This is a collection of writings about hope, not really addressing optimism much other than to disparage it. I was hoping (without optimism) that it would be a bit more technical in nature, but instead it is quite discursive and pulls in references to pretty much everything you could think of and lots you couldn’t. Eagleton is vastly more well-read than I will ever be and I couldn’t really say he wears his learning lightly. Still, I enjoyed reading the book, getting lost in a few rabbit holes while looking up some of his offhand references. There is a lot in it.
Continue readingEveryone In My Family Has Killed Someone – Benjamin Stevenson
This great whodunnit subverts every expectation. Normally in this genre, subtle clues are scattered throughout the narrative, but in this book the narrator continually breaks the fourth wall to pull the rug out from under me. He lets slip a … Continue reading
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
This novel begins as the diary of a gentleman’s adventure on a 19th-century pacific island. It’s all quite eventful until it stops, right in the middle of Continue reading
Losing Ourselves – Jay Garfield
This is an exploration of the Buddhist concept of no-self: we don’t exist as a distinct self with an unchanging identity. Instead, we are just the sum of the various thoughts, feelings, emotions and so on that are associated with … Continue reading
The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
This wise and wistful book narrates many episodes in the life of an old woman living with her young granddaughter Sophia on a remote Finnish island. The relationship between the two is sweet, yet unsentimental. Sophia’s father lives with them … Continue reading
How To Live. What To Do. — Josh Cohen
A diverting combination of self-help book, literary discussion and psychoanalysis primer. The premise is a bit twee: throughout the books are case notes of famous fictional characters, as if they had gone in for psychoanalysis. These case notes cover a … Continue reading