The Great Books
We all want to read more. If reading older books is exponentially more beneficial for acquiring knowledge than reading newer things, then reading the great books is a good place to start. These books …
Great Books
Notes From Underground
Can you be too conscious? In his short 1864 book, Notes From Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story of a man who is “too conscious.” The man, whose name we never learn is so aware of his own …
Pride and Prejudice Turns 200
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. — Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice Today is the 200th anniversary of the …
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction
A lot of people think that reading, especially critical reading, is on the decline. The thinking goes that we spend too much time distracted on devices. And when we turn the devices off long enough to …
Why Read the Classics?
Italo Calvino argues that we should dedicate part of our adult life to re-reading the classics that shaped us as children. In fact, reading in youth can be rather unfruitful, owing to impatience, …
The Best Of The Worst About The Best
What happens if you take Time magazine’s list of the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present and look at some of the ‘best’ one-star reviews posted on Amazon.com? Catch-22 by Joseph …