Epistolary Ecstasy

A while back, I read a selection of letters of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: Hand-written, wild-typed marvels and postcards, written and sent from around the world—on work, books, loves, life, loss, Dharma, and gossip….

Wake Up!

Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav: “The world says that stories are good to put a person to sleep, but I say that with stories you arouse people from sleep.” — Sol Lipkin,  A History of Yiddish Literature

Perspective

Once an aging actress told [Abbé] Mugnier, “When I pass in front of my mirror, I cry out, ‘How beautiful I am!’ Is that a sin?” “No,” murmured the abbé, “It’s only an error.” –From…

A Request from Haiti

A friend in Haiti asked me to send her the following passage from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and now I want to reread the whole novel again! Later, after getting used to Alyosha, Pyotr Alexandrovich…