A NEW INAMORATA PART 2
YESTERDAY WE BEGAN MY APPRECIATION of Margaret Atwood, her memoir Book of Lives, and its two articles in The New York Times “100 Notable Books of 2025.” Today in Part … Continue reading
A NEW INAMORATA PART 1
AT MY AGE? NO MATTER, BECAUSE SHE’S 85. And my infatuation is an intellectual one, based upon my reading about Margaret Atwood in several articles in “100 Notable Books of … Continue reading
HURRAH FOR HAPPINESS! THANKS, MERRIAM-WEBSTER
IT COMES AS NO SURPRISE that MERRIAM-WEBSTER has “Ten Kinds of Happiness.” Here, arranged alphabetically, are tidbits gleaned from several of M-W’s “Joyful words from around the world,” together with … Continue reading
COUNTERING A CURRENT BIGHEAD
AN INSCRIPTION READS THAT I BOUGHT William Cole’s The Bedside Book of Bigheads back when it was new, long before our Narcissist-in-Chief came down that escalator on June 15, 2015, … Continue reading
SCIENCE AND OUR WORLD
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, ENGLISH MATHEMATICIAN ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD delivered a series of Lowell Lectures titled Science and the Modern World. In a “Classics Revisited” essay, Science, October 16, 2025, … Continue reading
SEEKING A LIFE’S PHILOSOPHY
I’VE NEVER BEEN MUCH INTO PHILOSOPHY: I admire the wit of St. Augustine’s comment: “Oh, Master, make me chaste and celibate—but not yet.” And as for Bishop Berkeley’s Esse est percipi … Continue reading
LRB LETTERS FUN PART 2
LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS READERS are literate (and good-humoured) people, as suggested yesterday in Part 1. Today we continue with tidbits gleaned from their letters to LRB editors. A Pacific … Continue reading
LRB LETTERS FUN PART 1
AS SHOWN IN SIMANAITISSAYS FROM TIME TO TIME, the London Review of Books is a most literate —and entertaining—publication, even to its “Letters” column. See, for example, “LRB Letters—A Reader’s … Continue reading
DEMOCRACIES—MEASURING RISK
“WHY DEMOCRACIES DIE AND WHAT TO DO NEXT” is the thought-provoking title of Rachel Beatty Riedl’s review in AAAS Science, September 25, 2025, of Susan C. Stokes’ book The Backsliders. … Continue reading
HOAX REDUX
GEEZ. I THOUGHT I HAD COVERED ALL THIS IN “Hoax: A Real Etymology,” SimanaitisSays, March 22, 2018. It even had lots of Trump references (Henry VIII was “Donald Trump in … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 