I am part of the greatest book club in the world. AND, during these strange, strange times, we are meeting on line so anyone can join us. You can find us at Stories That Matter (NC). In April we are finishing our reading of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. …
Looking up at the stars after an abhorrent and senseless tragedy, the title character in Nikos Kazantzakis’ Zorba the Greek, turns to the narrator, a man who had lived entangled in books, and pleads: ‘What can be happening up there?’ . . . ‘Can you tell me, boss/ he said, …
How do we judge a work of art? Can we meaningfully compare Tolstoy and Dickens, or Austin and Proust? Is it a purely subjective matter? Or are some works objectively better than others? When someone recommends a book to us, how are we to tell if it is one that …
