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Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 Simon & Schuster, Hardcover, 608 pages ISBN-10: 0684868547 / ISBN-13: 9780684868547 From Simon and Schuster’s page on the book: When the delegates left the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in September 1787, the new Constitution they had written was no more than a proposal. Elected conventions in […]
Still under the weather but back at work. Maybe I’ll feel like reading again soon. Until then…I saw Mel’s post at The Reading Life on a couple of Eudora Welty’s short stories, “Worn Path” and “Lily and the Three Ladies”. For those interested in Welty or “Worn Path”, there is an interview with Welty on […]
Those who have not yet experienced marriage believe it is more important than it is. The chosen companion will renew, improving or worsening, our breed by bearing children: Mother Nature wants this but cannot direct us openly, because at that time of life we haven’t the slightest thought of children, so she induces us to […]
Every time I take a book with me on a family trip I never get more than a page or two read and this trip is no exception. Not that I’m complaining, given the surroundings.
Afterwards, at the funeral, I managed to remember my father weak and good as I had always known him from my infancy, and I convinced myself that the slap given me by a dying man hadn’t been intentional. I became good as gold, and my father’s memory accompanied me, growing sweeter all the time. It […]
Cover of the second edition of La coscienza di Zeno (1925)I had never heard of Zeno’s Conscience until recently (shows how much I get around) and was happy to see a copy of it at the library. The life of the author, Italo Svevo, proves to be an interesting tale by itself. All quotes from […]
On October 8th [2008], Victor Davis Hanson spoke at Biola University on Thucydides: Understanding the Pelopenessian War and the principles which translate from a study of this ancient Greek historian to the modern political-cultural sphere. I meant to listen to this before I read Thucydides. Failing that, I meant to listen to Hanson’s talk while […]
Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte, translation by Cesare FolignoKaputt proves to be a fictional memoir, or a fantasy intertwined with historical events, by Curzio Malaparte. Employed by an Italian newspaper during World War II, he was able to travel around Europe and to the Eastern Front, at ease with dignitaries, soldiers and peasants alike. A large […]
Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte, translation by Cesare Foligno(For a note on this book as a literary work instead of a memoir, see the earlier posts on Kaputt) For the first time during the four years of war, for the first time in the course of my cruel journey through slaughter, hunger and devastated towns, I […]
For those that might be interested–History of Philosophy without any gaps podcasts: Peter Adamson, Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at King’s College London, takes listeners through the history of Western philosophy, “without any gaps.” Beginning with the earliest ancient thinkers, the series will look at the ideas and lives of the major philosophers (eventually […]