A 'GOOD SOCIETY' SUPPORTS DUTIFUL ACTION
Mary Midgley:
Claire Mac Cumhaill and Rachel Wiseman, presenting (with quotes from) Mary Midgley’s thesis outline: “Without a good society, ‘the sequence of events becomes entirely irregular’ and when an individual acts ‘the traditional result does not necessarily follow.
STORIES MAKE A LIFE
Rebecca Solnit:
“… stories are your life. We are our stories, stories that can be both prison and the crowbar to break open the door of that prison; we make stories to save ourselves or to trap ourselves or others, stories that lift us up or smash us against the stone wall of our own limits and fears.
THERE'S READING, AND THEN THERE'S READING
I’ve always thought of myself as a reader. When I was in grade school, one of my parents’ preferred punishments for my childhood misdeeds was confining me to my room for a specified period of time.
Read moreREADING PLAN: SEPTEMBER THROUGH NOVEMBER 2023
I’ve settled on my reading list for the next three months. It’s a varied collection.
May Sarton and Juliette Huxley are two authors on this list that I knew virtually nothing about three months ago.
THE FUZZY LINE BETWEEN FICTION AND NON-FICTION
My dissertation advisor was not only a theologian and philosopher, but also an avid fly fisherman. In one of our many conversations during the years I studied with him he recommended that I read A River Runs Through It, a novel by Norman Maclean.
Read moreIT TAKES AS LONG AS IT TAKES
In Draft No. 4, John McPhee describes an important point about writing that he learned most pointedly shortly after beginning to write for The New Yorker.
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