I have spent the last four days camping out in the Rare Book Room. I've taken ten-minute lunches. I'm getting to know the call numbers of certain areas by heart. And yesterday, three separate people asked if I worked in the library.
The cause of all this mayhem, you ask? A final paper for my Bible class about the 17th century parashiot books from Kai-feng, the oldest Jewish community in China. HUC has over 50 of these small books written in a really unique script, and I wanted to write about them. In my research, I learned that the Jews were said to have come from Persia, but that their liturgy was from Yemen. So I decided to tackle the issue from the point of the view of the script itself - think about history through fonts. So I compared the scripts in a 17th century Persian and then a 17th century Yemenite manuscript to the ones from China. It was really cool! (Much more interesting than this blurb sounds, really.)
Oh yes, and as a treat to myself today, I totally ignored the next paper on my docket and finished The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran, sequel to Nefertiti. I liked it even better than the first one! There's nothing like a historical fiction/political intrigue/romance novel to take your mind off of serifs.
7 comments:
Honey, you look fabulous! How I miss you.
Mom
How I love to open up your blog and see you smiling back at me. I do it several times a day.
Love you bunches,
Mom
Aww, thanks Mom!
and how I love to open your blog and see books! :-)
Your project sounds really great!
Haha Sheryl, I knew you'd appreciate the project! It turned out really well in the end. I went through so many manuscripts I had 6 appendices. :)
now I see your haircut; you look fantastic. And your surroundings!
Books, books everywhere....makes my mouth water!!!
Savta
Michal - you look like such a natural in the library - are you sure we can't convert you to the cause?
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