Current Reads in Progress

 Since I no longer have a dedicated team of rabid Serbian Reading Squirrels to read 99% of my books for me (or more like I currently have an administrative/educational job that requires 10+ hours of my time many days of the week, not to mention I’m currently rehabbing a cervical disc injury), my reading time has been slower but mostly steady.  I haven’t finished many books since February, but I’m operating more on a dip and taste approach where I might spend 15 minutes one night on a particular book/language and then an hour plus on another, comparing the originals to the translations as I either refresh or learn new classical languages.

So with that out of the way, here’s what I’ve completed since March and what I’m currently reading:

3.  Marco Girolamo Vida, Christiad (I Tatti Renaissance Library, Latin/English)

4.  Homer, The Iliad Books I-XII (Loeb Classical Library, Greek/English)

In progress:

Homer, The Iliad Books XIII-XXIV (Loeb Classical Library, Greek/English) - partway through Book XIII

St. Augustine, City of God Books I-III (Loeb Classical Library, Latin/English) - partway through Book I

Vishnu-sharman, Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom (Clay Sanskrit Library, Sanskrit(transliterated)/English - partway through the first section

Soma-deva, The Ocean of the Rivers of Story (Clay Sanskrit Library, Sanskrit(transliterated)/English) - finished the introduction

Valmíki, Ramáyana Book One:  Boyhood (Clay Sanskrit Library, Sanskrit(transliterated)/English) - partway through section one

Statius, Thebaid Books I-VII (Loeb Classical Library, Latin/English) - partway through Book III

Various, One Hundred Latin Hymns:  Ambrose to Aquinas (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, Latin/English) - almost complete with introduction

Coulter H. George, How Dead Languages Work - currently on Ch. 2, dealing with Attic Greek

‘Any Al-Qudat, The Essence of Reality (Library of Arabic Literature, Arabic/English) - beginning Ch. 1

Ferdowsi, Shahnameh:  The Epic of the Persian Kings (English only graphic novel adaptation) - a few pages in

Library of Arabic Literature

 Continuing my list of various supranational bilingual editions of “classic” literature, below are the volumes in the Arabic-English Library of Arabic Literature, published by New York University Press.  Begun in 2012, there are at this time a little over 50 volumes in print.  Several of these volumes contain literary works that exist at the interstices of several literary sub-genres and may be of interest to those (such as myself) who enjoy imaginative literature mixed with poetry, philosophical, and religious motifs.

1.  Geert Jan van Gelder (ed.), Classical Arabic Literature:  A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology

2.  Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi’i (trans. Joseph E. Lowry), The Epistle on Legal Theory

3.  al-Qāḍī al-Quḍāʿī (trans. Tahera Qutbuddin), A Treasury of Virtues:  Sayings, Sermons, and Teachings of ‘Ali, with the One Hundred Proverbs attributed to al-Jahiz

4.  Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (trans. Geert Jan van Gelder and Gregor Schoeler), The Epistle of Forgiveness vol. I:  A Vision of Heaven and Hell

5.  Ibn al-Jawzī (trans.  Michael Cooperson), Virtues of the Imam Ahmad ibn Ḥanbal Vol. I

6.  Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq (trans. Humphrey Davies), Leg Over Leg Vol. I

7.  Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq (trans. Humphrey Davies), Leg Over Leg Vol. II

8.  Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (trans. Geert Jan van Gelder and Gregor Schoeler), The Epistle of Forgiveness vol. II: Hypocrites, Heretics, and Other Sinners

9.  ʿĀʾishah al-Bāʿūniyyah (trans. Th. Emil Homerin), The Principles of Sufism

10. Maʿmar ibn Rāshid (trans. Sean W. Anthony), The  Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muḥammad

11. Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq (trans. Humphrey Davies), Leg Over Leg Vol. III

12. Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq (trans. Humphrey Davies), Leg Over Leg Vol. IV

13. Abū Zayd al-Sīrāfī and Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān (trans. Tim Mackintosh-Smith and James E. Montgomery), Two Arabic Travel Books:  Accounts of China and India and Mission to the Volga

14. Ibn al-Jawzī (trans.  Michael Cooperson), Virtues of the Imam Ahmad ibn Ḥanbal Vol. II

15. al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (trans. Devin Stewart), Disagreements of the Jurists:  A Manual of Islamic Legal Theory)

16. Ibn al-Sāʿī (trans. Shawkat M. Toorawa), Consorts of the Caliph:  Women and the Court of Baghdad

17. Muḥammad al-Muwayliḥī (trans. Roger Allen),  What ʿĪsā ibn Hishām Told Us:  or, A Period of Time, Vol. I

18. Muḥammad al-Muwayliḥī (trans. Roger Allen),  What ʿĪsā ibn Hishām Told Us:  or, A Period of Time, Vol. II

19. Abū Bakr al-Ṣūlī (trans. Beatrice Greundler),  The Life and Times of Abū Tammām

20. ʿUthmān ibn Ibrāhīm al-Nābulusī (trans. Luke Yarbrough), The Sword of Ambition:  Bureaucratic Rivalry in Medieval Egypt

21. Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī (trans. Humphrey Davies), Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded, Vol. I

22. Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī (trans. Humphrey Davies), Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded, Vol. II

23. Bruce Fudge (ed. & trans.), A Hundred and One Nights

24. Muḥammad ibn Maḥfūẓ al-Sanhūrī (trans. Humphrey Davies), Risible Rhymes

25. al-Qāḍī al-Quḍāʿī (trans. Tahera Qutbuddin), Light in the Heavens:  Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad

26. Ibn Qutaybah (trans. Sarah Bowen Savant), The Excellence of the Arabs

27. Charles Perry (ed. & trans.), Scents and Flavors:  A Syrian Cookbook

28. Ḥmēdān al-Shwēʿir (trans. & ed. Marcel Kurpershoek), Arabian Satire:  Poetry from 18th-century Najd

29. Muḥammad al-Tūnisī (trans. Humphrey Davies), In Darfur:  An Account of the Sultanate and Its Peoples, Vol. I

30. Muḥammad al-Tūnisī (trans. Humphrey Davies), In Darfur:  An Account of the Sultanate and Its Peoples, Vol. II

31. ʿAbdallāh ibn Sbayyil (trans. Marcel Kurpershoek), Arabian Romantic:  Poems on Bedouin Life and Love

32. ʿAntarah ibn Shaddād (trans. James E. Montgomery), War Songs

33. al-Muḥassin ibn ʿAlī al-Tanūkhī (trans. & ed. Julia Bray), Stories of Piety and Prayer:  Deliverance Follows Adversity

34. Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī and Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh (trans. Sophia Vasalou & James E. Montgomery), The Philosopher Responds:  An Intellectual Correspondence from the 10th Century, vol. I

35. Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī and Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh (trans. Sophia Vasalou & James E. Montgomery), The Philosopher Responds:  An Intellectual Correspondence from the 10th Century, vol. II

36. al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī (trans. & ed. Justin Stearns),  The Discourses:  Reflections on History, Sufism, Theology, and Literature, vol. I

37. Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (trans. Mario Kozah), The Yoga Statues of  Patañjali

38. Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Jawbarī (trans. Humphrey Davies), The Book of Charlatans

39. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī (trans. Tim Mackintosh-Smith), A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years

40. Ḥannā Diyāb (trans. Elias Muhanna), The Book of Travels, vol. I

41. Ḥannā Diyāb (trans. Elias Muhanna), The Book of Travels, vol. II

42. Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (trans. Michael Fishbein and James E. Montgomery), Kalīlah and Dimnah:  Fables of Virtue and Vice

43. ʿAyn al-Quḍāt (ed. and trans. Mohammed Rustom), The Essence of Reality:  A Defense of Philosophical Sufism 

44. al-Māyidī ibn Ẓāhir (trans. Marcel Kurpershoek), Love, Death, Fame:  Poetry and Lore from the Emirati Oral Tradition

45. Ibn Khaldūn (trans. Carolyn Baugh), The Requirements of the Sufi Path:  A Defense of the Mystical Tradition 

46. Ibn Buṭlān (trans. & ed. Philip F. Kennedy and Jeremy Farrell), The Doctors’ Dinner Party 

47. James E. Montgomery (trans. &ed.), Fate the Hunter: Early Arabic Hunting Poems

48. al-Shābushtī (trans. & ed. Hilary Kilpatrick), The Book of Monasteries

49. Ibn al-Mu'tazz (trans. James M. Montgomery), In Deadly Embrace: Arabic Hunting Poems

50. ʿAfīf al-Dīn al-Tilimsānī (trans. Yousef Casewit), The Divine Names: A Mystical Theology of the Names of God in the Qu'ran