A Shout-Out to the Public Libraries
Note to reader: This piece isn't as lame as the title implies.
Topic
Reading
A collection of 24 issues
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
Albert Jay Nock, the Remnant, and Our Need to Read
Picture a man, tattered coat flapping, rummaging through a dumpster in an alley. You wince, don’t you? That flicker of disgust ripples through your gut.
But hold on. Don’t judge him too harshly. He’s not much different from a stray dog, sniffing for scraps.
That’s not
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
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
The Reading Paradox
The Hemispheres Create Paradoxes. One is Brewing Right Now: We're Reading More Than Ever But Reading Reading Less Than Ever
Reading: Kicking Against the Left Hemisphere's Hegemony
Few things are more degrading than being a child of the modern age.
“Prison wife” comes closest.
It ain’t our fault we were born into this asphalt dystopia of algorithms and plastic. But we can claw our way out. We can break the chains. The trick is knowing what
Read Your Way Out of Left-Hemisphere Hegemony
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)