Full Width [alt+shift+f] Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
Articles [alt+h] Reading List [alt+r] [alt+s]

Anecdotal Evidence

Visit Blog

Sort By

Popular [alt+1] Recent [alt+2]

Change View

List View [alt+w] Expanded [alt+e]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Merely the joy of writing' A rare and winning combination: a serious person who seldom takes himself seriously. He keeps his...
a month ago
17

'Merely the joy of writing'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
A rare and winning combination: a serious person who seldom takes himself seriously. He keeps his ego a little off to the side, muffled, away from the business at hand. It never disappears. It grows dormant, like some cases of tuberculosis. Jules Renard is such a man and writer,...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Soul None Dare Forgive' You know what you’re in for just by reading the title and acknowledging the author: “A Love Song in...
a month ago
17

'The Soul None Dare Forgive'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
You know what you’re in for just by reading the title and acknowledging the author: “A Love Song in the Modern Taste” (1733) by Jonathan Swift. For once, the excremental stuff is absent. The poem amounts to a catalog of clichés about love, a sort of anti-Valentine’s Day card....
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Quiet Intent of a Conscious Artist' For the observant – those who revere good prose and other accomplishments of civilization --...
a month ago
15

'The Quiet Intent of a Conscious Artist'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
For the observant – those who revere good prose and other accomplishments of civilization -- February 12 is doubly a holy day. In 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Hodgenville, Ky. Across the Atlantic, on the same day, Charles Darwin was born in a Georgian-style...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Unforgiving and Bearish' “The writer has little control over personal temperament, none over the historical moment, and is...
a month ago
14

'Unforgiving and Bearish'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
“The writer has little control over personal temperament, none over the historical moment, and is only partly in charge of his or her own aesthetic.”  Of the three points made by English novelist Julian Barnes, the first is dubious, the second and third inarguably true. To say...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poetry Is an Art' Most bores are not aware they are boring. It’s not always their fault and the impulse to tell them...
a month ago
14

'Poetry Is an Art'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
Most bores are not aware they are boring. It’s not always their fault and the impulse to tell them they are boring, though understandable, is almost always a waste of time. You can’t make people interesting who value their humorlessness, bad taste and stridency.  I woke the other...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'A State of Vagary, Doubt and Indecision' There’s a tidy part of me that wants things resolved, whether a lawsuit or a differential equation....
a month ago
14

'A State of Vagary, Doubt and Indecision'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
There’s a tidy part of me that wants things resolved, whether a lawsuit or a differential equation. No sloppy inconsistencies, no denouements hanging by a thread. I used to love IRS Form 1040EZ: subtract one number from another, sign your name and wait for the refund. I had a...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'As a Token of Reverence or Humility' In 1993, I was assigned to write about the opening of a Buddhist “peace pagoda” in Grafton, about...
a month ago
14

'As a Token of Reverence or Humility'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
In 1993, I was assigned to write about the opening of a Buddhist “peace pagoda” in Grafton, about twenty miles east of Albany, N.Y. A photographer accompanied me, a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War and decades of work at the newspaper. We parked and approached the stupa, a...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
"This, Books Can Do . . ." At age ten I attended the grand opening of the new public library in Parma Heights, Ohio, within...
a month ago
14

"This, Books Can Do . . ."

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
At age ten I attended the grand opening of the new public library in Parma Heights, Ohio, within easy walking distance of our house. Next door was Yorktown Lanes, the bowling alley dedicated two years earlier. Across the road was the municipal swimming pool where my mother had...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is Still So Much I Do Not Know' I have encountered the neologism “egowriting” used to describe -- with approval -- such genres as...
a month ago
13

'There Is Still So Much I Do Not Know'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
I have encountered the neologism “egowriting” used to describe -- with approval -- such genres as memoirs, diaries, journals, letters, blog posts, commonplace books, notebooks and essays--almost anything. In other words, a broad collection of forms in which the author and his...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'I’m Less Inclined to Carp' My nephew and I have long, spontaneous telephone conversations that begin with the usual...
a month ago
13

'I’m Less Inclined to Carp'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
My nephew and I have long, spontaneous telephone conversations that begin with the usual drab pleasantries: “How are you doing?” “Fine. You?” An hour later we’re saying goodbye, but not before Abe tells me he's smitten by P.G. Wodehouse. These talks usually take place Sunday...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Passionate Note of Victory' “The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness,...
a month ago
13

'One Passionate Note of Victory'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
“The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness, coyness, archness and condescension are only the most obvious ones.”  In 1976, Anthony Hecht wrote the preface for a new edition of Walter de la Mare’s Songs of Childhood (1902). He doesn’t...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Even Belles Lettres Legitimate As Prayer' In the “Prologue” to his 1962 prose collection The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden borrows a conceit...
a month ago
13

'Even Belles Lettres Legitimate As Prayer'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
In the “Prologue” to his 1962 prose collection The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden borrows a conceit from Lewis Carroll and divides all writers – “except the supreme masters who transcend all systems of classification” – into Alices and Mabels. In Alice in Wonderland, the title...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Like an Occupying Army' Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to...
4 weeks ago
13

'Like an Occupying Army'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

4 weeks ago
Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to mind, seemingly out of nowhere: on first waking in the morning and while preparing a meal in the kitchen. None is summoned. They blip to the surface like bubbles in a pond. Last weekend I...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Is It Beautiful? What Does It Mean?' Erica Light takes after her mother, the late poet Helen Pinkerton, in her thoughtfulness and...
a month ago
13

'Is It Beautiful? What Does It Mean?'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
Erica Light takes after her mother, the late poet Helen Pinkerton, in her thoughtfulness and generosity. She has sent me a box of books, including four collections of poems by R.L. Barth: Looking for Peace (1981), Simonides in Vietnam (1990), Small Arms Fire (1994) and Reading...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Illumination of the Past' Despite the repellant spectacle of Allen Ginsburg, poetry as a career is not a guarantee of fame and...
a month ago
12

'Illumination of the Past'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
Despite the repellant spectacle of Allen Ginsburg, poetry as a career is not a guarantee of fame and fortune. One of our finest recent poets, Herbert Morris, is forgotten and was hardly remembered even during his life. He published six collections between 1978 and 2000 and died...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Pebble Is a Perfect Creature' My nephew has introduced me to the practice of “pebbling,” not to be confused with “stoning.” Sorry...
a month ago
12

'The Pebble Is a Perfect Creature'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
My nephew has introduced me to the practice of “pebbling,” not to be confused with “stoning.” Sorry to say the psychologists and sociologists got their hands on it first, but there’s nothing new about so simple a human gesture. The word is adopted from the courtship rituals of...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Show the Poetry of the Commonplace' A friend in Schenectady, N.Y. worked as a lineman for the telephone company for almost half a...
a month ago
12

'To Show the Poetry of the Commonplace'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
A friend in Schenectady, N.Y. worked as a lineman for the telephone company for almost half a century, into his seventies. He was the guy who strapped on a belt and spikes and climbed those sliver-making poles, and later showed rookie linemen the ropes. On the side, Bob was an...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shut Not Thy Purse-Strings' Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a...
3 weeks ago
11

'Shut Not Thy Purse-Strings'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a result, Charles Lamb had little interest in the momentous events of his day. About “Boney” – Napoleon Bonaparte – he wished only to know the dictator’s height, unlike Hazlitt, who...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poetry Is Sound Before It Is Anything Else' “A word so delicious that one wishes it had cheeks, so as to kiss them.” That’s Jules...
a month ago
11

'Poetry Is Sound Before It Is Anything Else'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
“A word so delicious that one wishes it had cheeks, so as to kiss them.” That’s Jules Renard, writing in his journal in February 1888. Perhaps only a certain sort of writer, one with a musical sense who is susceptible to the pure sound of words divorced from their meaning, can...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Secret Hidden From Yourself' Howard Nemerov was born on Leap Year Day in 1920 – February 29 -- meaning his birthday can be...
3 weeks ago
11

'The Secret Hidden From Yourself'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
Howard Nemerov was born on Leap Year Day in 1920 – February 29 -- meaning his birthday can be accurately observed only every fourth year – a nice metaphysical conundrum. This reminds me of a cousin who was bitter because she was born on Christmas Day and felt she was getting less...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Rosebuds Are Rare As a Day in June' Fortune cookies no longer contain fortunes. Tucked inside the sugary shells are slips of paper...
3 weeks ago
11

'Rosebuds Are Rare As a Day in June'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
Fortune cookies no longer contain fortunes. Tucked inside the sugary shells are slips of paper printed with platitudes. I carry one such slip in my wallet, salvaged from a forgotten meal at least a decade ago: “Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'All That Is Human Slips Away' Varlam Shalamov (1907-82), who ought to know, opens a poem with this line: “Memory has veiled / much...
3 weeks ago
11

'All That Is Human Slips Away'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
Varlam Shalamov (1907-82), who ought to know, opens a poem with this line: “Memory has veiled / much evil . . .” Shalamov survived almost eighteen years in the Gulag, in the Arctic region known as Kolyma. His final imprisonment, from 1937 to 1951, was imposed after he referred to...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Delicate, Invisible Web You Wove' Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou,...
4 weeks ago
11

'The Delicate, Invisible Web You Wove'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

4 weeks ago
Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound In the dark jungle of a mango grove . . .”   I might have guessed Kipling or some forgotten Georgian poet. Perhaps it’s a verse omitted by Eliot from Old Possum’s Book of...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Think, to Read, to Meditate, to React' Often, I think of the late Adam Zagajewski urging young poets – and by extension, the rest of us --...
3 weeks ago
10

'To Think, to Read, to Meditate, to React'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
Often, I think of the late Adam Zagajewski urging young poets – and by extension, the rest of us -- to “read everything.” The suggestion is not dictatorial. The Pole even admits he is a “chaotic reader,” as most of us are. I’ve never been systematic about much of anything...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Better Bread Than Is Made of Wheat' Sometimes disparate things almost announce their covert similarities and linkages, in a way...
2 weeks ago
10

'Better Bread Than Is Made of Wheat'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
Sometimes disparate things almost announce their covert similarities and linkages, in a way Aristotle would have understood, and it makes good sense to combine them. I was looking for something in The Poet’s Tongue, the anthology compiled by W.H. Auden and the schoolmaster John...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Take His Experience Along With Him' We shouldn’t be surprised that bookish tastes change across time. They mature, just as some of us...
3 weeks ago
10

'Take His Experience Along With Him'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
We shouldn’t be surprised that bookish tastes change across time. They mature, just as some of us do. The books we choose to read and reread follow a path parallel to our experience and maturity. This isn’t to imply “progress.” It’s not as though all of us shed bad taste and move...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Does the Time Seem Long?' “Maurine Smith died March 8, 1919, at the age of twenty-three years. Nearly her whole life had been...
2 weeks ago
10

'And Does the Time Seem Long?'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
“Maurine Smith died March 8, 1919, at the age of twenty-three years. Nearly her whole life had been one of intense physical suffering, and she knew few of the usual felicities.”  Yvor Winters is introducing us to a poet whose name you likely have never encountered.  Smith and...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Writers That Are Worth Anything Are Humorists' Bertie Wooster has asked if he can purchase a gift for Jeeves while he is out, and the valet...
3 weeks ago
10

'Writers That Are Worth Anything Are Humorists'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 weeks ago
Bertie Wooster has asked if he can purchase a gift for Jeeves while he is out, and the valet replies: “‘Well, sir, there has recently been published a new and authoritatively annotated edition of the works of the philosopher Spinoza. Since you are so generous, I would appreciate...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Most Noteworthy Action of Human Life' I dreamed my late brother was here in Houston, a city he never visited. He was phobic about flying...
2 weeks ago
9

'The Most Noteworthy Action of Human Life'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
I dreamed my late brother was here in Houston, a city he never visited. He was phobic about flying and traveled by air only twice in his life, when very young. We were seated across from each other, on the couches by the front window. What I remember of the dream is brief, little...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Something Irrepressibly Celebratory' A longtime reader of Anecdotal Evidence has commented on my March 1 post:  “One of my...
2 weeks ago
9

'Something Irrepressibly Celebratory'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
A longtime reader of Anecdotal Evidence has commented on my March 1 post:  “One of my worst apprehensions about my son’s college education came true in his freshman English class. The professor brought up Lamb only to highlight something he said that would strike modern...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'His Rising and His Fading Is Most Beautiful; A librarian friend and I were talking about the similarities between library cataloguing and...
2 weeks ago
9

'His Rising and His Fading Is Most Beautiful;

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
A librarian friend and I were talking about the similarities between library cataloguing and taxonomy in biology – the art of classification – and the sort of people such specialized disciplines attract. Formerly a piano teacher, she was attracted to library science by way of...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Can't Quite Recall Your Name' My first high-school reunion was postponed for a year by the COVID-19 lockdown. We met in 2021 for...
a month ago
9

'I Can't Quite Recall Your Name'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
My first high-school reunion was postponed for a year by the COVID-19 lockdown. We met in 2021 for the fifty-first at a supper club on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. Lake Erie was a hundred yards to the north and when conversation lagged, I could watch the ore boats moving down...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Intensely and Permanently Interested in Literature' Another request for a reading list from a young reader. Any reply will be incomplete and...
a month ago
9

'Intensely and Permanently Interested in Literature'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
Another request for a reading list from a young reader. Any reply will be incomplete and risk discouraging aspiring literati. The only infallible inducement to literature is personal pleasure, a notoriously subjective criterion. I love Gibbon and Doughty, and you may find them...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Things That Might Have Been and Never Were' My middle son enjoys a genre of fiction known as “alternate history.” Among its practitioners is the...
2 weeks ago
9

'Things That Might Have Been and Never Were'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
My middle son enjoys a genre of fiction known as “alternate history.” Among its practitioners is the American novelist Harry Turtledove. As I understand it, the premise is simple: change an event in the past and see what happens in subsequent history. Hitler, for instance, dies...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Poet Is a Noble Creature' “. . . I am under the necessity of appearing as an ancient and more or less venerable figure; others...
a month ago
8

'The Poet Is a Noble Creature'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
“. . . I am under the necessity of appearing as an ancient and more or less venerable figure; others may come in aeroplanes, but I arrive on a boneshaker; others may give a demonstration with electric stoves, but I freeze over my doleful brazier. Side-whiskers should have been...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Lovely Lightness of Spirit' My understanding of “deliquescing” goes back to high-school chemistry: a solid melts or becomes...
a month ago
8

'A Lovely Lightness of Spirit'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
My understanding of “deliquescing” goes back to high-school chemistry: a solid melts or becomes liquid by absorbing moisture from the air. Kay Ryan uses the word in an unexpectedly metaphorical way in her review of This Craft of Verse (2002), a transcript of the lectures Jorge...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'But Man Is Not Born for Happiness' “[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and...
a week ago
8

'But Man Is Not Born for Happiness'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
“[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and neglected poet, come to this conclusion? In a letter to Rev. John Newton, written March 15, 1784, Cowper tells his friend he has just finished reading the eight volumes of Dr....
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Attempt But Little At a Time' A blog turns out to be an education undertaken in public. Its proprietor is more student than...
a month ago
8

'Attempt But Little At a Time'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
A blog turns out to be an education undertaken in public. Its proprietor is more student than teacher, and one is fortunate to encounter numerous tutors along the way, between the covers of books and out there in the bigger world. I seldom sit down at the keyboard with the goal...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Lonely Funeral of Your Speech' Francis Bacon’s death might have been scripted by Monty Python. It’s certainly the most unlikely...
2 months ago
8

'The Lonely Funeral of Your Speech'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Francis Bacon’s death might have been scripted by Monty Python. It’s certainly the most unlikely in the history of English literature, at least as reported by the not-always-reliable John Aubrey. It’s absurd but if true it helps beatify the author of The Advancement of Learning...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'More Than One Book at a Time?' We have acquired new, smaller bedside tables. More than a third of the surface area is occupied by...
a month ago
8

'More Than One Book at a Time?'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
We have acquired new, smaller bedside tables. More than a third of the surface area is occupied by the alarm clock and a lamp, leaving less space for reading matter. All further accumulation of books and magazines will, of necessity, be vertically arranged, a single stack, which...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Unceasingly Amused According to My Taste' Certain writers inspire profound ambivalence. We admire them for something – often style – and they...
a month ago
8

'Unceasingly Amused According to My Taste'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
Certain writers inspire profound ambivalence. We admire them for something – often style – and they let us down by writing something stupid, dull or otherwise offensive. It’s easier dealing strictly with good guys (Chekhov, for instance) and bad guys (like Louis-Ferdinand...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Certain Saving Humor' “Except for a certain saving humor, I should indeed have been a full monster.”  One definition of a...
a month ago
8

'A Certain Saving Humor'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
“Except for a certain saving humor, I should indeed have been a full monster.”  One definition of a friend is someone with whom you can share any joke or other comic effort without fear of offending him. It may not be funny – the only pertinent criterion for judging humorousness...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Cure Death With the Rub of a Dock Leaf' The Irish poet Michael Longley died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-five. I’ve read him sparsely...
2 months ago
8

'Cure Death With the Rub of a Dock Leaf'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
The Irish poet Michael Longley died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-five. I’ve read him sparsely but recall a devotion to the natural world and to World War I, in which his father fought. Here is “Glossary” (The Candlelight Master, 2020):   “I meet my father in the glossary Who...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mystery of Language I Shall Never Solve' Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for...
2 weeks ago
8

'A Mystery of Language I Shall Never Solve'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 weeks ago
Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for a poem. How many ways are there to be jubilant or render the sensation of “cavorting with the milkmaids,” as an old friend once put it? The effort usually comes off as hackneyed or...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Then, Look Up!' Robert Conquest begins his poem “Nocturne” with a challenge to convention and cliché: “’Broad...
a month ago
8

'And Then, Look Up!'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
Robert Conquest begins his poem “Nocturne” with a challenge to convention and cliché: “’Broad Daylight’ – words you speak or write / Imputing narrowness to Night?’” Seven sections follow, including the second:  “Night’s only moonlit, starlit, yet See from that...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Is Not Writing a Poem' Cultural Amnesia (2007) ranks among the most enduringly entertaining books published in this...
a month ago
7

'He Is Not Writing a Poem'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
Cultural Amnesia (2007) ranks among the most enduringly entertaining books published in this still-young century. The late Clive James read books like a scholar and wrote about them like an impossibly gifted teenager – that is, with shameless enthusiasm. He was never too cool to...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poems Can Be True in Different Ways' Something seems to be stirring out there. I’m too cautious and cynical to proclaim a renaissance in...
a month ago
7

'Poems Can Be True in Different Ways'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
Something seems to be stirring out there. I’m too cautious and cynical to proclaim a renaissance in formalist poetry but the prognosis is promising. Clarence Caddell, an Australian, has published the second issue of The Borough: A Journal of Poetry. I wrote about the first issue...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Task of Doing Nothing Much at All' I’ve always thought of goofing off as one of the American fine arts, up there with western movies...
2 months ago
7

'The Task of Doing Nothing Much at All'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
I’ve always thought of goofing off as one of the American fine arts, up there with western movies and jazz. In high school, I worked summers and weekends in an aluminum casting plant owned by a friend of my father. The work was hot and dirty, and we sometimes worked twelve-hour...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Influential Works That Are Almost Never Read' John Ruskin would have a difficult time of it in what passes for literary culture today. First, he...
2 months ago
7

'Influential Works That Are Almost Never Read'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
John Ruskin would have a difficult time of it in what passes for literary culture today. First, he was phenomenally prolific, even by Victorian standards, and how many people would read all five volumes of Modern Painters or the idea-rich sprawl of Fors Clavigera? Second, Ruskin...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Thanks for This Fancy, Insect King' I once spent most of a day in an upstate New York marsh with a neuroethologist, a biologist who...
a week ago
7

'Thanks for This Fancy, Insect King'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
I once spent most of a day in an upstate New York marsh with a neuroethologist, a biologist who studies how an animal’s nervous system determines its behavior. His specialty was the order Odonata – dragonflies and damselflies. Like any journalist who’s paying attention, I got a...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Moon at Times Is Hunched and Old' A few weeks after my boss hired me in 2006 to work as a science writer for Rice University, we met...
a month ago
7

'The Moon at Times Is Hunched and Old'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
A few weeks after my boss hired me in 2006 to work as a science writer for Rice University, we met to informally talk about how things were going. Both of us were pleased and knew we had made a good choice. We already liked and trusted each other. Ann paid me an odd compliment...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Must Be Continually Striving to Live' A reader asks what I hope to accomplish in retirement. I’m not one for making grand plans or...
a month ago
7

'We Must Be Continually Striving to Live'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a month ago
A reader asks what I hope to accomplish in retirement. I’m not one for making grand plans or resolutions. No golf and little travel. It’s more likely I’ll continue what I’m already doing – writing, reading, family matters – just more of it. More Montaigne, J.V. Cunningham,...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Have the Heart Partially Erased' “Hatred, suspicion, malice and madness seem to be reaching new highs everywhere. . . . Perhaps...
a week ago
7

'To Have the Heart Partially Erased'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
“Hatred, suspicion, malice and madness seem to be reaching new highs everywhere. . . . Perhaps madness, like cancer, is a way of life trying to transcend itself.”  This might be a template for next week’s column, a pundit’s lamentation ready for copying-and-pasting. In fact,...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'What My Mind Thinks My Pen Writes' Some books, including several of the best, defy conventional literary formulas and genres. Consider...
2 months ago
7

'What My Mind Thinks My Pen Writes'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Some books, including several of the best, defy conventional literary formulas and genres. Consider Moby-Dick. Is it a novel in the same inarguable sense as Middlemarch, another very big book? What about Tristram Shandy, with its endlessly deferred plot, digressions within...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Lawn As White As Driven Snow' Houston’s terrain is geometrically flat, which is why most houses have no basements. From the warmth...
2 months ago
7

'Lawn As White As Driven Snow'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Houston’s terrain is geometrically flat, which is why most houses have no basements. From the warmth of my living room I watched a neighborhood kid try to defy gravity, seated on a plastic sled in the middle of the ice-covered street, holding the reins and achieving...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Happiness Could Be Impartial for Once' Robert Chandler has rescued, through translation, much of Russian literature for the Anglophone...
2 months ago
7

'Happiness Could Be Impartial for Once'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 months ago
Robert Chandler has rescued, through translation, much of Russian literature for the Anglophone world – Pushkin, Andrey Plantonov, Teffi, Lev Ozerov and Vasily Grossman, among others. Most of Chandler’s own prose I've read has been in the form of brief introductions and...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Gives to Airy Nothing a Local Habitation' What attracted me was the anthologist’s audacity in titling his book: 100 Best Poems in the English...
a week ago
6

'Gives to Airy Nothing a Local Habitation'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
What attracted me was the anthologist’s audacity in titling his book: 100 Best Poems in the English Language (1952). In his introduction, Stephen Graham does little to impress us with his literary humility. His anthology is, he writes, “perhaps the only one of its kind,...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Very Empire of Connotation' “[T]he partisan of parsimony sees prose as a vehicle for meaning and nothing more, even if...
a week ago
6

'The Very Empire of Connotation'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
“[T]he partisan of parsimony sees prose as a vehicle for meaning and nothing more, even if their feigned rhetoric-of-no-rhetoric is in reality one of the oldest rhetorical gambits there is.”  I have a taste for two seemingly mutually exclusive schools of prose that may not be all...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Pic-nic and Polka' Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) was an English theologian, a learned man who amassed a library of...
a week ago
6

'Pic-nic and Polka'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) was an English theologian, a learned man who amassed a library of more than 12,000 volumes. In 1828, Walter Savage Landor published the third volume of his Imaginary Conversations and included one titled “Archdeacon Hare and Walter Landor.” The...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Will Never Seem Boring' “And my final advice is to try, every week or so, to learn something by heart. A surprising amount...
a week ago
6

'They Will Never Seem Boring'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
“And my final advice is to try, every week or so, to learn something by heart. A surprising amount will remain in the memory, and more and more as you train it; and then, as you walk or work or sit in the subway, you will have something more than daily trivialities to occupy your...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Your Literary Judgments Are Not Interesting' All of us when young – readers, I mean – fancy ourselves rebels and independent thinkers but most of...
a week ago
6

'Your Literary Judgments Are Not Interesting'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

a week ago
All of us when young – readers, I mean – fancy ourselves rebels and independent thinkers but most of us are afflicted to varying degrees with the superego of the age. That is, we are influenced, whether we know it or not, by the critical climate, by the judgments and fashions of...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'What a Delight in Being a Discoverer!' The library catalogue said Walter Savage Landor’s Poems, the 1964 Centaur Press edition selected and...
6 days ago
4

'What a Delight in Being a Discoverer!'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

6 days ago
The library catalogue said Walter Savage Landor’s Poems, the 1964 Centaur Press edition selected and introduced by Geoffrey Grigson, had not been checked out by another patron (hardly surprising) and should be on the shelf. I couldn’t find it. Not a good sign. That could mean the...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Better to Have a Distinct Word for Each Sense' On Monday, March 23, [1772], I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio...
5 days ago
4

'Better to Have a Distinct Word for Each Sense'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

5 days ago
On Monday, March 23, [1772], I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio Dictionary.”  Dr. Johnson published the first edition of his Dictionary on April 15, 1755, two-hundred-seventy years ago. It contained some 42,000 entries and he had worked on it for...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Earliest of My Friends Is Gone' I often speak or exchange texts with my nephew. Soon he’ll turn thirty-six, but he lives in...
4 days ago
4

'The Earliest of My Friends Is Gone'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

4 days ago
I often speak or exchange texts with my nephew. Soon he’ll turn thirty-six, but he lives in Cleveland, 1,200 miles away, and I seldom see him. Distance warps the sense of duration, so I think of him as frozen in his early twenties. We spoke on Sunday and for the first time since...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Least Motion of Wonder in Himself' In 1968, my high-school English teacher loaned me the anthology of short stories she had used at...
3 days ago
3

'The Least Motion of Wonder in Himself'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

3 days ago
In 1968, my high-school English teacher loaned me the anthology of short stories she had used at Kent State University just a few years earlier. Included were the usual suspects -- Maupassant, Hemingway, Chekhov, Eudora Welty – but I read them because I knew nothing. Among the...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'Dust and Shadows' Here I encounter yet again the bothersome issue of major vs. minor writers. When “minor” is used as...
2 days ago
2

'Dust and Shadows'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

2 days ago
Here I encounter yet again the bothersome issue of major vs. minor writers. When “minor” is used as a purely dismissive judgment, beware. There are minor writers who write beautifully and earn our respect and even love – Max Beerbohm is the first who comes to mind – and...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Are Not So Full of Evil As of Inanity' Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and...
19 hours ago
2

'We Are Not So Full of Evil As of Inanity'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

19 hours ago
Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and Heraclitus.” The former is reputed to have been a misanthrope, perhaps a melancholic. The latter was known as “the laughing philosopher.”  The essayist begins by weighing the importance...
Direct Link [→] Remove from reading list Add to reading list [alt+a]
upvote [alt+ctrl+↑] downvote [alt+ctrl+↓]

The best way to read the internet.
Made for nerds, by a nerd.

The best way to read the internet

© 2023 Bored Reading. All rights reserved.

Terms Privacy Design by Kumail

bored reading

v. 229.328 compliant with
earth/mars-x8292 communication
protocol 29xjw899992

When Google killed Google Reader, the bloggosphere took a severe hit and the content quality went down because there weren't enough readers to justify the effort it takes to maintain a high quality blog.

What's left is a decaying wasteland of blogs, most abandoned, a lot are now SEO spam, and 99% are not worth reading. BoredReading is a way to read the remaining great blogs that survived the ice age.

To add your favorite blog, please suggest it here! I get emails every day which helps me maintain a high quality selection of blogs!

Avatar

Made by,
Kumail Hunaid

@kumailht on Twitter.
My website and email.

Close [esc]