reading

Various writings that touch on reading as a meaningful, life-affirming, intellectually-edifying activity.

  • Idle Reflections

Reading Aloud: Ben Lerner’s “The Rescue”

Reading aloud a poem published in the New York Review of Books September 21, 2023 issue.

1 year ago
  • New Acquisitions

Strata: William Smith’s Geological Maps

Not long ago I ordered "Strata: William Smith's Geological Maps" lighting a fire of memory and reflection

1 year ago
  • Sub Specie 16-17th Century Aeternitates

Discovering Robert Southwell’s Metaphysical Poetry

A few reflections on the discovery of 16th-century poet Robert Southwell, apparently an exemplar of English Metaphysical Poetry.

2 years ago
  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Cultural Consumption, 2022-Style! Best of!

The best books and films of 2022, some description thereof, as well as a few of the worst.

2 years ago
  • On Literature, Books

Jane Eyre: Post-Colonial Christian Zealotry?

Reading "Jane Eyre" for the second time revealed a quite different— quite Christian and not postcolonial—one from what inhabited my…

2 years ago
  • On Literature, Books

Pleasures in Reading: Edgar Lee Master’s “Spoon River Anthology”

From the "Spoon River Anthology" by Edgar Lee Masters, excerpts and commentary on the experience of its reading

2 years ago
  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Powerful May Reading, Viewing: 2022 edition

May reading and viewing of Ashley Vaught in 2022. Best of: "One Crazy Summer" by Rita Williams-Garcia, "Dubliners", and "Wheel…

2 years ago
  • On Literature, Books

Reading Ulysses’ “Oxen of the Sun” (to oneself, aloud, and just in general)

On the experience, specifically pain, of reading as instanced with reference to the modernist masterpiece "Ulysses" by Irish writer James…

2 years ago
  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Narcoleptically Read & Watched: April 2022

How do you read and watch narcoleptically? Binging series and reading sparingly, here and there.

3 years ago
  • On Ideas, Concepts, Intuitions

Fred Hyatt: Not Enough Technology Pessimism!

A spirited response enjoining MORE pessimism to Fred Hyatt's Washington Post editorial on technology and democracy

3 years ago
  • Reading Journal

Coming to Booker T. Washington’s “Up From Slavery”

The circumstances of my purchase and knowledge of "Up From Slavery," Booker T. Washington's most famous autobiography

4 years ago
  • Idle Reflections

Bad Poetry Morning

Repeatedly not finishing a sentence. Either subject or predicate but not both. Becomes some poetry itself.

4 years ago
  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Read Viewed Consumed 2020-12

Perhaps I began the month of December inauspiciously, insofar as I read/viewed/consumed nothing on the first day of the month…

4 years ago
  • On Literature, Books

Anna Seghers’ “Transit”: Profound Unknowing

In Anna Seghers' novel "Transit," no one really knows who the other is. The reader is never certain of who…

4 years ago
  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Read Viewed Consumed 2020-11

During the month of November what I read and viewed—what I consumed—was less varied and somewhat sparse. In fact, lost…

4 years ago