The Books You Can Name
You did not pick your last book out of all the books there are. You picked it from the few you had heard of — and you had less to do with building that list than you think.
On reading, thinking, and the journey of expanding knowledge
You did not pick your last book out of all the books there are. You picked it from the few you had heard of — and you had less to do with building that list than you think.
The unread pile you keep adding to isn't a reading list. It's a to-do list — and that's why you keep getting stuck between books.
For most of history, reading was a social activity. Let's bring it back.
Most readers barely reread. The small number who do it seriously describe a fundamentally different activity from first-reading — and they may be the only ones doing it right.
Aby Warburg organized his library by a principle he called the law of the good neighbor — the book you are looking for is rarely the one you need.
The naturalist kept a list of every book he read from 1838 until 1860. Most people know Darwin the theorist; almost nobody knows Darwin the reader.
New essays, roughly monthly. Sign in to get notified when new essays are published.
Or follow via RSS