As I suspected, the article I reblogged last week inspired me to finally give up on The Black Death.
I purchased this book in 2010 at Borders. It was the first book I bought after being hired there (which led to 4 years of being a Bookseller, which ended up leading to my decision to move to Illinois this summer to eventually pursue my Master’s in Library Science). I guess I had some sort of weird sentimental attachment to it because of all that.
I remember trying to read this book when I was attending university. I remember having it in my very first Women’s Studies class (which ended up becoming my major). I sat down on the first day of that class and opened it up, waiting for class to start. I couldn’t concentrate on the words because I was so excited for class. Then the next few times I opened it I couldn’t concentrate on it either. I gave up about 25 pages in promising I’d come back to it.
Five years later I decided it was time to give it another go. And I made it just over 80 pages this time, but every night I see the book on my bedside table and feel stress about picking it up to read. When I did manage to get myself to read for a bit, my mind would wander and I would find myself paging through the middle bit, trying to figure out when the “interesting” part would start.
I can’t tell you when it gets interesting, but it’s definitely not in the first 80 pages.
It’s a shame, not only because of the sentimentality linked to this particular book, but because I’ve always been fascinated by the Plague, and it was one of the things that got me to study History in the first place (my first major before Women’s Studies). I have other books about the subject (even another book with the same exact name), so I think the time has come to let this one go.
There’s only so much time in your life you can devote to pages about how many pence two guys were fined for letting pigs in other people’s yards.
