Good Conversation and the Talking Cure: A Review
Amanda Patchin at Front Porch Republic
Books
Strolling Through Spines for Solace and Sobriety
“I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.’” The man with owl-eyed spectacles, The Great Gatsby.
I sit, in a battered, leather chair. It affords me a view of all three ceiling-to-floor bookcases in my study.
The World Turned Upside Down: Tom Holland's "Dominion"
Matthew Rose at First Things
Irritable Mental Gestures, Reconsidered
James Patterson at Law & Liberty
What is a Perfect Piece of Knowledge?
An allegory, of sorts
How to Become a Great Man or Woman
For starters, read about the great men and women
Merely by thinking about certain sorts of people at all . . . we become objectively, measurably, more like them, in how we behave, think and feel. Iain McGilchrist
Ask a college professor this question:
“Did Moses write the Torah or did the Torah
Seeking Transcendentals
Why Did I Order a Two-Volume History of Economic Thought?
Fun, improvement, and volunteerism. That's how we might use current catchwords to answer the primordial question, “How ought we to live our lives?”
That question hit me hard a few summers ago when I opened up a mail
Odysseus’s Dumbest Moments
“Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways…”
So opens The Odyssey (Richard Lattimore Translation).
“The man of many ways” is Odysseus.
In all Greek myth, only Athena and (perhaps) Theseus are more known for wisdom.
His wisdom resume is impressive: he made peace among all the Greek rulers
One Vicious Author
You remember the 1987 movie, Throw Mama from the Train?
I learned last night that it was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 movie, Strangers on a Train, which was in turn based on the novel by the same name.
The author of the novel?
Patricia Highsmith, a nasty
How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today
Peter Jones at Classics for All