Addiction Literature Started with De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium-Eater
Herewith, my small contribution to the genre
Topic
Books
A collection of 330 issues
A Shout-Out to the Public Libraries
Note to reader: This piece isn't as lame as the title implies.
Books Aren't Rational. They're Tactile.
Back in the greasy, disco-lit haze of the 1970s and the dawn of the Reaganite ‘80s, the publishing world churned out a billion paperbacks. They were dirt cheap, some even free, handed out like girlie pamphlets on the Vegas strip.
But there was a hook: they were riddled with ads,
Books Can Shield You From Cults
Role models are great. We all oughtta have a few.
But don’t underestimate the anti-role models. These cautionary wraiths of consequence are more often the true educators in this carnival of folly called “modernity,” whispering not “be like me” but “For God’s sake, be anything but.”
That lean
Smith-Ruiu, On Drugs
"Human beings are the animals that have to do things they don't actually have to do. The name we use to describe these things is culture."
Twenty 20th-Century Books for Young Autodidacts
(Actually, there are 33, if you count the honorable mentions)
Joseph Epstein is arguably the best essayist alive. He’s urbane, funny, self-deprecating. He’s a fine stylist, and he’s remarkably well-read.
I remember William F. Buckley marveling at Epstein’s erudition and wondering how Epstein could have so
Are You Trapped in the World of Total Work?
Josef Pieper (with a G.K. Chesterton kicker) teaches us the importance of leisure
It’s commonplace knowledge that many of our best ideas hit us in the middle of the night or in our first waking moments. While we are completely at rest, not obsessed with ourselves or our
The Silence of St. Thomas, by Josef Pieper
A Micro-Review/Essay
14 Funny Passages from David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster
which means that some staff photographer came in and popped a flash in the face of a traumatized kid at prayer.
Six Maniacal Observations from G.K. Chesterton
They'll help make sure you don't think like a maniac