Monthly Archives: March 2024

Austen Defines “the Best Company”

By Robin Bates | Published: March 21, 2024

Austen’s Anne Eliott describes “good company” in a way that captures our own friendships.

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Master, Speak to Us of Friendship

By Robin Bates | Published: March 19, 2024

As we travel around the country refreshing friendships, I think of what Kahlil Gibran says about the subject.

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Spring, the Sweet Spring!

By Robin Bates | Published: March 18, 2024

A joyous Thomas Nashe poem to welcome in the new season.

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A Bookstore and the Library of Babel

By Robin Bates | Published: March 17, 2024

Attending a good bookstore makes me realize how relatively little I have read. Borges’s “Library of Babel” makes one feel similarly small.

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Glorifying Wild and Precious Lives

By Robin Bates | Published: March 16, 2024

By glorifying God, we glorify God’s creation, and vice versa. Mary Oliver captures how this works in “Summer Day.”

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Here’s to Old Ireland!

By Robin Bates | Published: March 14, 2024

A Jean Blewett poem for St. Patrick’s Day.

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Jane Austen’s Thematic Use of Cards

By Robin Bates | Published: March 13, 2024

In which I share a talk I will be giving on the thematic significance of card playing in Jane Austen’s novels.

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Could “Dover Beach” Deter a Rape?

By Robin Bates | Published: March 12, 2024

In McEwan’s “Saturday,” the poem “Dover Beach” prevents a rape and possibly a murder.

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Trump as a Sadistic Steinbeck Bully

By Robin Bates | Published: March 11, 2024

As bully, Trump resembles Curley in “Of Mice and Men.” Recently Biden, like Lennie, struck back.

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