Ideas: Mostly Useful

What Monks Know about Focus

It’s Never Been Easy to Battle Distraction. Reviewing Jamie Kreiner’s New Translation of John Cassian in ‘How to Focus’

Mar 9 •

Joan Didion Maps the California Dream

Can Binge-Reading Her Books Explain My Homeland? Can It Explain Me?

Feb 7 •

Unraveling Narnia’s Genetic Code

C.S. Lewis’s Foreign Parts: Reviewing ‘East of the Wardrobe’ by Warwick Ball

Nov 25, 2023 •

All by Ourselves: Redeeming Loneliness

Reviewing ‘This Exquisite Loneliness’ by Richard Deming and ‘How to Know a Person’ by David Brooks

Nov 15, 2023 •

Mystery to Ourselves: The Brain’s Black Box

Finding the Source of the Self in Literature and Science. Reviewing Eric Hoel’s ‘The World Behind the World’

Aug 14, 2023 •

What’s Reality? Make Your Best Guess

How the Brain Really Works. Reviewing ‘The Experience Machine’ by Andy Clark

Jul 8, 2023 •

Self-Help When Self-Help Doesn’t Work Anymore

How to Sell Yourself on Positive Change: Reviewing Ray Edwards’s ‘Read This or Die!’

Jun 27, 2023 •

C.S. Lewis on Readin’ and ’Ritin’ (but not ’Rithmetic)

Don’t Know Jack about Literature? No Worries. These Two Little Books Can Help

Jun 5, 2023 •

Kevin Kelly’s ‘Excellent Advice for Living’

Words to the Wise: Reviewing the Techno-Optimist’s New Book of Aphorisms

May 3, 2023 •

James and the Giant Question: Should We Cancel Roald Dahl?

Do Artists’ Moral Failings Mean We Shouldn’t Enjoy Their Work? Reviewing ‘Drawing the Line’ by Erich Hatala Matthes

Apr 17, 2023 •

Learning and Unlearning: Living with Ignorance

Rollup Review, Featuring: An Immigrant Memoir, Plato, Wellness Culture, Trust, Quitting, and the History of Ignorance

Apr 2, 2023 •

We Build the World with Imagination

Reviewing Jens Andersen’s ‘The LEGO Story’ and John W. Kropf’s ‘Color Capital of the World’

Mar 18, 2023 •

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