"Introducing a Person Who Needs No Introduction . . ."
My inadvertent love affair with book introductions. Plus a dozen introduction recommendations.
Reading
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.
This is Your Brain on Books
Elyse Graham at Public Books
Picture Books for Adults
This is a delightful piece from Public Books. I especially liked this observation about how medieval monks would read:
This form of reading, de Hamel says, is one reason why so many medieval manuscripts have richly decorated pages. The decorations “helped impress a page visually in the reader’s memory,
How to Re-Read
Joseph Epstein at The Lamp
What Was Literary Fiction?
Dan Sinykin at The Nation
In Defense of Voracious Reading
Philip Bunn at Law & Liberty
How I Read Now
Read Like an Easy Rider
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.