Reading to Feel: Breath, Memory, and Joan Didion’s ‘Notes to John’
We read not to remember, but to feel: to remain suspended in that intimate proof that something—whether in the writer or the reader—is still breathing.
Book Reviews
Reading
Bouquiphiles
Caverns
Personal reflections on reading in Mad Men, the iconography of writers with libraries, and a friend’s legendary hidden library in the nineties.
Loose Pages
Because of your Love, the Air Hurts Me
A mentor dissuades an aspiring poet from writing, extolling Lorca and reading with AI as a superior alternative to creative vanity.
Book Reviews
Tangier according to Shoemake
A visit to Tangier coincides with reading a guidebook by Shoemake.
Loose Pages
Citario Nietzsche
On the anniversary of Friedrich Nietzsche’s birth, this citarium evokes his idol-shattering hammer, the lion that gives birth to the child, and the eternal return.
Bookspel
When Reading Is a Drama
The debate over whether reading makes us morally superior reveals that books are a critical tool, not a guarantee of virtue, in an era dominated by social media.
Bookspel
New Barnes & Noble Stores: Real Bookshops or TikTok Sets?
Famous bookstore chain expands: revival of reading or stage set for influencers?
Book Reviews
The Library in Flames
A book about a library fire opens this reflection on the transformation and challenges of public libraries.
Essays
The Means of Thought
Literature as the only means of transforming thought via solitary language.
Bouquiphiles
My Library of Alexandria
The impossible library: memories of a reading fever in Santiago, Chile.