The Week in Review
Murder the books or save the books? (Essay)
Topic
Reading
A collection of 30 issues
Soho in the Eighties
I'm 5% of the way through this book and I'm not sure what I'm reading, but I'm pretty sure it's an abject waste of time and delightful. (Mini-essay)
On Whipping It Out
While riding crowded subways in Central Europe last fall, I could immediately discern the handful of the Remnant from the hoard of the Reprobate. I'd say the ratio was 50:1. The Remnant One would be reading a book. The 50? All captured by their phones. (Essay)
Addiction Literature Started with De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium-Eater
Herewith, my small contribution to the genre
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
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
The OG of Reading Apps
"Oprah, can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer? Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up--some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal." Harper Lee to Oprah Winfrey
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