foomp

[substitute]

The Angeles National Forest is on fire, and it makes the city look like someone whacked Burbank with a 50 kiloton groundburst. Very sobering sight.

On my side of town, or at least where I work, I'm slaving away at various small tasks, some of which actually need doing. It's hard to frame out the day sometimes so that it all makes sense when I'm writing some little perl program, and diagnosing some minor problem, and pricing some object, and none of it looks really big but I somehow have to do all of it. It's preferable to huge crises, though.

I'm reading a book right now called The Supper of the Lamb. It's a wonderfully mad cookbook written by a cantankerous Episcopalian priest. Highly recommended for anyone who likes reading about food, especially prejudices about food. It helps that I share most of his prejudices.

Can anyone recommend a good general history of the Indian subcontinent, or several books even? I want to begin educating myself about the history of the region but the books I see at bookstores are at the Golden Book for Kids level.

Comments

[fimmtiu.livejournal.com]

One I read recently that I quite enjoyed was Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India, by Lawrence James. It's written by a scholar of the British imperial period, so you've got to take some of the pro-British apologia with a grain of salt, but it's a really good history of India from a Western perspective from about 1750 to 1960.

[awrex.livejournal.com]

tried going down to little india??

there off pioneer near cerritos mall