Tag: classics

‘Absent from everything most densely real’

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Recently, I recognized a pattern of thought and behaviour in myself: I am long past mentally finished with a position or situation in life by the time I actually change it. I'm currently in that mental space of being prepared to be somewhere else, while still showing up where I'm currently committed to. I can… Continue reading ‘Absent from everything most densely real’

Taking the Temperature of a Society: Fahrenheit 451 Review

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A philosophic aside If something is not untrue, is that the same as saying it is true? Let me provide a parallel example: if someone is not wrong, does that mean they are right? I'm fairly confident anyone with the slightest degree of ability to grasp nuance of language would instinctively, if not confidently, say… Continue reading Taking the Temperature of a Society: Fahrenheit 451 Review

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week: Blog (and Life) Update

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Lately, I have not been feeling A-OK. I have not even been feeling just "OK," nevermind the "A" part. "Fine" as a back-up term is usually fittingly nondescript and noncommital but even it has not been able to save me this week. Also, I ran out of coffee on Monday. Not saying I was suffering… Continue reading The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week: Blog (and Life) Update

Bildungsromanesque: The Green Years Review

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This review is on a book called The Green Years. Today is Earth Day. Call it serendipity and on with the review. Blurb for The Green Years by A.J. Cronin The Green Years is a 1944 novel by A. J. Cronin which traces the formative years of an Irish orphan, Robert Shannon, who is sent… Continue reading Bildungsromanesque: The Green Years Review

I Am Writing This Letter: The History of Emily Montague Review

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Blurb for The History of Emily Montague by Frances Brooke Set in Quebec City immediately after Wolfe's conquest, this charming love story depicts in intimate detail the life of that city's early English inhabitants. It is a comedy of manners played against a backdrop of the rugged scenery of the New World, a world in… Continue reading I Am Writing This Letter: The History of Emily Montague Review

Obscure Tolkien for Tolkien Reading Day

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In honour of Tolkien Reading Day, I thought I would just make a quick listing and mini-reviews of a few of J.R.R. Tolkien's more obscure works that I have read. Living in the literary/reading/Christian (alternately: nerdy) circles that I do, it is hard for me to single out many of Tolkien's works as "obscure," but… Continue reading Obscure Tolkien for Tolkien Reading Day

The Best and the Wisest: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892-1893) Review

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It may seem like I have reviewed this collection of Holmes stories before, but I assure you I have not. This second collection of Holmes "Adventures" is also published independently as "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes." In my complete fascimile 'Strand' edition, these twelve stories are numbered 13-24, as a continuation of the first twelve… Continue reading The Best and the Wisest: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892-1893) Review

The Artist (of Power) Formerly Known As: The Prince Review

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The Prince: On the Art of Power by Niccolò Machiavelli is not, as I once thought, a veiled political commentary disguised in a fictional account of a prince. But neither is it solely theoretical philosophizing about a hypothetical ideal state of human governance.