September 6th marks National Read a Book Day in the United States with International Literacy Day following closely on September 8th. To celebrate, we want to share what the Berghahn staff is currently reading and a scholarly reading from Berghahn Books we recommend for you.
Marion Berghahn, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
Currently Reading:
Nachdenken über Musik (Trans. Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts) by Alfred Brendel
One of the 20th Century’s most celebrated pianists, Alfred Brendel, reflects on Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, and Busoni, composers whose works figured prominently into his own repertoire as a pianist.
Recommended Reading:
LOVE, LOYALTY AND DECEIT: Rosemary Firth, a Life in the Shadow of Two Eminent Men
Hugh Firth and Loulou Brown
Told by Rosemary and Raymond Firth’s son, and the daughter of Celia and Edmund Leach, the man Rosemary loved all her life, this part love-story, part biography, part social history is the tale of a highly influential circle of social anthropologists in Britain from the 1930s, through the Second World War, to the end of the century.
Vivian Berghahn, Managing Director and Journals Editorial Director
Currently Reading:
Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait by Reinhard Bendix
The purpose of this book is to make Weber’s sociological work more accessible and more thematically coherent than it is either in the original or in translation. This volume is used as an introduction to the study of original Weber texts and gives the reader a systematic presentation of Weber’s sociological studies.
Recommended Reading:
JOHN F. KENNEDY’S HIDDEN DIARY, EUROPE 1937: The Travel Journals of JFK and Kirk LeMoyne Billings
John F. Kennedy and Kirk LeMoyne Billings
Edited with an Introduction by Oliver Lubrich
Presenting the 1937 diaries of John F. Kennedy’s tour of Europe, this volume offers insights into his early experiences on a continent under the shadow of Nazism. In addition to numerous archive photographs, this volume contains Kennedy’s complete diary of his 1937 trip to Europe and, as a counterpart, the “Scrapbook” of Lem Billings who documented it from his perspective.
Janine Latham, Journals Manager
Currently Reading:
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water follows a family in southern India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning – and in Kerala, water is everywhere.
Recommended Reading:
TURBA
The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation
Managing Editor: Dena Davida
TURBA is the first journal for the study, theory, and praxis of curatorial strategies in the live arts. The live arts are broadly defined as those arts in which contingent, momentary acts and events, performed by human or other autonomous agents, are crucial to the aesthetic perception and the emergence of meaning in ephemeral time-based work. They include, but are not limited to, dance, music, sound art, theatre, performance art, verbal arts, circus arts, live media arts and inter-arts performance works. With this journal, we aim to create a platform for the exploration of ideas, concepts, constraints, expectations, and contingencies which guide and drive curatorial practices in these fields.
Mark Stanton, Books Editorial Director and Senior Editor (Humanities: History)
Currently Reading:
Revolver: How the Beatles Re-Imagined Rock ‘n’ Roll by Robert Rodriguez
Acquired wisdom has always put Sgt. Pepper at the head of the class, but it was Revolver that truly signaled The Beatles’ sea change from a functional band to a studio-based ensemble. These changes began before Rubber Soul but came to fruition on Revolver, which took an astonishing 300 hours to produce, far more than any rock record before it.
Recommended Reading:
THE RICH AND THE POOR IN MODERN EUROPE, 1890-2020: A Historian’s Response to Recent Debates among Economists
Hartmut Kaelble
Translated by Volker Berghahn
As social inequality grows, historical analysis on wealth and income distribution across the 20th century often does not take into account inequality of education, health, housing and chances of social mobility, nor does it differentiate statistical inequality from the realities of peoples’ actual experience. With this broad understanding in mind, in a long look back on the history of social inequality in Europe, The Rich and the Poor in Modern Europe addresses these neglected subjects.
Tony Mason, Senior Editor (Social Sciences: Anthropology)
Currently Reading:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dostoyevsky’s great novel of damnation and redemption tells the story of Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, who wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck.
Recommended Reading:
LIFE WITH DURHAM CATHEDRAL: A Laboratory of Community, Experience and Building
Arran J. Calvert
An ethnographic account of daily life in Durham Cathedral, this book examines the processes of negotiation and change between a community and their cathedral. Focusing on the role of sound, light, time, space, building and dwelling, the author argues that Durham Cathedral is much more than just a backdrop to everyday life. Rather, through the constant processes of negotiation and change, it is a fully engaged participant in the daily lives of those who use Durham Cathedral. As such, it is not a place in which life happens, but a place with which life happens.
Caryn Berg, Editor (Humanities: Archaeology, Heritage and Museum Studies)
Currently Reading:
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
“A delight of her rip-roaring, funny book is how it bonds familiar plot and character elements with the unexpectedly unconventional… a smart, funny, big-hearted debut combining chemical elements into what seems a winning formula.” – The Sunday Times
Recommended Reading:
THESE WERE PEOPLE ONCE: The Online Trade in Human Remains and Why It Matters
Damien Huffer and Shawn Graham
“An easy read on a difficult subject, its beautiful encapsulations of the tragic lives behind their commodified remains highlight the urgency of the authors’ project and public and commercial responses to it. The grim thread of mistreatment of the dead guides the reader through the labyrinth of Big Tech, how cynical tech companies and equally-cynical users are complicit in each other’s harms.” – Samuel Andrew Hardy, Cultural Property Criminologist
Amanda Horn, Editor (Cultural studies: Film and Media studies)
Currently Reading:
Heaven Is a Place on Earth by Adrian Shirk
An exploration of American ideas of utopia through the lens of one millennial’s quest to live a more communal life under late-stage capitalism. Told in a series of essays that balance memoir with fieldwork, Heaven Is a Place on Earth is an idiosyncratic study of American utopian experiments–from the Shakers to the radical faerie communes of Short Mountain to the Bronx rebuilding movement–through the lens of one woman’s quest to create a more communal life in a time of unending economic and social precarity.
Recommended Reading:
Open Access! ANIMALS, PLANTS AND AFTERIMAGES: The Art and Science of Representing Extinction
Edited by Valérie Bienvenue and Nicholas Chare
Animals, Plants and Afterimages brings together leading scholars in the humanities and life sciences to explore how extinct species are represented in art and visual culture, with a special emphasis on museums.
Tom Bonnington, Associate Editor (Social Sciences: Anthropology and Sociology)
Currently Reading:
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
“Hot Milk is a powerful novel of the interior life, which Levy creates with a vividness that recalls Virginia Woolf. The sense of Sofia’s life with her mother (or against her mother) is built through an accumulation of detail, a constellation of symbols and narrative bursts. But like a medusa, this novel has a transfixing gaze and a terrible sting that burns long after the final page is turned.” – The Guardian
Recommended Reading:
MILITARY POLITICS: New Perspectives
Edited by Thomas Crosbie
“This volume provides an extremely valuable contribution to the academic and military professional literatures … This volume will quickly become one that individuals turn to in order to inform their thinking and their collegial arguments.” – Alan Okros, Canadian Forces College
Divjot Kaur, Editorial Assistant
Currently Reading:
Mythos by Stephen Fry
No one loves and quarrels, desires and deceives as boldly or brilliantly as Greek gods and goddesses. Mythos captures these extraordinary myths for our modern age – in all their dazzling and deeply human relevance.
Recommended Reading:
MADNESS, BUREAUCRACY AND GENDER IN MUMBAI, INDIA: Narratives from a Psychiatric Hospital
Annika Strauss
“The cases in this book are wonderful, rich and full of complexities … They are the heart of the book and offer insights into diverse lives and resonant themes, especially related to gender, marriage, queer lives and kin dynamics.” – Sarah Pinto, Tufts University
Alina Zihharev, Assistant Marketing Manager (Humanities)
Currently Reading:
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
“A brilliantly executed book by a master craftsman who has chosen a difficult subject: ourselves, seen through a glass, darkly.” – Margaret Atwood
Recommended Reading:
JOHN F. KENNEDY’S HIDDEN DIARY, EUROPE 1937: The Travel Journals of JFK and Kirk LeMoyne Billings
John F. Kennedy and Kirk LeMoyne Billings
Edited with an Introduction by Oliver Lubrich
“Professor Lubrich has written a brilliant Introduction that examines both the background to Kennedy’s travels in 1937 and provides a preview of his subsequent visits to Germany in 1939, 1945, and 1963.” – Philip Cassier, Welt am Sonntag
Emily Harvie, Marketing Executive
Currently Reading:
Children of Men by P.D. James
In a world facing human extinction and ruled by a despot, Theo Faren’s life is turned around by a chance encounter with a young woman and a group of dissenters in this haunting, timeless dystopian tale from P.D. James.
Recommended Reading:
SHAKESPEARE AND SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
Edited by Rowan Mackenzie and Robert Shaughnessy
Shakespeare’s roots in applied and participatory performance practices have been recently explored within a wide variety of educational, theatrical and community settings. Shakespeare and Social Engagement explores these settings, as well as audiences who have largely been excluded from existing accounts of Shakespeare’s performance history. The contributions in this collected volume explore the complicated and vibrant encounters between a canonical cultural force and work that frequently characterizes itself as inclusive and egalitarian.
Rupert Jones Parry, International Sales Manager
Currently Reading:
Yellow Face by R.F. Kuang
Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody. When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song. But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.
Recommended Reading:
Open Access!
VISIONS OF MARRIAGE: Politics and Family on Kinmen, 1920-2020
Hsiao-Chiao Chiu
“The book is a fascinating study of changes in the institution of marriage over time in Kinmen. It demonstrates how marriage can be studied as both driving social changes and impacted by social changes.” – Lynne Yukie Nakano, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
David Crabtree, Web and Sales Associate
Currently Reading:
A Hitch In Time: From Liverpool to Pamplona on a 72,000-mile Road Trip by Andy Smart
Combining memoir, travel writing, and a wealth of unbelievably hilarious anecdotes, this autobiographical extravaganza chronicles the amazing early life of entertainer Andy Smart.
Recommended Reading:
INSIDE PARTY HEADQUARTERS: Organizational Culture and Practice of Rule in the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Rüdiger Bergien
Translated from the German by David Burnett
Spanning a long period of the GDR’s history, from 1946 through 1989, Rüdiger Bergien presents the first study that examines the complexities of the central party’s communist apparatus. Inside Party Headquarters reviews not only the party’s modes power and state interaction, but also the processes of negotiation and disputation preceding formal Politburo decisions, advancing the available detail and discourse surrounding this formative and volatile stretch of German history.
Melissa Gannon, Publishing Operations Director
Currently Reading:
The Living Soil Handbook: The No-Till Grower’s Guide to Ecological Market Gardening by Jesse Frost
“The best way to produce healthier soils, fight climate change, and reduce work all at the same time is to disturb the soil less. The Living Soil Handbook shows growers how to do just that. I highly recommend this practical and beautifully designed book.” – Ben Hartman, author of The Lean Farm and The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables
Recommended Reading:
BRAVING THE STREET: The Anthropology of Homelessness
Irene Glasser and Rae Bridgman
“This slim, useful book … is suitable for students … The fairly tight North American focus allows for great accuracy and detail, and the Canadian material is especially interesting, because Canadian social policy is less well known than that of the United States, and seems far more progressive on homelessness.” – The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Elmira Salykova, Sales Assistant
Currently Reading:
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
This is the story of Sam and Sadie. It’s not a romance, but it is about love. When Sam catches sight of Sadie at a crowded train station one winter morning he is catapulted back to the brief time they spent playing together as children. Their unique spark is instantly reignited. What comes next is a story of friendship and rivalry, fame and creativity, betrayal and tragedy, perfect worlds and imperfect ones. And, ultimately, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.
Recommended Reading:
Open Access!
AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF INTELLECTUAL EXCHANGE: Interactions, Transactions and Ethics in Asia and Beyond
Edited by Jacob Copeman, Nicholas J. Long, Lam Minh Chau, Joanna Cook, and Magnus Marsden
“This is a bold and innovative book about the complex realities of living in a global age … It is both comprehensive in its breadth and precise in its ethnographic detail.” – Arkotong Longkumer, University of Edinburgh
Elizabeth Martinez, Senior Production Editor
Currently Reading:
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
“An appealing piece of work . . . gripping, with plenty of reflection and evocation.” – The Daily Telegraph
Recommended Reading:
WAR STORIES: Reading Plains Indian Biographic Rock Art
James D. Keyser and David A. Kaiser
“Keyser and Kaiser’s book compiles widespread Biographic rock art information into one source in a form that is easily useable. This is an significant reference for the field of rock art research, and it is an important document for educating the greater public that rock art can be deciphered and understood today…” – Mavis Greer, Greer Archaeology
Caroline Kuhtz, Production Editor
Currently Reading:
Food Americana: The Remarkable People and Incredible Stories behind America’s Favorite Dishes by David Page
“Terrific food journalism. Page uncovers the untold backstories of American food. A great read.” – George Stephanopoulos, Good Morning America, This Week and ABC News’ Chief Anchor
Recommended Reading:
LOVE, LOYALTY AND DECEIT: Rosemary Firth, a Life in the Shadow of Two Eminent Men
Hugh Firth and Loulou Brown
How much do we really know about our parents’ lives? What secrets lie in plain sight? This is the true story of hidden love within a small circle of some of the most acclaimed anthropologists of the 20th century.
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