Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defence? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and […]
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Read More »
The famous child psychologist, Bruno Bettelheim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bettelheim), explains how fairy tales educate, support, and liberate the emotions of children. Wicked stepmothers and beautiful princesses … magic forests and enchanted towers … little pigs and big bad wolves … Fairy tales have been an integral part of childhood for hundreds of years. It’s in this book
The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim Read More »
Saloon-keepers and street preachers, gypsies and steel-walking Mohawks, a bearded lady and a 93-year-old ‘seafoodetarian’ who believes his specialized diet will keep him alive for another two decades. These are among the people that Joseph Mitchell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mitchell_(writer)) immortalized in his reportage for The New Yorker and in four books McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The
Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell Read More »
A central bond, a cherished value, a unique relationship, a profound human need, a type of love. What is the nature of friendship, and what is its significance in our lives? How has friendship changed since the ancient Greeks began to analyze it, and has modern technology altered its very definition? In this fascinating exploration
Friendship by Anthony Grayling Read More »
For anyone with questions about the concept of God and wishing to delve into theological matters, try Systematic Theology by Wolfhart Pannenberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannenberg) (1988-1994, 3 volumes in the English translation published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company). This is an exhaustive analysis of all the key points in Christian doctrine. Required reading for Divinity students. For
Systematic Theology by Wolfhart Pannenberg Read More »
What Charles Rosen’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rosen) celebrated book The Classical Style (1971) did for music of the Classical period, this volume of 1995 brilliantly does for the Romantic era. An exhilarating exploration of the musical language, forms, and styles of the Romantic period, it captures the spirit that enlivened a generation of composers and musicians, and in doing so
The Romantic Generation by Charles Rosen Read More »
Noam Chomsky’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky) book Syntactic Structures (1957) was one of the first serious attempts on the part of a linguist to construct a comprehensive theory of language which may be understood in the same sense that a chemical or biological theory is understood by experts in those fields. It proved to be a seminal work in linguistics. It is
Syntactic Structures Noam Chomsky Read More »
Published originally in German as Die Ringe des Saturn. Eine englische Wallfahrt (1995), The Rings of Saturn (1998) – with its curious archive of photographs – records a walking tour of the eastern coast of England. A few of the things which cross the path and mind of its narrator (who both is and is not Sebald
The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald Read More »
Edmund Wilson’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Wilson) magnum opus, To the Finland Station (1940), is a stirring account of revolutionary politics, people, and ideas from the French Revolution through the Paris Commune to the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia. The work is really a history of revolutionary thought and the birth of socialism, from its inception in France to the arrival
To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson Read More »
