OUP‘s Very Short Introductions were a great starting place, but were, naturally enough, somewhat uneven and limited. Fortunately this came out exactly when I needed it (insert here the expression about pupils, teachers, and timeliness 😊). Thus do I begin my winter break with Professor Grayling‘s 600 page History. 📚🎉📚🎉📚🎉
so-soI was a bit disappointed in this, but I may not be the audience for it—there was nothing in this rendition of RN that I did not already know from biographies. The strongest characters are female ones, though I‘m not sure what the story gains by giving PN a fictional lover. Mallon doesn‘t offer or portray any insight into RN—why he did what he did or what any of it meant. Shouldn‘t a fictional take on an historical event do that? ⭐️⭐️ only, alas.
Three hours in to this and It is some dense listening, but Fraser is detailed, sharp, and not skipping over the injustices and plain wrongs committed by the Pilgrims against the people who already lived here. And as I recently discovered that I‘m descended from William Brewster, is is a very weird but also enlightening read. I‘ll probably pick up a used physical copy eventually.
pickAs I said on Goodreads, don‘t be put off by reviewers who complain that this book “jumps around.” Craig isn‘t writing some high level Wiki, he‘s demonstrating connections between disparate topics and teaching the reader how to navigate an enormous, complex subject in very few pages. 💡💡💡💡💡(Image is from the book‘s own last page.
Also, have I mentioned how much I love The Good Place? 😍😍😍
Not a comparison I ever would have expected. Can there be a philosopher with a sense of humor? ❤️📚💚📚💙📚
pick“. . . a good sentence, like a good life, needs a good death.”
While this is definitely a pick, the first half of the book is superior to the second. Moran gets so caught up in what seem to me strained metaphors and side trips that he begins to sound almost defensive. Still, the approach in the first half is enlightening and will aid the writer in the quest. 💡💡💡💡and a half.
Progress is slow bc this is legit hardcore philosophy: I‘m making notes and looking up definitions. But having seen The Good Place is definitely a boost, providing dynamic, colorful examples to the abstractions that constitute philosophy. 📺💙📚📺💚📚📺❤️📚💡💡💡
I am nearly certain this is the first time a television sitcom has propelled me to a work of philosophy—wish me luck 😍📚❤️😍📚💚😍📚💙
Go forth, writers, and melt brains 📚💚📚❤️📚💙
I‘ve been looking for a discussion of my favorite grammatical usage—the subjunctive mood—and I‘ve found it! 📚❤️📚💚📚💙
“Verbs are for painting life both as we are forced to live it and as it might be lived” (81).
so-soI‘m def in the minority here, I know, but it just goes on for sooo long. It‘s certainly better than the movie.
“Life is a noun but it can only be lived as a verb” (66).
This book is making me so happy—even at five o‘clock in the morning. 📚❤️📚💚📚💙
I‘m getting lots of 💡from this so far (page 31). Have a ways to go before I decide how it stacks up with Stanley Fish‘s superb How to Write a Sentence, though. 📚💙
If you can‘t sleep—read! (And write 😍)
“I want [this book] not to school but to hearten, embolden and galvanize the reader—who is almost always, in some way, a writer” (4).
📚❤️💡📚💚💡📚💙💡
I‘m not really a fan of #Halloween but Stephen King came up in Mass Comm class the other day so I decided perhaps it was time to get over the film version (😱😱😱) and read the book. So far, it‘s better than I expected (and I can see why SK disliked the movie). We‘ll see if he can stick the ending, tho . . . 😬
“. . . McCarthy stirred up partisan hatred, calling the New and Fair Deal era ‘twenty years of treason.‘ Ike disapproved of this language . . . “
Same as it ever was . . . Alas. 📚💡📚💡📚💡
“Although [Eisenhower] could be extremely sensitive to attacks from reporters, he never looked at them as the enemy” (70).
Just a reminder. 📚❤️📚💙📚
Just a portrait 📚💙📚❤️📚📚💙📚❤️📚💚 😍
pickPut down whatever else you‘re reading and read this instead. We are in a legit crisis and the only way to respond is to know what the options are. Sunstein does a near perfect job of explaining what impeachment is and how it works and why it mattered so much to the Framers when they were wrangling about the Constitution. This is accessible, enlightening, and, curiously, inspiring. Please read it. 📚🇺🇸💡📚🇺🇸💡📚🇺🇸💡📚🇺🇸💡📚🇺🇸💡
Sunstein is explaining the Nixon case here, but the parallels to our current situation are mounting. 📚🇺🇸📚🇺🇸📚
George Mason had some prescient ideas about using impeachment. 📚🇺🇸📚🇺🇸📚
pickIf the very sight of the word “epistemology” makes you quiver, give this terrific entry in the VSI series a go. You‘ll come away steady as a rock—or not 😍😍😍📚❤️📚💚📚💙📚❤️📚💚📚💙
My road trip read for fall break weekend. So far, I can‘t say I‘m wildly impressed. Most of what she says about language isn‘t much different than slang has always been. Hoping the author digs in a bit more when she gets to internet-specific topics like memes and emojis.
pickJust finished the audio of this title and I‘ll definitely be listening again. Gladwell is experimenting with the form—he includes audio clips of interviews and sources—hybridizing book and podcast and it works. More importantly, his examples will encourage you to re-examine your own interactions with strangers, particularly if the parties are not equal in power. Read or listen patiently. Wait until you get to the end. 💡📚💡📚💡📚💡📚💡
So the only way I can deal with the searing anxiety is by trying to understand and if Sunstein can deliver inspiration to boot? I‘m there. I‘d rather have had hard copy but I live in a town without a bookstore and Amazon is sold out ?! of them. So, Kindle it is.
pickBeing a history of the two (A. Johnson and B. Clinton) and a half (Nixon) times we got to impeachment, This collection of essays makes for a digestible appetizer for more solid fare. Impeachment seems to be a complicated and malleable concept with enormously important repercussions. One has to be glad Pelosi was so cautious. 💡💡💡💡
The sentence begins “ ‘It‘s all in the timing.‘ The comedian needs it, but so does the athlete, the magician, the politician, the pilot, the lover . . . “(97).
Ponder on that list for a minute 😳📚💙📚💚📚❤️
If you‘re a writer you need a copy of this book—even if you don‘t know you need it. I did. 📚💚📚💙📚❤️
Soooo many new ways to think about big T tragedy! ❤️📚💚📚💙📚💜📚
“ . . . the portraits of Nixon as hidden persuader and a middle-class striver both fed liberal fears that something like fascism might come to American shores. The demagoguery and the use of ‘the Big Lie,‘ the high-tech propaganda, even the lingering whiff of anti-Semitism—these traits suggested, if as a distant and unlikely scenario, the makings of an authoritarian who would prey upon a docile public (68).
“The only way in which a society can live for any length of time without violent strife is by establishing social justice, and social justice appears to each man to be injustice if he is persuaded that he is superior to his neighbors.”
(The ebook is on sale today 💖📚💚📚💖📚💚📚💖📚💚.)
Four ingredient (none of which is sugar) oatmeal cookies + James Tate‘s last poems = heat wave Saturday morning 📚💚📚💙📚💜📚❤️📚🧡
Every time I travel I come home with two new enthusiasms that must be quenched—for food and for new topics. On my recent return from New Mexico I was seized by the need for Hatch green chilis and for Billy the Kid. The latter required a combination of new (the tagged book), used, and library books to fulfill 😊 📚❤️ 🌶📚💚🌶📚🧡 🌶
If ever you had difficulty getting through this American classic, you might give this Audible version narrated by Anthony Heald a try. He gets the odd tone just exactly right. 📚💙📚💚
An addendum to yesterday‘s post: The Kindle version is on sale for $2.99!📚💙📚❤️ So we add that to my collection 💙📚💚📚❤️📚
pickOkay, so I‘m a hardcore Gaiman prose fan: My copy of American Gods is an original first edition I bought in a Hastings bookstore and I have an electronic backup copy. I have Neverwhere in the original version in both paperback and CD AND copies of the Author‘s Preferred Text in hard copy and Audible. I‘ve read them countless times. But I‘ve just discovered that Neverwhere may be structurally perfect. (Above is the beginning of Richard‘s Ordeal.)
“They could arrive last Tuesday when there‘s nobody home.”
This isn‘t in the same category as American Gods (one of my all time faves) but I‘m appreciating the subtlety of the writing more on this reread than I did when it first came out. 📚💙📚❤️📚💚
A scene is a tent!!! Ahhhhhhh!!! You guys probably all knew this already or had thought to look it up, but I did not and had not. Almost nothing makes me happier than being jolted out of something I had taken for granted 💙💡💙💡💙💡💙
As I seem to be the first to post about this collection of review/essays, here‘s another.
Mendelsohn, unsurprisingly, was not too impressed with the 2004 film, Troy. The real value in this short essay, though, are his insights into the Iliad. ❤️📚💙📚💚📚
Mendelsohn has very little use for Ted Hughes‘ attempt at translating Alcestis—or, possibly, his attempt at being a human being.
“In Hughes . . . there are no guilty husbands—no profound delving into the emotional (if not moral) squalor that often goes with being a survivor. There are just guilty abstractions.”
So I‘ve been objecting—as did Daniel Mendelsohn‘s dad—at the seeming lack of free will exhibited by Achilles, Odysseus, Helen, etc. Fortunately, Bernard Knox offers an explanation I can live with:
“. . . divine intervention and independent human action . . . seem to be the same thing viewed from different angles” (39).
