Reading, Reconsidered
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In Praise of Very Good Books
December 23, 2021
Dear Reader, Many people are so obsessed with great books that they can’t categorize influential and interesting books as anything but great books. But Neil...
The art of giving a book
November 30, 2021
Dear Reader, Book giving is a fine enterprise. You have much more freedom than in recommending a read. Much of what I wrote in “The art of suggesting a read”...
Words from the Wise and Otherwise - Part 13
October 27, 2021
Sometimes you run into a quote that just sticks the landing. This quote is eventually about how readers might interact with writers, but along with the way...
Funky Formatting
September 15, 2021
Dear Reader, One of my favorite texts to teach over the years has been Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Now, it isn’t simply because of its content, though...
“Hobgoblins of Little Minds”
August 11, 2021
As promised a few months back, this is an introduction to a newsletter that I’m willing to write should there be enough interested readers for it. The name...
Free Reading and Reading Under Authority
August 4, 2021
Dear Reader, As I’ve spent my summer completely destroying the free-reading time of many a good soul this summer, I have splendid inspiration for this...
Next-Level Reading
July 1, 2021
So Many Books The next level – which many doctors, engineers, teachers, and researchers never reach – is to grasp a book all at once, in its entirety. How...
Reading What’s Not There
June 1, 2021
Dear Reader, Sometimes readers do a curious thing: they read more meaning into the text than is there. Now, I’m not talking about the sort of everyday...
Reading Books on Writing, Part One
May 5, 2021
Dear Reader, Today’s piece is distinct from my series of essays on “Reading as a Writer” (Parts One and Two so far). I suppose one often reads books on...
An Interlude
April 21, 2021
Dear Reader, A few people expressed concern about, well, the absence of reading material. So perhaps I might point you to some possibilities. Here we have...
Reading What You Don’t Know
April 7, 2021
Dear Reader, Before I get to today’s requested piece, I want to make a quick note. I’ll be downshifting to one piece a month, starting this month. There are...
Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Twelve
March 25, 2021
She said it, not me: Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact—from calling on us to look through a...
The art of suggesting a read
March 17, 2021
Dear Reader, Let’s commence with a quote from last summer that I think will provide an essential framework for anything that follows: “I have this pet theory...
The Completest Reader
March 12, 2021
Dear Reader, I had mentioned the completest reader in last week’s post so it seemed appropriate to continue on my promise to discuss this type of reader, one...
Re-Reading, Reconsidered
March 3, 2021
Dear Reader, For some reason, I prefer the hyphenated “re-read” when I’m reading digitally, but “reread” in print. Someone better connected with typography...
Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Eleven
February 26, 2021
Dear Reader, This series has the most varied reader response. That is, I often get appreciative remarks on it, but the pieces themselves receive the least...
The Must-Finish Reader
February 20, 2021
Dear Reader, We might consider the title of today’s piece a working title. I couldn’t come up with a good title for the reader who must finish whatever book...
How to Read Love Letters
February 11, 2021
Dear Reader, As Valentine’s Day swiftly approaches, I thought that this theme would be apropos. Ha. No, I will not actually be writing on this theme. Love...
The Stakes of the Read
February 5, 2021
Dear Reader, Sometimes the reading stakes matter in how we engage with a read. This is, of course, a matter of anticipation, and it can certainly lead to the...
Reading to Remember
January 27, 2021
Dear Reader, Sometimes, we style our reads for retention and interaction beyond what our own memories can preserve. They are reads distinct from reading for...
Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Ten
January 20, 2021
Dear Reader, I always find it fun to work through these, not least because they serve as a sort of commonplace book and allow me to pilfer the quasi-...
Have You Done the Reading?
January 14, 2021
Dear Reader, A not-so-fun little tick that comes up in public discourse is the accusatory “Have you done the reading?” The rhetorical implication is always...
A Different Reading Reflection
January 7, 2021
I’d planned on a different piece for yesterday, but it just didn’t feel right to send out when there were other things more worthy of attention. And I...
The Pagliacci Question
December 30, 2020
Dear Reader, If you’re a classically-trained baritone, you know to respect and fear Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. (Even if you aren’t into opera, you’ll...
Christmas Eve Reading
December 23, 2020
Do you ever find yourself reading on Christmas Eve? There are excellent poems, the most obvious being “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” There’s your Dickens’...
Postponed Newsletter
December 11, 2020
Dear Reader, It appears my broken finger won’t heal up in quite the normal timeline. (This might have something to do with my re-breaking it.) As typing...
Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Nine
December 2, 2020
Dear Reader, I’ll continue my artful dodge of writing about reading poetry, not least because perhaps more how-to books exist for that genre of reading than...
The Grinding Read
November 26, 2020
Dear Reader, As I noted in a postscript to “The Deep Read,” author Cal Newport mentions in his book's conclusion that he took his deep work too far. He found...
The Mid-Read Switch
November 19, 2020
Dear Reader, Just yesterday I was reading a piece that was casually recommended by a friend of a friend. I read it somewhat dispassionately, as I hadn’t a...
Letters to Others
November 12, 2020
Dear Reader, When I was growing up, my grandfather had this odd habit of collecting old postcards and giving them at various holidays. Christmas/New Year’s...
Reminder Reads
November 4, 2020
Dear Reader, Sometimes reads serve as useful reminders. I’ve had plenty of novels where I hit a line and was swiftly reminded of some central human need,...
The Deep Read
October 29, 2020
Dear Reader, This read is commonly known as “the close read” or “close reading.” I didn’t choose those terms, among other reasons, because close reading...
The Mark of the Bad Reader
October 25, 2020
Dear Reader, As I mentioned in “The Vicissitudes of Fate,” there are at least six possible factors that can lead to bad reading. I’m still working through...
Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Eight
October 20, 2020
Dear Reader, It seems worthwhile to have a fall romp through some crisply worded quotations. We’ll return to regularly scheduled programming later this week....
The Vicissitudes of Fate
October 12, 2020
Dear Reader, You might have heard that there are good readers and bad readers. This is indeed so. What you may not have heard, or even felt remotely implied,...
Autumn Reads
October 5, 2020
Dear Reader, Do you ever do seasonal reading? This can be the re-reading of particular books or selections from certain genres of writing. In many cases,...
Book Sale Reading
September 27, 2020
Dear Reader, Today’s piece has a tinge of nostalgia to it. Not only am I a regular attendee of book sales—too regular—but I’ve volunteered for one...
Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Seven
September 18, 2020
Dear Reader, I realized that the last two in this series had more contemporary contributions, and it was time for a return to some with a little more...
Academic Reading and Practitioner Reading
September 12, 2020
Dear Reader, Today’s piece was prompted, as I suppose many are, by an experience of mine. This experience, or reminder, was a more recent one. I’ve been...
The One-Sitting Read
September 5, 2020
Dear Reader, Have you ever enjoyed the pleasure of the one-sitting read? I imagine you must have, as growing up Dr. Seuss or Bill Peet or P.D. Eastman or...
Stray Lines
August 24, 2020
Dear Reader, Do you ever find that a line from a work just won’t leave you? Sometimes it’s literally the line; often it’s most of the line with a swapped in...
The Intellectually Honest Read
August 13, 2020
Dear Reader, The intellectually honest read is a fairly simple one. Its most common form runs this way: if you really disagree with some writer’s stance, you...
Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Six
August 6, 2020
Dear Reader, I recently stumbled upon a conversation among academics about the anti-intellectual practices they make as a regular habit. It was not an...
Reading as a Teacher
August 2, 2020
Dear Reader, Today’s piece was inspired by my return visit to Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One. My return was occasioned by a...
The Fallacy of Full Comprehension
July 22, 2020
“I know she’s reading a lot, but does she understand everything she’s reading?” This question and framing, or some variation of it, is a fairly frequent one...
Just Not For You
July 20, 2020
Dear Reader, Sometimes, a read is just not for you. This isn’t the same as an ambivalent read, where you sort of leave with a shoulder shrug. A read that...
Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Five
July 15, 2020
Dear Reader, Today’s collection of thoughts on reading will come from thinkers from the deeper and more recent past. I had to open with this quote, as not a...
Lost in Thought, Part 7
July 9, 2020
Dear Reader, Turning to the Epilogue, I should probably note its title: “The Everyday Intellectual.” That title is one I personally have no interest in. This...
The Ongoing Conversation
July 7, 2020
Dear Reader, We might call this “The Never-Ending Conversation,” but I thought that title would lead to no one reading this essay. In a sense, both that and...
Lost in Thought, Part 6
July 2, 2020
Dear Reader, Chapter 3 of Lost in Thought provides some great fodder for the reading life. A particularly delightful quote is the following: “An excellent...
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