… it is utterly useless to study a great thing like the Franciscan movement while remaining in the modern mood that murmurs against gloomy asceticism. The whole point about St. Francis of Assisi is that he certainly was ascetical and he certainly was not gloomy. Chesterton’s book Saint Francis of Assisi was published in 1923,…
Category: book review
Review of ‘The Art of Self-Improvement: Ten Timeless Truths’ by Anna K. Schaffner
Self-help is a tricky subject. Depending on the audience, it can provoke intense sympathy and intense skepticism. A dismissive attitude toward the current self-help culture can point to the lack of substance and depth in the popular material, the deceitful and self-serving “gurus,” the hyper-optimism of followers, the fixation with “positive thinking,” the unrealistic promises,…
Commentary on Jordan B. Peterson’s “12 More Rules” (Table of Content)
I wrote the following six short essays a while ago, and in somewhat of a haste. The haste came from knowing if I were to slow down, I’d not get to the end. There are some things you can do only in a rush, and those things tend not to be very pleasant. In any…
Videos on Don Quixote (Cervantes)
In my list of 22 books for the year 2022, Don Quixote was number one. While reading the novel, I also read a little from Vladimir Nabokov’s Lectures on Don Quixote, and I made references to Nabokov on Parts II and III. I enjoyed these livestreams and I’d like to continue doing them, despite the…
Oliver Burkeman on Time (“Four Thousand Weeks”)
I have selected ten excerpts from Oliver Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. The book is a series of meditations on time and how we relate to time. What makes the book engaging and enlightening is Burkeman’s decision not to answer off-the-shelf questions about time management, but instead to treat our common…