Posts filed under “Books”
Why study when you can write the book?
From Nikolai Leskov’s short story The Sentry: Though in those days very few people devoted their time to the study of history, they nevertheless believed in it and were particularly anxious to take part in its making.
On the similarities of the English and Russians: both drunk racists
From Nikolai Leskov’s short story The Left-handed Craftsman: Their contest started while they were still on the open sea and they went on drinking until they reached the estuary of the Dvina at Riga, and all this time both of them drank the same amount of liquor and neither of them was able to drink […]
On building something better than the English
From Nikolai Leskov’s short story The Left-handed Craftsman: ” … for the English aren’t fools but a very clever people and their craftsmanship has a good deal of sound common sense behind it. One can do nothing against the English,” they said, “without careful consideration, but with the Lord’s blessing we may be able to […]
Understanding Russia through metaphor
From Nikolai Leskov’s short story The White Eagle: … all my thoughts seemed to revolve around Ivan Petrovich, that gay living man who had popped out of the ground so suddenly, just like a mushroom in a field after a shower: it is very small, but you can see it from anywhere; everybody looks at […]
Marriage and language skills
From Nikolai Leskov’s short story The Left-handed Craftsman: … Platov found it a bit hard to say what he wanted to say in French, because, to tell the truth, Platov wasn’t much interested in French and, being a married man, he thought all French talk silly and hardly worth while.
Another reason not to read Willpower
I’ve criticized Baumeister and Tierney’s Willpower for it’s lack of substance. It’s also pretty sexist. Sir Henry Morton Stanley is introduced as a paragon of self-control with these lines: If self-control is partly a hereditary trait – which seems likely – then Stanley began life with the genetic odds against him. He was born in […]
That feeling
Standing on the edge of the neighborhood, rigid as a post, staring hopelessly into the night, she felt herself borne upon a cold tide of despair, as bottomless as our needs. A thousand reasons why it might have happened … but none as important as the fact that it had. from The Brief Wondrous Life […]