Education & Reading
I wrote these thoughts for the tiny home movement, which, although it is mainly arising out of economic injustice and sheer necessity, I think is still, nevertheless, a very positive,…
reading
The Long Read part 2
In my previous post I wrote about reading during the lockdown, particularly delving into some longer reads like War and Peace. This time gives us ample opportunity to tackle books…
Essential Reading: A Very Short List
Here is a short letter (email) I just sent to a few friends. It has a very short list of a few of the books I would consider essential reading.…
Social distancing and reading
With every responsible, mature adult practicing social distancing and self-isolation these days, it means spending lots of time at home, alone or within the small family unit. Trying for some,…
Turn Off The Propaganda Machine
This week’s cover story of the world’s leading trend analysis institute: very fitting, dead on the money, as usual. As I keep saying, turn off the state and corporate “news”.…
The Collapse of Modern Civilization
More than 150 years ago Thoreau commented, “Our sills are all rotten.” He was right. It is for that reason that Western, and Westernized, “modern” “civilization” is collapsing. This could…
Fantasy and Indoctrination: Rough notes on a few fantasy novels: part two
Here are two more fantasy books that I could not get through. That makes three in a row. And to think, I had a love affair with Terry Brookes’ Shannara…
I’m Reading as Fast as I Can
I don’t recall just when I started putting books aside to read, or perhaps just finish, when I retired. I had this naive, romantic idea that upon retirement, at the…
Books, writers, words, and competencies
I have always believed that any good, competent and credible writer can be judged (if judge people we must, and yet we do) by the books on his or her…
Don Quixote times three
At roughly the same time Shakespeare was writing and performing King Lear, Measure for Measure, Othello and Macbeth (1604-1605), Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was publishing the first part (52 chapters)…
Cicero, Seneca and Confucius
As I wrote in my last post, I have been reading a lot of the classic philosophers of late, particularly the Stoics. And I’ve been going further afield. My classical…
Travels with Epicurus
I’m sure it’s not just me who feels this way, but these days I find increasing wisdom and solace in the words of the classical authors: Seneca, Cicero, Epicurus, Marcus…
WTF is wrong with people these days?
Into everyone’s life comes the realization that we are not young and in between the time when we were, the world has changed. Not always for the better, either. In…
The slow death of reading
To me, one of the most depressing stories to come out of 2018 was posted in The Guardian, last August. Its headline read, “Skim reading is the new normal. The…
Relevant poetry
I was standing in a bookstore in downtown Toronto a couple of weeks back, and opened The Essential Ginsberg, a collection of poems, songs and other writing by the late…
Pollan’s Food fallacies
“Don’t overlook the oily little fishes,” is rule 32 in Michael Pollan’s small book, “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual” (Penguin Books, 2009). I recently acquired a copy. I’ve read Pollan’s…
Found in translation
Language translation fascinates me. It’s a mix of language skill, art, interpretation, science and, apparently, divination. Maybe even magic. Going from one language into another is far from a simple…
The magic of reading
Can you make sense of those lines in the image to the right? Of course not. They’re deconstructed from the letters of a simple, one-syllable word and randomly re-arranged. It’s…
Those we lost in 2017
It’s not just because I’m older that I am reading more of the obituaries than ever in my past. At least, I don’t think so. I seldom read local newspaper…
Malory then and now
I recently started reading Malory in the original – that is, the language that Caxton printed in. Not the typeface Caxton used, since that would be harder to read, but…