As the year comes to an end, may I interest you in my favorite book of 2025? It's @adapalmer.bsky.social's Inventing the Renaissance: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo246135916.html
You think you don't need a 700+ page romp through mostly Renaissance Italy, but you do.
@evacide it was a good use of 5 hours for sure.
@evacide Yeah, Inventing the Renaissance was awesome!
Thanks for this recommendation!!
Sounds like a nice follow-on to Norman Kantor's, Inventing the Middle Ages.
@evacide What did you love about it? (topically, am working on my 2026 reading list “plan” right now… )
@awws Ada Palmer is funny and has a breezy style and her coverage of the events and people of the Renaissance makes the most of her background in writing fiction, but my favorite stuff is the meta-history, digging into the different interpretations that the Renaissance has had over time.
@evacide Never burned through 700+ pages so fast in my life (then immediately wanted to read it again).
@youseeatortoise I just go back and read a chapter picked at random now and it is very soothing.
