Why do people steal documents in order to add them to their private collections? Several years ago, I was doing research at the Archivo Municipal de Matamoros. The room is dungeon-like, deep in the bowels of Casa Mata, a 200 year-old fort. The chairs are hard wood, the table worn oak, polished from years […]
Footnotes are the bane of an academic’s existence but writing any good book requires research. For the last twenty-five years, I have crouched like a Gringot’s gnome over ancient archives, leafing through four-inch thick tomes, or hauling out Hollinger boxes full of hundred year-old dusty manuscripts. I emerged with hands blackened by equally old dirt […]
I’ve just finished listening to Erik Larson’s excellent book “Isaac’s Storm” on Audible. (For which, many thanks to the young lady at the Huntsville, TX Radio Shack who convinced me not to get another CD player but to go Audible). I’ve been meaning to read it for years. Mine is not a review, but a […]