What I've been reading: Books No. 9-10

Book No. 9 was "The Decameron" by Giovanni Boccaccio. This book, published c. 1351, is the earliest existent novel-length book in the "vulgar" Italian, rather than being written in Latin. Boccaccio's book concerns 7 young women and 3 young men who leave the city to escape the horrors of the Black Plague and retire to a country house, where they tell stories every afternoon. Each person tells one story per day over 10 days, so the book is made up of 100 short stories set in the wrap-around story. I think this book is very interesting from a cultural artifact viewpoint and because of the structure. Apparently this book was the inspiration for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and it has a similar structure, being a collection of stories connected by a wraparound story. In "The Decameron," you find out a lot about the prevailing attitudes toward men and women, marriage, the clergy, history & politics, other ethnic groups and nationalities, etc. However, as a modern reader, some of the stories are hard going. Women are treated like chattel throughout, and there's a lot of wife-beating and raping, though they usually call it "ravishing" or some other euphemism. That being said, many of them are very funny and silly. I think it was worth reading, but it's not one of those "classics" that I'm going to want to read over and over again.

Book No. 10 was "March: Book II", written by John Lewis and  and Andrew Aydin, illustrations by Nate Powell. I read volume one last year and enjoyed it but had other things on my "to read" list so just finally got around to volume 2 now. Volume 2 picks up where Volume 1 left off in the civil rights struggle. Book 2 moves from the focus on integrating lunch counters to integrating the bus system and movie theaters. I knew a lot of the history in here, but there were some incidents I hadn't known about, like assistant attorney general John Seigenthaler being clubbed  by a crowd while trying to help a black woman who was one of the Freedom Riders being attacked by a mob,  or the Birmingham Children's Crusade. Also, the graphic novels sort of help put the incidents in context, help show how the "Big 6" of the civil rights movement met each other, where they agreed and disagreed on strategy, etc. I'm looking forward to getting to the third and final volume of the series soon.

( The other books I've read so far this year: )