Reading
Currently reading: Passions of the Soul by Rowan Williams. This book is exactly what I need right now. 📚
Finished reading: France on Trial by Julian Jackson. A vivid and powerful story. What a unique figure Pétain is. 📚
I’ve been listening to Stephen Fry reading the Sherlock Holmes canon and it’s just irresistible. 🎧📚
Currently reading: History of England (6 volumes) by David Hume 📚
Finished reading: Charmed Lives by Michael Korda. One of the most remarkable memoirs I’ve ever read, full of amazing stories. The ones about (a) Orson Welles and (b) a decrepit member of the Rothschild family are worth the price of admission by themselves. 📚
Currently reading: The Studio by John Gregory Dunne. This little book has a hundred great stories but my favorite is this: When planning the television series Custer, 20th Century Fox TV execs knew who they wanted to play Crazy Horse: Toshiro Mifune. This did not happen, for good reasons, but I can’t help wondering…. 📚
Currently reading: The Debate on the Constitution. Reading through these documents, so brilliantly chosen and edited by Bernard Bailyn, my two dominant thoughts are (a) Neither the Federalists nor the Antifederalists believed in the honesty or decency of their opponents, and (b) Quiet little James Madison is terrifyingly brilliant. 📚
Finished reading: Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard. Teaching this today. It is, every time I read it, a dazzling and disturbing book. 📚
Finished reading: 3 Shades of Blue by James Kaplan. A brilliant book, but in its later stages immensely sad. 📚