, today is one of those days, I had one of the most sheepish critiques it has ever been my misfortune to witness and I am drained by the compete lack of passion in my students. So I have little to say about creativity or art making, and am going to post instead about a book I am reading.

I know that I have mostly moved my book posts elsewhere, but it is either the book or despair today, and I am so trying to avoid negativity! Fortunately the brilliance of the book has brought me back from the brink. So now I know you are wondering what am I reading, it is Diarmaid MacCulloch’s absolutely incredible “History of Christianity, The First Three Thousand Years”. I was a big fan of his book on the Reformation and as I am rapidly approaching the Gothic in Visual Survey this semester I thought I would give this a whirl. It is so good in fact that I am forcing myself to read it in tiny increments, so as not to gobble it down and miss what is undoubtedly some very fine prose. Oh to be able to write like that, with such passion and organization! Here in the modern world I think we forget our heritage and this book covers pretty much, well everything, beginning with the Greeks and working forward in time through Philosophy and politics in a deft and really readable way. I highly recommend it, although I should also caution you that it is a monster of a book and not a bathtub sort of read!