Finished 12 June, 2026. Written by an anonymous ascetic in the 14th century, the Cloud of Unknowing is the earliest known work of mystic contemplation written in English (though not modern). Obviously coming from a time and place in which Christianity was not only dominant, but ubiquitous, it not only provides an interesting glimpse into the worldview of late-medieval working Christian mystics, but also a lot of information on meditation and mystic contemplation that would not be out of place in a modern book on the same topics. I think the worth of books like these come not in the specific religion they use as their foundational framework, but rather from the skills and tools they advocate for. Less than 150 pages if you exclude the Book of Privy Council, and I think definitely worth a read.

Finished 10 June, 2026. Wow this book is so gorgeous but it made me so emotional...it reminds me of home, it reminds me of why I do the things I do and love the things I love, it reminds me of my place on this earth and my connection to physical space and the passage of time. I recieved it as a gift from a family friend for winter holidays a year or two ago, and never got around to opening it until now. Maybe I need to stop doing that.

Finished 7 June, 2026. I haven't read the Iliad since high school, and after prowling around Greece a year ago returning to the poem I discovered it transformed. Perhaps it was the theatre of memory, of physical place, or perhaps it was the glory of Wilson's translation. This book is brutal; the descriptions of violence actually made me grimace, and the horror of the battlefield in all its frantic, noisy, bloody, terrible power was electric to read (even where I usually get bored by "dots-on-maps" battle sagas). I read this right on the hills of finishing Herbert Mason's translation of the Gilgamesh, and I was struck by how similar these stories are in their themes of male grief and homoerotic love. Where the Gilgamesh is tender and tragic, agonizingly painful, the Iliad is violent, its raging, its the kind of sadness that makes you want to rip your hair out. And yet, I think, the most powerful statement of the poem is how much of it is dedicated to the countless horrible deaths suffered at the hands of an ultimately petty and useless conflict.