Category: Bibliophilia
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Old Age and Study as Pleasure and Prophylactic
The abuse of the physical frame by the young and seemingly immortal is a folly to be warned against but not prevented, a folly for which the pains of premature decrepitude are the just tax; whereas a youth spent cultivating the delights of study pays rich dividends as the years roll on. For, as Holbrook…
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Amazon Pricing
I just purchased via Amazon Prime Australian Realism: The Systematic Philosophy of John Anderson Paperback – March 19, 2009 by A. J. Baker (Author), Anthony Quinton (Introduction) I decided on a new paperback for $27.41 plus tax rather than a used hardcover. The used hardcovers start at $2,336.86. Even considering how vastly superior hardbounds…
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A is A: Monism Refuted
This from The Collected Poems and Epigrams of J. V. Cunningham, Swallow Press, 1971, p. 118, epigram #47: This Monist who reduced the swarmOf being to a single form,Emptying the universe for fun,Required two A's to think them one. Notes 1. The title is Cunningham's own. 2. Poetic license extends to use-mention confusion. 3. It…
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The Delight of the ‘Find’
One of the pleasures in the life of a bookman is the delight of the 'find.' As a reader reports: I saw that your cat is named Max Black. You might appreciate this anecdote. Twice a year here in Ithaca there is a three-week long used book sale. The price drops each week, so if…
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My Kind of Guy
Desiderius Erasmus is often quoted as saying, "When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes." The closest I have come to verifying this attribution or misattribution is here: Ad Graecas literas totum animum applicui; statimque, ut pecuniam acceptero, Graecos primum autores, deinde vestes emam.…
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Academic Librarian Compares PhilPapers and Philosopher’s Index
Here. (HT: Dave Lull)
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On Books and Gratitude
Occasionally, Robert Paul Wolff says something at his blog that I agree with completely, for instance: To an extent I did not anticipate when I set out on life’s path, books have provided many of the joys and satisfactions I have encountered. I am constantly grateful to the scholars and thinkers who have written, and…
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What Books, Inq. and MavPhil Have in Common
Here
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Joachim Fest, Not I
One of the books I am reading is Joachim Fest's Not I: Memories of a German Childhood (orig. publ. in German in 2006 by Rowohlt, tr. Martin Chalmers, New York, Other Press, 2013). The title alludes to Mark 14:29: "But Peter said unto him, Although all shall be offended, yet will not I." WSJ review…
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The Philosopher and the Thief
John Kaag in Harper's tells a fascinating story of William Ernest Hocking and his library, and he tells it well. (HT: Seldom Seen Slim) No bibliophile could fail to enjoy it. And this raises one of life's greatest mysteries. Why do some of us value good books above bread while others of us are indifferent…
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A Note on David Mamet
I stumbled upon a good brisk read the other day by David Mamet in the genre, How I finally saw the light and stopped being a benighted leftist. The title is The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (Sentinel, 2011). Here is a taste, from a footnote on p. 10: *The Left and…
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Saturday Night at the Library: What I’m Reading #1
Jan of Warsaw, Poland writes, Would you please start a series of posts akin to the "Saturday Night at the Oldies" except about books? A few books presented every week, each with a one sentence description, from as wide a thematic range as possible — fiction, history, philosophy, biography and others. I would profit from…
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Nassim Taleb’s Argument for Banning Semi-Automatic Weapons
Just over the transom an e-mail from someone who wants me to review Nassim Taleb's latest book. So I asked Mr. Google to tell me who this Taleb fellow is and he referred me to Nassim Taleb's Super-Simple Argument for Banning Semi-Automatic Weapons. After reading this incoherent Facebook posting of his, I decided that time…
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Friday Cat Blogging a Day Late: The Cat Who Feared the One Book Man
Timmy the Cat sez: "I fear the man of one book." I would add that it does not matter what that one book is, whether Aristotle's Metaphysics or Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats or the Bible. Study everything. Join nothing. Image credit: Laura Gibbs via Seldom Seen Slim. Related articles Do housecats ever kill…
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On Used Books, Marginalia, Underlining, and Teaching
My library extends through each room of my house, except the bathrooms. (I suspect that in the average household, where the only purpose of reading could be to inspire excretion, it is the other way around.) If I weren’t pro-Israel I would say that my library commits territorial aggression against my wife’s ‘Palestinian’ books; her…