Never Out-of-Date

Cicero lived some five hundred years before Augustine. He himself sent his own son to Greece to study philosophy. Cicero wrote to his son a famous letter, the famous On Duties, which attempted to explain…

Today’s One-Liner (#300)

Reading or the enjoyment of books has always been regarded among the charms of a cultured life and is respected and envied by those who rarely give themselves that privilege. –Lin Yutang, The Importance of…

The Bliss with Books

Back and forth from my desk to my shelves, ten, twenty, thirty times a day. The sources swirl around me. I am  drugged by books. The sweet savor rises from the pages. A delirium of…

Isn’t This the Truth?

It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, a book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.  —Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness, translated by…

Books

I’m discussing Svetlana’s Alexievich’s Secondhand Time with Lori Hirst and Helen Houlle later today. One of the fascinating threads in this oral history is the emphasis on books in Soviet culture…   My mother wasn’t alone,…

Books

I’m discussing Svetlana’s Alexievich’s Secondhand Time with Lori Hirst and Helen Houlle later today. One of the fascinating threads in this oral history is the emphasis on books in Soviet culture…   My mother wasn’t alone,…