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Siri Hustvedt’s Living, Thinking, Looking (Book Acquired, 5.15.2012)
The whole point of these books acquired posts is to try to document interesting stuff that comes in before it winds up in my pile for months (to put things in perspective, I got a reader copy of Adam...
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Robert Hughes’s Nothing If Not Critical (Book Acquired, 10.1.2012)
Collection of Robert Hughes essays, Nothing If Not Critical. I also found this butterfly on the ground an hour before finding the book: Tagged: Art, art criticism, Book Acquired, Books Acquired,...
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A Seven Point Riff on David Foster Wallace’s David Markson Essay
1. Like many David Foster Wallace fans, I’d already read many of the essays collected in the posthumous Both Flesh and Not. I hadn’t read “The Empty Plenum: David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress”...
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“A Winter Walk”— Henry David Thoreau
“A Winter Walk” by Henry David Thoreau The wind has gently murmured through the blinds, or puffed with feathery softness against the windows, and occasionally sighed like a summer zephyr lifting the...
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“On the Fear of Death”— William Hazlitt
“On the Fear of Death” by William Hazlitt And our little life is rounded with a sleep. Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a...
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“Experts”— A.A. Milne
“Experts” by A.A. Milne The man in front of the fire was telling us a story about his wife and a bottle of claret. He had taken her to the best restaurant in Paris and had introduced her to a bottle of...
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“Bed-Books and Night-Lights”— H.M. Tomlinson
“Bed-Books and Night-Lights” — H.M. Tomlinson The rain flashed across the midnight window with a myriad feet. There was a groan in outer darkness, the voice of all nameless dreads. The nervous...
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“A Defence of Ugly Things”— G.K. Chesterton
“A Defence of Ugly Things” by G.K. Chesterton There are some people who state that the exterior, sex, or physique of another person is indifferent to them, that they care only for the communion of mind...
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“On Being Idle”— Jerome K. Jerome
“On Being Idle” by Jerome K. Jerome Now, this is a subject on which I flatter myself I really am au fait. The gentleman who, when I was young, bathed me at wisdom’s font for nine guineas a term—no...
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“On Love”— Percy Bysshe Shelley
“On Love” by Percy Bysshe Shelley What is love? Ask him who lives, what is life? ask him who adores, what is God? I know not the internal constitution of other men, nor even thine, whom I now address....
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“Darwinism”— Walt Whitman
“Darwinism” by Walt Whitman Running through prehistoric ages—coming down from them into the daybreak of our records, founding theology, suffusing literature, and so brought onward—(a sort of verteber...
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“On Eating and Drinking”— Jerome K. Jerome
I always was fond of eating and drinking, even as a child—especially eating, in those early days. I had an appetite then, also a digestion. I remember a dull-eyed, livid-complexioned gentleman coming...
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“Why I Write”— Barry Hannah
I always experience a mild depression whenever I type up what I have written. This act seems redundant. The work has already been done. I adore the praise of the public, no mistake. But the primary...
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“Of Death”— Francis Bacon
“Of Death” — Francis Bacon MEN fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children, is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as...
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“The Shrinkage of the Planet”— Jack London
“The Shrinkage of the Planet” by Jack London What a tremendous affair it was, the world of Homer, with its indeterminate boundaries, vast regions, and immeasurable distances. The Mediterranean and the...
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“Of Anger”— Francis Bacon
“Of Anger” by Francis Bacon TO SEEK to extinguish anger utterly, is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Anger must be...
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“On Cats and Dogs”— Jerome K. Jerome
“On Cats and Dogs” by Jerome K. Jerome What I’ve suffered from them this morning no tongue can tell. It began with Gustavus Adolphus. Gustavus Adolphus (they call him “Gusty” down-stairs for short) is...
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“The study of life not to be neglected for the sake of books”— Samuel Johnson
“The study of life not to be neglected for the sake of books” by Samuel Johnson On life, on morals, be thy thoughts employ’d; Leave to the schools their atoms and their void. IT is somewhere related...
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“On a Notebook”— Hilaire Belloc
“On a Notebook” by Hilaire Belloc A dear friend of mine (John Abdullah Capricorn, to give him his full name) was commandeered by a publisher last year to write a book for £10. The work was far advanced...
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Barry Hannah Visits a Louisiana Leper Colony
Barry Hannah visits a Louisiana leper colony in “Old Terror, New Hearts,” republished this week in Oxford Americans; the piece originally ran in the October/November 1995 issue of the magazine. Opening...
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