Out of the woods: no trees at the library
The Vatican City correspondent deliberates on the absence of trees at the library.
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07, 2017
18
11, 2016
Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston (September 2016 – January 2017)
Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston: three venues showcase the rich store of imagination in Europe before modernity. From the description: The exhibition presents more than 260 outstanding manuscripts and printed books from nineteen Boston-area collections, dating from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries. h/t Roberta Morosini
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11, 2016
Coco Chanel and the Art of Reading: Exhibit in Ca’ Pesaro, Venice
Coco Chanel and the Art of Reading: Exhibit in the Ca'Pesaro, Venice, through 8 January 2017. From the description: From Greek authors to modern poets, Gabrielle Chanel’s abundant library reveals the works that left an impression on her life and shaped her personality.... This dialogue through the ages, from antiquity to her contemporaries, is underlined in particular by [...]
8
10, 2016
Death by technology (Andrew Sullivan, New York Magazine)
Death by technology: how living with technology deprives us of silence, inwardness, and the ability to find the well-springs of life. And this condition has its own, overlooked history. From the article: The English Reformation began, one recalls, with an assault on the monasteries, and what silence the Protestants didn’t banish the philosophers of the Enlightenment [...]
14
09, 2016
The costs of learning
The costs of learning: prudent parents have thought of better investments than financing the studies of their children I am thinking of something I heard in Bologna, where I was a student, from a certain honorable citizen, the father of a legal scholar, who told me more than once that there was nothing he regretted as much [...]
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08, 2016
Good books in Damascus (Mike Thomson, BBC)
Good books in Damascus: how a library can offer a respite from war and civic disintegration. From the article: I ask [Abdulbaset Alahmar], in a besieged town that has only had access to two aid convoys in nearly four years, wouldn't it make more sense for the library enthusiasts to spend their time looking for [...]
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08, 2016
A letter about writing
A letter about writing: a correspondent argues against the mania for writing Editor’s note: The following letter, printed below in its entirety, was written in response to an earlier post, Against Reading. The editorial staff does not typically sanction the placement of readers’ letters in the monthly Observations, yet found that the author’s candor [...]
28
06, 2016
Of books to books: Washington Irving on the library of Westminster Abbey
Of books to books: Geoffrey Crayon speaks to volumes in the library of Westminster Abbey, and ponders the ways time and technology transform our knowledge. “Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who flourished their allotted time…. Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication. Works had to be transcribed by [...]
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06, 2016
The Joy of Reading (Ceridwen Dovey, The New Yorker)
The joy of reading: can reading offer therapy to those in distress and provide a greater sense of well-being? From the article: For all avid readers who have been self-medicating with great books their entire lives, it comes as no surprise that reading books can be good for your mental health and your relationships with others, [...]
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05, 2016
The virtues (and folly) of science and scholarship
The virtues (and folly) of science and scholarship: learning merits its laurels, but to what ends, if life (and self-knowledge) is neglected? “Envy, curiosity, and a sense of the imperfection of our present state, incline us to estimate the advantages which are in the possession of others above their real value. Every one must have remarked, [...]