After reading more of The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research, I have had my ideas about the use of "working bibliographies" reinforced. My current task is to create a complete bibliography of the many articles I have downloaded, or printed out. Currently, this work covers articles from the journal Social Studies of Science.
Three large piles of papers to read have built up, covering pretty much all the subjects that form part of my MSc - interpreted extremely widely. By the end of this year, the bibliography should be complete and I should be moving on to more writing-based work, as I create notes and essay plans.
One new book I came across today was Blumenberg's The Genesis of the Copernican World. The review I read of this pointed out that it was a huge and complex book, but it does try to tackle the question of what was required for Copernicus to think as he did and to have caused others to think likewise in the future. This sort of question is one that I suspect is very tricky to get any kind of answer to, but the review suggested that Blumenberg's attempt was very worthy. I was briefly tempted by this, but don't have time to study a book as big as this (800 pages) and also wasn't keen to pay £35 for it. But they do have a copy at the Radcliffe Science Library which I hope to have a good look at tomorrow.
My "light" reading for the Christmas period is going to be Rowland's Bruno biography. This is a moderately scholarly work, with a decent enough bibliography. But it is aimed at the general public, offering perhaps a certain level of seriousness over and above Michael White's The Pope and the Heretic - which most definitely isn't a scholarly read.
Emma and I spent much of the evening next door baby sitting Peta for John and Justine who had to go to hospital to get John's head seen to - he had hit it on a cupboard and had a deep gash. Peta slept through the entire time we were there. Emma watched an episode of Doctor Who which quite frightened her and she now wants me to download series two to four.
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