On reading (3 of 4): Recent accomplishments.

A few years ago I was really into story collections, and so I got a big fat Penguin edition of Boccaccio's Decameron and I read it over the course of like a year or so, if I remember correctly.

After that I went on to Chaucer, but Canterbury Tales can suck ass sometimes, so that book is sitting like half read on my dresser, and a few times since I set it down I've tried to jumpstart my engagement with it, to no luck.

Then, back when Covid hit in March, I realized that Canterbury Tales wasn't working for me, so I pulled out my old copy of Arabian Nights, since I'd read bits of it for a class I'd taught once, and I really wanted to read the whole thing.

And, I read it.

I then had a great hunger to read the Divine Comedy, so I read a bit about standard translations and I went out and bought a used copy online and I had it shipped to me, and I've now finished that, along with a copy of the Vita Nuova that was included in the volume.

I'm currently reading Mrs. Dalloway as a palate cleanser, but I'm wondering what to read next, then, in the spirit of what I've been doing?

I was thinking Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel or whatever it's called.

I should also get back to Canterbury Tales and finish that at some point.

I also started cracking open my academic study bible back in the lead-up to the election, since it's transporting to read the prophets, and I've been keeping that up, since it's also a dream of mine to read the entire bible...

I'm now like almost entirely done with the prophets, and then I'll go on to like Ezra/Nehemiah and the deuterocanonical stuff before doubling back to the Psalms etc. and then Genesis through like Kings.

I've read the entire New Testament in Greek and several entire books in Hebrew, as well as huge chunks of the Hebrew Bible in translation, but it will have been nice to have read the whole darn thing, even in translation. I'm getting so much out of it reading it now, knowing what I do now about biblical literature and the religious traditions that use the texts.