Lord John Maynard Keynes wrote, “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. “ “Practical men,” Lord Keynes continues, “who believe themselves to be quite exempt […]

I’m asking all the readers of my blog not to read Coniston by the other Winston Chuchill. That’s because this book is my private sanctuary. It is a brilliant work of literature that is entirely undiscovered. It’s like walking in a forest after a snowfall. No one has been there […]

There are only three guys on the money who did not serve as President: Alexander Hamilton on the ten, Ben Franklin on the hundred and… if you get the other one, you’re really knowledgeable or else really rich. His name is Salmon P. Chase and he’s on the ten thousand […]

You’ve got to hand it to Sue Grafton. She really does her homework. With all the research she puts into her Kinsey Milhonne series A is for Alibi, etc. I would recommend it to anyone working in or wishing to work in the criminal justice system. But I would recommend […]

In my last entry I quoted from “Home” a story by Langston Hughes included in his collection The Ways of White Folks, which, I’m suggesting, is the best short story in the English language. The story is about a black violinist named Roy who travels around Europe in the 1930s […]

I’ve been reading The Ways of White Folks, a collection of short stories by Langston Hughes. They’re all great, but I think the one entitled “Home” may just be the best short story in the English language. I think every high school student in America should be obliged to read […]

You really have to hand it to the news organizations of America. They are dedicated to protecting the American people from the consequences of their actions. While their stated mission is to tell people what is actually going on, they have decided that the American people are actually too sensitive […]

After the Allied campaign in Sicily, Ernie Pyle flew to Algiers to await transportation back to the US. He dropped in on General Eisenhower, who congratulated him on the columns that had appeared in Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper. “John Steinbeck, whom Ernie had long admired but had never […]

Back in 1850, a preacher’s wife in Maine, Harriet Beecher Stowe, received some advice from her sister-in-law, Isabella Beecher: “Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.” Hattie had written several […]

This is the second entry in our thrilling two-part series on lunatics whom Charles Dickens met in an asylum in Hartford, Connecticut in 1842. Yesterday Dickens met a woman who styled herself “an antediluvian.” Today we meet an aspiring diplomat: “There was a male patient in bed;” Dickens writes in […]