Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Dangerous Power of Libraries

Libraries as described by poet Paul Engle are sometimes repositories of dynamite, sometimes of comfort.

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On Literature’s Transformational Power

My book “Better Living through Literature” gets released today. It is the culmination of my life’s work.

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The Green Knight’s Lesson: Love Life

A Loren Eiseley passage on seeing his blood put me in mind of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where Gawain has a similar revelation.

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Akhmatova’s Response to Despair

Ana Akhmatova writes that although horrors threaten us, “cherries blow summer into town.”

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Tana French, a Writer for Our Time

Tana French’s novels capture some of the mood engendered by Trumpism.

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The Pope’s Extraordinary Defense of Lit

St. Francis recently penned an extraordinary defense of literature and why it should be taught in seminaries (and elsewhere).

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Harris as Potter, Biden as Dumbledore

Think of Biden as first Harry Potter and then Dumbledore in the battle against Trump Voldemort.

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What to Make of a Diminished Month

“The Oven Bird” is a good poem to read when one is feeling old.

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Is Trump Set to Inherit the Wind?

The way that the Bryan figure deflates in “Inherit the Wind” may prefigure Trump’s demise.

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