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among them was Walt Kelly. I grew up on Pogo, as my kids did on Calvin and Hobbes. Finally, here is volume I of something that should have been done a long time ago (all the Amazon reviews seem to say, correctly, “Finally!”) . My daughter gave it to me for Christmas and after all [...]
Archive for the ‘Literature’ Category
January 13th, 2012
January 10th, 2012
Category: Arts reviews, Literature
Because Christopher Hitchens’ oeuvre is both enormous in size and uneven in quality, it’s a challenge to sort his finest writing out from the bits that are merely barstool rants or contrarianism for its own sake (Like other people, I was always suspicious that when Hitchens was ripping into Mother Theresa or some other cultural [...]
December 5th, 2011
Category: Literature
An intriguing exchange between Jennifer Fulwiler, Ross Douthat and Will Wilkinson about faith and the meaning of life is highlighted by Andrew Sullivan. The discussion recall one of the best lines in “The Sun Also Rises”: I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in [...]
November 12th, 2011
Lessons from Britain in 1815, with a debt burden twice as high as Italy´s.
September 16th, 2011
Category: Literature
Elmore Leonard said that a book or a chapter should never open with a description of the weather. That’s generally good writing advice, but from the moment I read “The skies over Gatwick were an insipid grey” I was hooked by the writing of Robert Goddard. He is enormously popular in the UK but for [...]
June 18th, 2011
Category: Literature
Laxus and those sons of Corund walked on an afternoon in Krothering home mead. The sky above them was hot and coloured of lead, presaging thunder. No wind stirred in the trees that were livid-green against that leaden pall. The noise of mattock and crow-bar came without intermission from the castle. Where gardens had been [...]
April 8th, 2011
Category: Literature
Amidst all the meaty, important, political posts by other RBCers, I am afraid this one is solely intended to share some very fine writing by Anthony Powell (Yes, I am *still* reading Dance to the Music of Time…) In the sixth novel, the protagonist’s father is limned in a few priceless sentences that are evocative [...]
April 4th, 2011
As I noted below, Paul Ryan’s proposed budget for next year will adopt the policy of ending Medicare. Of course, we should expect the right wing’s talking points to say that it’s not ending Medicare — it’s just “reforming” it, or “transforming” it, or “modernizing” it etc. etc. This led commenter “Calling All Toasters” to [...]
February 27th, 2011
Category: Literature
Professor Peter Reuter is admired around the world for his knowledge of drug policy, but he offers another highly valuable resource to those who know him. He is an extraordinarily voracious book reader and has a preternatural ability to match people to book recommendations. He assigned me Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time, [...]
February 6th, 2011
What did Jesus mean when he accused his opponents of having “ravening” inside them?
