Bibliophobia presents occasionally as a literal fear of books. More often it’s an anxiety about reading for those with deep connections to literature... more »
Socrates was poor, ugly, boastful, kind of a jerk. He was also, of course, a timeless genius. But is he a man for our times?... more »
Capitalism may be the best economic system, but the price for all that prosperity was always going to be at the cost of high culture... more »
With intensity, earnestness, and a bougie aesthetic, McNally Jackson is reshaping literary life in New York... more »
Agnes Callard: "Where once children were instructed to be saintly, or at least virtuous, or at least ordinary, now they are invited to be weird"... more »
Articles of Note
Celebrities sign autographs with autopens, cursive is on the wane in schools — what does it mean to live without handwriting?... more »
New Books
Cellphones, social media, AI. “The more we communicate, the worse things seem to get,” says Nicholas Carr... more »
Essays & Opinions
In bohemian New York, a vibe shift is underway. The avant-garde is advancing no more than a series of poses and affectations... more »
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 Luis Borges gave at Harvard in 1967-68. Ryan may be the most precise writer at work today. There’s no mushiness in her choice of language, no sense of almost the right word. When she chooses a surprising word, it’s not sloppy or generic. It means something. She writes in the Borges review:
“[I]t was instead a lovely lightness of spirit. Behind all the lectures I could feel Borges’ abiding dream of deliquescing into the glories of literature. At first this was hard to see because it’s mixed up with his worries about getting things a bit scrambled up, but then there it is: this big egolessness. Borges simply apprehends the inexhaustible radiance of literature and would walk into it naked and without a name, such a lover is he.”
