Reading
Thank Samuel Johnson for the Jane Austen Revival
Without his “Dictionary,” you probably wouldn't be able to make sense of “Sense and Sensibility”
Read on the Run
For years, I've wanted to start the "On-the-Run Reader." It would be a Reader's Digest-type publication, but weightier and lighter. The subject matter would be more serious than RD, but the length of the "articles" (more like blurbs, quotes, summaries, and essays)
Substack Frustrates Me
Substack frustrates me like only a lover can get frustrated with his beloved.
It Suffocates. I get frustrated when I can't breathe. Substack frustrates me. It buries me with unknown authors who I want to read, but I can't possibly get to all of them.
Access
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
"Introducing a Person Who Needs No Introduction . . ."
My inadvertent love affair with book introductions. Plus a dozen introduction recommendations.
A Magisterial Appreciation for a Magisterial Effort: Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan
Nathan Payne at The Lamp
Frantically Trying to Fit in All the Spiritual Stuff?
I once told a spiritual adviser that I really liked a'Kempis' The Imitation of Christ. He shook his head a bit and said he preferred to read Thomas Aquinas. He said he found the profound truths of, say, the Summa Theologica more moving spiritually than devotional works.
Jeremy Clarke: A Great Reader
It's arguably the most popular column in Britain's oldest newspaper.
The "Low Life" column of The Spectator has entertained readers since 1975, when Jeffrey Bernard provided readers with, to quote Johnathan Meades, "a suicide note in weekly installments."
After Bernard's
This is Your Brain on Books
Elyse Graham at Public Books