BoredReading

'Needlessly Limited Accommodation'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

That certain mediocre books are judged “classics,” at least by teachers and librarians desperate to stock their shelves, fill bulletin boards and...

How to Be a Stone: Three Poems for Trusting Time

a month ago

from The Marginalian in literature

If you want to befriend time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone. Climb a mountain and listen to the conversation between eons...

'Between Virgil and Young People Engrossed in Rock'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

In a 2009 interview with a publication in Barcelona, Spain, Adam Zagajewski is asked a question about political correctness, euphemisms and other...

An online version of Da Vinci's journal?

a month ago

from The Elysian in literature

Marginalia: An experiment sharing notes from the margins of my research.

'Full of the Little Obscurities'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

“A man may profess to understand the President of the United States, but he seldom alleges, even to himself, that he understands his own...

Against Death: Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti on Grieving a Parent, Grieving the World, and What Makes Life Worth Living

a month ago

from The Marginalian in literature

The year is 1937. Elias Canetti (July 25, 1905–August 14, 1994) — Bulgarian, Jewish, living in Austria as the Nazis are rising to power — has just...

'Let Them at Any Rate Be Your Acquaintances'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

“Nothing makes a man more reverent than a library.” An interesting gauge of human sensibility, a sort of litmus test to judge personality and values,...

No Murder in the Mews

a month ago

from The American Scholar in literature

The post No Murder in the Mews appeared first on The American Scholar.

The Whole of It

a month ago

from The Marginalian in literature

Because we are creatures made of time, what we call suffering is at bottom a warping of time, a form of living against it and not with it — the pain...

'It Pulls the Reader In'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

I grew up observing the Holy Trinity, the literary one: Homer, Dante, Shakespeare. Faith told me these were the foundational figures who would sustain...

“Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon

a month ago

from The American Scholar in literature

Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon appeared first on The American Scholar.

No, we shouldn't return to the climate of the 18th century

a month ago

from The Elysian in literature

Improving the climate is a better goal than trying to fight change.

'Idiot Hopefulness or Fathomless Exasperation'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

When my oldest son was about seven and already a movie enthusiast, we drove up to the Crandall Library in Glens Falls, N.Y. to watch Laurel and Hardy...

Stephanie Santana

a month ago

from The American Scholar in literature

Preserving family history The post Stephanie Santana appeared first on The American Scholar.

'It Brought Us This Far'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

Self-knowledge is fine but some things are best left unexamined. “Why do you read so many books?” a reader asks. His assumption, never directly...

Democracy should happen online

a month ago

from The Elysian in literature

A Guest Lecture with Margo Loor, co-founder of the Estonian participatory democracy platform Citizen OS.

'At a Quarter a Tome'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

I owe a significant chunk of my education to the existence of paperback books. By “education” I don’t mean what I pretended to do while in the company...

Family Values

a month ago

from The American Scholar in literature

Augustine Sedgewick on the history of paternity and patriarchy The post Family Values appeared first on The American Scholar.

Silence, Solitude, and the Art of Surrender: Pico Iyer on Finding the World in a Benedictine Monastery

a month ago

from The Marginalian in literature

"Such a simple revolution: Yesterday I thought myself at the center of the world. Now the world seems to sit at the center of me."

'[C]onservatives Should Embrace the Novel'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

Fifteen years ago, in a blog post titled “Conservative novels,” my friend the late D.G. Myers critiqued a “top-ten” list of that literary species...

The Arguers: A Charming Illustrated Parable about the Absurdity of Self-righteousness

a month ago

from The Marginalian in literature

Perhaps the most perilous consequence of uncertain times, times that hurl us into helplessness and disorientation, is that they turn human beings into...

We can terraform the Earth—not just Mars

a month ago

from The Elysian in literature

If we can revive a dead planet, we can revive our own.

'What He Knows Who Looks Into Life and Sees'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

Most of my preoccupations lie elsewhere but I retain a casual interest in what used to be called field biology. That is, the non-molecular,...

A Pair of Elephants

a month ago

from The American Scholar in literature

The post A Pair of Elephants appeared first on The American Scholar.

A draft Elizabethan Not Shakespeare syllabus

a month ago

from Wuthering Expectations in literature

In case yesterday’s invitation was a bit abstract, here is my current sense of a twenty-play Elizabethan Not Shakespeare syllabus that I would like to...

Reasons for Living

a month ago

from The American Scholar in literature

The post Reasons for Living appeared first on The American Scholar.

'The Most Natural Thing in the World'

a month ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

Why write? Indulge my glibness: Why not? Still in high school, I learned I had little understanding of a given subject until I tried to express it in...

“The Last One” by W. S. Merwin

a month ago

from The American Scholar in literature

Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Last One” by W. S. Merwin appeared first on The American Scholar.

Not Shakespeare - a preliminary, semi-formed invitation to read plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries

a month ago

from Wuthering Expectations in literature

Here’s something I’ve been wanting to do. I’ve been wanting to return to the plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe and Ben...

TERRAFORM: An essay collection about the future of our planet

2 months ago

from The Elysian in literature

Six writers explore the future of our world for an online series and print pamphlet.

Caring for others

2 months ago

from Escaping Flatland in literature

At Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen, I see a passport fall out of the back pocket of a man and immediately (at least) three strangers call out.

On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle

2 months ago

from This Space in literature

The premise of this multi-volume novel is simple: a modern-day French woman called Tara finds herself stuck inside the eighteenth day of a November....

The Unjolly Green Giant

2 months ago

from The American Scholar in literature

How C. F. Seabrook became the Lear of the vegetable fields The post The Unjolly Green Giant appeared first on The American Scholar.

'The Information of a High School Janitor'

2 months ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

A former colleague reminded me of the babysitting job I was given by a newspaper editor some forty years ago. I was the court reporter, covering every...

The Grammar of Fantasy and the Fantastic Binomial: Beloved Italian Children’s Book Author Gianny Rodari on Creativity and the Key to Great Storytelling

2 months ago

from The Marginalian in literature

"The mind forms a whole. Its creativity must be cultivated in all directions."

'He Thrived on Giving Offense'

2 months ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

Why did my teachers devote more class time to John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell – American exemplars of the Age of Thrice-Named Writers...

Newsletter bundles don't work

2 months ago

from The Elysian in literature

A Guest Lecture with Even Armstrong on why he left Every to go independent.

'A Peaceabale Morning'

2 months ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

Boys of my age grew up fighting Nazis and Japs. We inherited our fathers’ war and were too old to “play Army” – always the phrase – by the time...

Ask Already

2 months ago

from The American Scholar in literature

The post Ask Already appeared first on The American Scholar.

The Majesty of Mountains and the Mountains of the Mind

2 months ago

from The Marginalian in literature

Mountains are some of our best metaphors for the mind and for the spirit, but they are also living entities, sovereign and staggering. I remember the...

Creating a global safety net without nation-states

2 months ago

from The Elysian in literature

A Guest Lecture featuring Sondre Rasch, co-founder and CEO of SafetyWing.

Mushrooms and Our Search for Meaning

2 months ago

from The Marginalian in literature

This essay was originally published as the cover story in the Summer 2025 issue of Orion Magazine. “Who are you?” the caterpillar barks at Alice from...

'To Illustrate With Marginal Notes'

2 months ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

I no longer write in books, a decision I made decades ago that I occasionally regret. It came to feel like defacement. But it’s interesting to see...

“In the Summer” by Nizar Qabbani

2 months ago

from The American Scholar in literature

Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “In the Summer” by Nizar Qabbani appeared first on The American Scholar.

'Commonly Lost Because It Never Was Deserved'

2 months ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

Often, I hardly recognize my younger self. I did foolish things I would never contemplate today. My self-centeredness was appalling, my taste...

Jeremy Spoke in Class Today

2 months ago

from The American Scholar in literature

On guns, MTV, Stephen King, and the nightmare from which we cannot awake The post Jeremy Spoke in Class Today appeared first on The American Scholar.

The One Hundred Milliseconds Between the World and You: Oliver Sacks on Perception

2 months ago

from The Marginalian in literature

“If the doors of perception were cleansed,” William Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” But we are finite creatures, in...

On (Middle-Class) Frugality

2 months ago

from The American Scholar in literature

Does cutting costs mean robbing oneself of life’s small delights? The post On (Middle-Class) Frugality appeared first on The American Scholar.

What I Read in May 2025 – “There’s the store that’s shaped like a duck,” Franca said.

2 months ago

from Wuthering Expectations in literature

First, my poor email subscribers missed some of the installments of my newsletter about Anthony Powell. If this keeps happening I will have to think...

'The Things Which Make a Life of Ease'

2 months ago

from Anecdotal Evidence in literature

R.L. Barth, our finest living epigrammist (admittedly, not a vast job description), has sent me his translation of a well-known epigram by Martial,...