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A collection of 249 issues

Re: Evelyn Waugh

When someone called his attention to a typographical error in one of his books, he replied that one cannot get any decent proofreading now “that they no longer defrock priests for sodomy.”******* While serving in the British army in Yugoslavia during World War II, he spread the rumor that Marshal

Carting Away Hobbits

I've started to re-read The Lord of the Rings. While listening to Brad Birzer's three-part interview on the National Review “Great Books” podcast, I realized that I had forgotten a lot of things about the books. More troubling, I had forgotten a lot of the charming

The Real Transylvania

From the One Thing File “The One Thing File” is a practice I learned from Econtalk. It's the practice of writing just one thing (okay, maybe more than one) that I learn from a book, essay, documentary, podcast, whatever. For younger TDE readers, think of it as Reddit&

Diagnosing James Martin Way Ahead of Time

Okay, I'm no seer, but I was pleased with myself when I found these notes from 2009 that I wrote after reading James Martin's My Life with the Saints: "I wasn't bowled over by the book, and Fr. Martin is, I fear, a

Philip Rivers Hangs with Eric Scheske

Thanks to Archangel Radio for having me on their morning show. The video is below. The interview starts at 5:40. Archangel Radio is also the home of the St. Michael's Cardinals football team, which is where Philip Rivers is the new coach. That, like, makes Philip Rivers

Looking for a Book Curator?

If you hadn't noticed, there are tons of books out there. It can be hard to find new stuff that's also "reliable" (whatever that means). I highly recommend Eighth Day Books out of Wichita, Kansas. They're devoutly Greek Orthodox and "reliable&

Who is This Ennui Guy Anyway?

Any why is he such a dick? Reinhard Kuhn (the author of The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature) defined ennui as “the state of emptiness that the soul feels when it is deprived of interest in action, life, and the world (be it this world or another), a

Dostoyevsky's Mock Execution

In 1849, political radicals were taken out of their jail to be executed. They were lined up in front of the firing squad. Right before the guns were fired, a courier galloped up with an imperial decree, commuting the death sentence to a term in prison camp. The whole thing

Orwell Anniversary, of Sorts

"A Farthing Newspaper," the very first of George Orwell's articles to appear in England, was published on December 29, 1928, in G.K.'s Weekly. [Michael Shelden, Orwell, London, 1991, p. 127]

From Johnson's Dictionary: Neckweed, Siren, Pudder

Neckweed: Hemp. To pudder: to perplex, to disturb, to confound. Couple-beggar: One that makes it his business to marry beggars to each other. Siren: a mischievous enticer.