Myron Magnet, editor of City Journal, doesn’t want you to wonder, “What use is Literature?” … [It] teaches us more about psychology than the psychologists can. The inner life—and its relation to the outer appearance, from which it is often (and proverbially) very different—is literature’s special subject. It is a particularly complex subject, with its…

My first blog meme, via Classical Bookworm. I guess I’m an official blogger now… Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback? Whatever I can get. I prefer the trade paperback, though. It’s easier to handle. Amazon or brick and mortar? Definitely brick and mortar – with a sign that says used or bargain out…

Pantheism, the multiverse, and the problem of evil – all in one paragraph: On the principle that you can never have too much of a good thing, reality could very well consist not just of a single infinite mind, but of infinitely many. Even so, this situation wouldn’t be “perfect” in such a way that…

Average weight of a blue whale: 200,000 to 300,000 lbs. Average weight of an American automobile: 6,000 lbs. Estimated weight of Samuel Johnson: 360 lbs. Weight of blog author Ian Stewart: 155 lbs. Combined weight of the three published volumes (of a projected five volumes) of N.T. Wright’s Christian Origins and the Question of God:…

I find it tough to put books in ordered lists and come up with even one top book. They can all be so different. If I was going to be really serious about it how would I go about it? I’d probably spread all my favorites out on the dining room table first. Then I…