ASU Book Group: 'At Home With the Aztecs: An Archaeologist Uncovers Their Daily Life' by Michael Smith
The January 2017 reading selection of the ASU Book Group is "At Home With the Aztecs: An Archaeologist Uncovers Their Daily Life" by Michael Smith, professor of anthropology in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU and director of the ASU Teotihuacan Laboratory in Mexico City. The book group is open to all in the ASU community and meets monthly from noon–1 p.m. in the Piper Writers House on ASU's Tempe campus. Authors are generally present.
Smith begins his new book by discussing what the Aztecs weren't: bloodmad maniacs compulsively slicing off heads or miserable faceless slaves dying on vast construction projects. Ordinary Aztecs were well-to-do. They had nice things: bronze bells and needles, crystal jewelry, musical instruments. Noble households had nice things, too; they just had more of them. And everyone wanted the latest styles from Tenochtitlan, Smith says. The book explores three stories simultaneously: the title subject; what it's like working on a dig in Mexico; and his experiences raising two daughters while uncovering ancient towns.
The book is available from amazon.com.
Remaining ASU Book Group meetings and selections for 2016-2017 include Feb. 22 (Tara Ison: "Ball"); Mar. 29 (Martin Beck Matuštík: "Out of Silence: Repair across Generations"); and Apr. 26 (Melissa Pritchard: "A Solemn Pleasure: To Imagine, Witness, and Write"). Additional selections TBD.
The ASU Book Group is sponsored as a community outreach initiative by the Department of English and organized in partnership with the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing.