Stephen Burn, author of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: A reader’s guide, reviews Infinite Jest for The Times Literary Supplement, placing it in the context of millenarianism: …in the United States, perhaps because the country’s origins are so intimately linked to Western hopes for the millennium, the texture of the novel in particular was significantly…

Non-fiction When reading a non-fiction book read it in a linear fashion. Do not examine the author’s conclusions beforehand. Do not scan the table of contents for the general outline of the book. Do not scan the index to find out what world the author operates in or what the main sources of information, if…

Generate your own dummies cover

I’m not sure how many books I read a year. Once I read 16 books in a month. Some years I only read 16 books, period. This year, seeing as how I’m blogging about books, I’ll probably have a better idea. What I do know is that, for now, I read more than the average…

Theologian C.H. Dodd with his best analogy for what reading The Bible should do for you: It’s place as a whole is rather with the masterpieces of poetry, drama and philosophy, that is, the literature which does not so much impart information but stirs the deeper levels of personality. “Tragedy”, said Aristotle, “effects through pity…