Mao Shan in T'ang Times by Edward Schaffer.

To celebrate finishing my essays on Friday night I read Mao Shan in T'ang Times by Edward Schaffer. Schaffer has an amazing style, you feel like your reading a Dunsany novel rather than a history book. He uses the Tang poets as his primary sources for a lot of his work, and therefore has a very poetic style. Rather than an exact social history, you get a social history that is very much focused on the elite and literate culture.

While writing my essay on Empress Wu I got fascinated by the Taoist mountain cults of the Tang. I think I shall have to include them in my dissertation. Unfortunately there were only a very few references to women in this book. It seemed that for Mao Shan most of the worshipers, and practitioners were men. There was only one reference to a woman priestess. The book looks at the physical landscape of the mountain, as well as it's social and spiritual nature. It's barely a hundred pages long but very enjoyable, and easy to read in one go.

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Some pictures from Postman's Park on the way to yesterday's bibliogoth.



( Three more pictures with me in them )

The meeting was good, afterwards had tasty food with bencurthoys on the way to the Dev, chatted a bit with folks, but due to the lack of seating decided to go bar scouting for the Salon.

nimstar we have found a pub! Nice red dim place, with comfy couches by Chalk Farm tube, called Monkey Chews (I think, it was definitly monkey something). Now we just need to figure out a Sunday afternoon that works for everyone. Let me know when would work for you and your friends!