Having gone to a very interesting seminar this afternoon, given by Stephen Knight, about Myrddin/Merlin – which I will blog about maybe tomorrow, when I feel more human – I have renewed my determination to read more academic books. I was good at this for a few years out of uni, but I have got slack recently – unsurprisingly – and while my brain hasn’t quite turned to moosh (I hope), it’s getting a bit sluggish. So I aiming to read, realistically, maybe 10 academic books a year. Some of those will be popular-ish histories, because I do so love them; some will be more academic, I hope – I plan to re-read many of my uni course readers, at least the history ones that are relevant to school and the English ones that I am interested in; I also made good inroads on this resolution by beginning Greenblatt’s Shakespearean Negotiations, this evening: it’s been on my shelf for a few years now, and I have never got past the intro. It has the best opening line ever – way better than Pride and Prejudice: “I began with the desire to speak with the dead.” And some of my 10 will also, I have vowed, include education books. Just recently I have realised that I don’t put quite the effort and love into my vocation as perhaps I ought. I am undertaking some steps throughs school to improve that, but realise that I need to spend some external time on it too, sad as that might be.

Anyway. Expect, at random intervals, posts about these academic texts. And feel free to ignore them at will.