A Year of Reading Marcel Proust (& Sri Ramakrishna)
Cami Kasmerchak just gave me the idea of a reading group (like the one we did in 2021 of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov) of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Who’s been wanting to…
Category: Reading Groups
Another Long Classic
In 2021 thirteen of us spent seven months to read and discuss the long novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. I’m interested to see if anyone would be up for reading The Gospel of…
The Art of Living: Lights from Asia–A Spring-Summer-Fall Class 2021
Instead of going out of your way to seek the extraordinary, what if you could live in a more carefree way, just by subtly changing your regular, everyday life? —Shunmyo Masuno, Japan Sometimes I feel…
Love in Action: The Brothers Karamazov Reading Community 2021
“The fault I find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only three or four books in a lifetime give us…
Back to the Brothers?
A friend with whom six years ago I did a reading group of Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, is serious about returning to it sometime soon. Ah, to be re-acquainted with Mitya, Grushenka, Kolya, Markel,…
“Nobody’s Going To Do It for You”
Anne Waldman and Laura Wright, editors, Beats at Naropa: An Anthology Coffee House Press, 2009 I read Beats at Naropa exactly nine years ago, 2009. In my notes on the dialogues, essays, and interviews are…
Aha!
This morning, while writing a letter to one of my favorite poets (who lives in Brooklyn), it dawned on me that I want my next writing/reading class to be on the work and life of…
“What Am I Living My Life for?” Ivan Ilyich and Ikigai- A Summer 2018 Reading/Writing Class
“I see that all of my work amounts to nothing, that my ten volumes aren’t worth anything!” —Guy de Maupassant, after reading The Death of Ivan Ilyich David Barsamian: You had something in mind in…
“What Am I Living My Life for?” Ivan Ilyich and Ikigai- A Summer 2018 Reading/Writing Class
“I see that all of my work amounts to nothing, that my ten volumes aren’t worth anything!” —Guy de Maupassant, after reading The Death of Ivan Ilyich David Barsamian: You had something in mind in…
The World according to Chomsky: Winter Reading Group 2018
In recent years, I’ve known many people who ask themselves, “What can I do, given the state of the world?” In the past year, this question has been especially urgent, given the toxicity of…