In which I discuss the Guardian’s recent “100 Best Novels of All Time.”
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Author Archives: Robin Bates
Leo: Reading Trumps Reductive Views of Reality
Pope Leo recently called for reading books, which he said is “an antidote to closed-mindedness, which manifests in rigid attitudes and reductive views of reality.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Elsa Morante, Pope Francis, Pope Leo, William Wordsworth, World Saved by Kids Comments closed
Intimate with Heaven, as Light
Ascension poems by Donne, Vaughan, and Guite emphasize how, through Jesus, we touch the numinous.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Ascension", "Sonnet for Ascension Day", Crown, Henry Vaughan, John Donne, Malcolm Guite Comments closed
Childhood Imagination: Encourage It or Lose It
Reflections of childhood imagining and how too often our society fails to foster it.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Alices Adventures in Wonderland, Children, Huckleberry Finn, Imagination, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain Comments closed
Antigone Taught Mandela Leadership
While in prison, Mandela performed the role of Creon in Antigone. The experience may have helped train him for leadership years later.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Antigone, Apartheid, Edith Hall, leadership, Nelson Mandela, Sophocles, South Africa Comments closed
The Joys of Reading Fanny Burney
In which I share my first-time reading experience of Fanny Burney’s Cecilia, which I couldn’t bear to put down.
O’Connor Illustrates White Identity Formation
In the short story “Artificial Nigger,” O’Connor shows how racism is inculcated in a child. Toni Morrison’s sees the story as paradigmatic.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Artificial Nigger, Flannery O'Connor, racism, Toni Morrison, white identity Comments closed
She My Lodestar While I Go and Come
Four poems for Mother’s Day.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged “Ave Maria", “Rock Me to Sleep", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Carl Sandburg, Christine Rossetti, Eavan Boland, Elizavbeth Akers Allen, home, In Memoriam Comments closed