Category: Bibliophilia
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Marginal Notes
Used books often come with notes in the margin, notes almost always of marginal value.
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The Obsolete Man
The Twilight Zone marathon is in progress at the SyFy channel. One of the best episodes of the series which ran from 1959-1964 is The Obsolete Man (1961). Rod Serling's opening narration is eerily prescient and eerily relevant to our present police-state predicament: You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads…
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Termitic Librarians
Library 'science' now attracts the mindlessly presentist, the terminally woke-assed, the viciously anti-civilizational, and the erasers of the historical record. See here and here. Build private libraries and be prepared to defend them. In your will, specify a worthy, like-minded heir to whom to bequeath the library that you have spent a lifetime building along…
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Books and Reality
And back again. Back at the Stack.
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Reader Asks: What Should I Read?
Nathaniel T. writes, In the new year, I'm committing to some more regular reading habits. What serious books would you recommend to someone outside academia who has about half an hour uninterrupted in the morning to read, three times a week? How about a list that would last that person a year? Here…
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Word of the Day: Peritus
Merriam-Webster: "an expert (as in theology or canon law) who advises and assists the hierarchy (as in the drafting of schemata) at a Vatican council." I was sent to the dictionary by this communication from Tony Flood: Bill, I remember Lonergan and other Vatican II periti refer[ring] disparagingly (in their writings) to the "theology of the manuals,"…
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Book Lust
The old man's libido may be on the wane, but this man's book lust remains as stiff-standing as ever. I'm reading along in Anthony Kenny's Aquinas on Being and I find a footnote in which he praises a certain Hermann Weidemann's article contained in a certain anthology. I think, "Oh boy, when I am in…
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Withdrawn from Circulation
Substack latest.
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Homo Americanus: The Rise of Totalitarian Democracy in America
Ordered yesterday, arrived today. That's what I call service. Only in America, but then what's with the 'wokery' of Bezos and the boys? Turn the USA into a Soviet-style shithole and then what motive would anyone have to innovate? A bit of a paradox. Did the US defeat the SU to become SU 2? By…
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Stalin the Bookman
Here is a review of Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin's Library: A Dictator and his Books. Excerpts: He was also an avid reader. Roberts’s book begins as an analysis of the personal library Stalin left behind, scattered around his various dachas and offices. It comprised some 25,000 volumes, covering a wide range of subjects including Marxism, political…
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Not All Academic Philosophers are Leftists!
Dissident Philosophers Voices Against the Political Current of the Academy EDITED BY T. ALLAN HILLMAN AND TULLY BORLAND The book consists of sixteen essays (and an introduction) from prominent philosophers who are at odds with the predominant political trend(s) of academic philosophy, political trend(s) primarily associated with leftism. Some of these philosophers identify explicitly with the…
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Withdrawn from Circulation
The very best books, or so it seems, are usually the ones that get withdrawn from circulation in local public libraries, while the trash remains on the shelves. The librarians' bad judgment, however, redounds to my benefit as I am able to purchase fine books for fifty cents a pop. A while back, the literary…
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On Books and Gratitude
Wherein I say something nice about Howlin' Wolff.
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Readings for Dark Times
When the light of liberty was extinguished in Germany 1933-1945, many escaped to America. But when the light of liberty is extinguished here, there will be no place left to go. What was it like to live in the Third Reich? What can we learn that may be of use in the present darkness? I…