QUOTATIONS
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Segmenting time, or periodization, is something we have to do if we want to organize the past and give it meaning. But it’s dangerous. By choosing some dominating event and saying that its period starts here and ends there, we run the risk of neglecting other events that don’t fit well into the scheme we’ve… Read more
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“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.” — G.K. Chesterton. Happy Thanksgiving! – Mark Read more
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Like most book lovers, I enjoy reading books about books. I got Michael Dirda’s book, Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting and Living with Books, from the local library here as an ebook. Since one of the points Dirda makes early in the book is how he only reads physical copies of books (never ebooks)… Read more
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I started playing chess online in earnest more than 25+ years ago. I remain a patzer. About 5 or 6 years ago I inexplicably stopped. Recently however, clearly in response to the election, I started playing again. I have lost whatever skills I may have had. But like books and baseball, chess helps keep my… Read more
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The first book of Seamus Heaney’s I ever purchased was Sweeney Astray at a used bookstore in Dinkytown, Minneapolis. That was in October 1986. Since then I have purchased and read many, many other books of his poetry and prose. I treasure each and every one. By the time Heaney published Sweeny Astray in 1983, he had already written… Read more
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“Isn’t it strange what happens with old books? They choose you. They reach out to their buyer—Hello, here I am, take me with you. It’s as if they were alive.” (cf. Pérez-Reverte, Arturo. The Nautical Chart ) Whether it is at a used-bookstore, a thrift store, a Little Library, or the out-of-the-way corner of a bar… Read more
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Happy Friday! Here is a quote by Virginia Woolf to carry into your weekend. There is a sentence in Dr. Johnson’s Life of Gray which might well be written up in all those rooms, too humble to be called libraries, yet full of books, where the pursuit of reading is carried on by private people.… Read more
ClimbingSky 