Why read the classics: Italo Calvino (1923-1985) explains the nature of a classical literary composition, which has various means of speaking to us throughout the different times of our lives. If the books have remained the same (even though they too change in light of a different historical perspective), we ourselves have certainly changed, and the encounter [...]
Do we need a calendar for the season of love?
Umberto Eco explains how books, as our familial elders, deepen our emotional lives across generations. Valentino Bompiani once circulated a saying: “one person who reads is worth two.” It was said by a publisher probably as a clever slogan, but I think it means that writing (and in general language) lengthen one’s life. From the time when [...]
Thoughts of Frederick Douglass on finding the trajectory of moral and social justice in the course of history. There is, in the world's government, a force which has in all ages been recognized, sometimes as Nemesis, sometimes as the judgment of God and sometimes as retributive justice; but under whatever name, all history attests the [...]
“All the recent Spanish governments have been contemptuous of culture, but the current one is downright aggressive towards it” - Arturo Pérez Reverte
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the doctor from Edinburgh, teaches new doctors about the mind.
How can we learn from the writings of dead sages?
Teaching children as young as nine and ten to have philosophical discussions around topics like truth, fairness and knowledge can improve their progress in maths and reading by an average of two months.
