BOOK REVIEWS & RECOMENDATIONS
I love books. I have an extensive library and read voraciously. Years ago I started reviewing books for Amazon. I stopped doing that because I realized I was feeding a machine that was undermining local booksellers and compromising a way of life. My practice today is to almost exclusively buy books through local bookstores. If I read a review of a book I like or someone recommends something interesting, I email the title to the owner of my local book shop, Jessica's Book Nook, and he orders it for me. I pay a little more for a book - but believe me it is worth it.
The goal of this section is to direct people interested in Shelley and his circle to books of interest. I will try to review as many of them as I can, but in other instances I may simply point you to books of outstanding importance that fall into the category of essential reading.
Elizabeth Rawson - "Cicero; A Portrait"
I wish I could find a simple way to convince people to read about one of my heroes, Marcus Tullius Cicero. Today he seems so remote. However a very great deal of our modern world (our laws, our language our philosophy) is founded upon his thinking. And for those of you interested in Shelley, he is actually extremely important. Shelley was very familiar with his writings and said of him, "Cicero is, in my estimation, one of the most admirable characters in the world." Much of the underpinning for Shelley's skepticism is derived from his reading of Cicero; whose philosophical dialogues are cited in his letters as a "favourite". The "Tuscan Disputations" were an extremely important source for aspects of "Prometheus Unbound". If you want to know Shelley, you must understand Cicero.