It’s hard to imagine a more exciting scientific adventure than the one described in Altered Traits. Forty years ago, when Ritchie Davidson and Daniel Goleman were grad students, their advisors told them that studying meditation would be a career-killer. But they had a revolutionary idea, and they wanted to … Read More
Category: non-fiction
“Rock and roll when first encountered seemed to represent two fears: a fear of the future and a fear of the past.”
Some feared, Christopher Hill notes, that this new kind of music had the power to lead Americans to radical decadence in the not-too-distant future. Others, who had experienced gospel music, recognized “the testifying quality, the clear sense that there were deep stakes involved, that there was a message that urgently … Read More
“In 2016, for the first time, the majority of entering college students described their mental health as below average.”
“He didn’t fit in.”
Even though he was wealthy and influential, Charles Dickens didn’t fit into middle-class life in Victorian England for many reasons. Here are three: He made fun of “society” people in his novels. Instead of writing anonymously, as the other novelists of his day did, Dickens became a celebrity who went … Read More
“Who is it you are writing for? It surely could not be the average person who just enjoys a good read.”
The reader who asked Jonathan Franzen this question touched a … Read More
“Education, when rightly understood, will be found to lie in the art of asking apt and fit questions…”
Bronson Alcott continues, “…and in thus leading the mind by its own light to the perception of truth.” Using discussion questions to develop ideas instead of using the rote learning method to reinforce “the” right ideas was considered outrageous in the 1820s. In fact, Alcott (father of Louisa May Alcott) … Read More
“More often than we think, our limits are self-imposed.”
I once asked the director of our program for non-traditional college students what the biggest challenge was for these students. Was it ability? “No,” she said. “It’s their perception of their abilities. They don’t think they’re smart enough. Then they give up because they think they won’t make it.” These … Read More
“When I was younger, anxiety sometimes flat-out crippled my ability to work.”
In every class I teach, there is at least one student who will talk with me at some point about how high levels of anxiety are preventing him or her from completing assignments. This memoir by Andrea Petersen provides a vivid account of what living with anxiety entails. She writes, … Read More
So what about Dylan’s song “Blowin’ in the Wind”?
Tony Beck, who wrote his dissertation for Cambridge University on Bob Dylan, notes that Dylan “borrowed extensively” from the English poets Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Bryon, who also used the “wind” as a central image in their poems. For them, the wind often symbolized change and freedom. It probably … Read More
“It tells the stories of two revolutions.”
Revolutions, indeed. This book is about Revolutionary War era hero Alexander Hamilton, whose picture is on our ten-dollar bill. It’s also about the revolutionary way his story is told by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who uses hip-hop, harpsichords, and a largely non-Caucasian cast in his Broadway production of Hamilton. Unlike any … Read More
“Until recently, we simply didn’t know how immense this problem was, or how serious the consequences, unless we had suffered them ourselves.”
When Matthew Desmond was growing up, money was tight. Sometimes the gas got shut off, and his parents eventually lost their home to foreclosure. This week, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his nonfiction book Evicted, which is about eight families in Milwaukee and their evictions. Vivid and unsettling: … Read More
“Always do what you are afraid to do.”
This famous assertion from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Heroism,” published in 1841, floated to the top of my mind while – of all things! – attending a technology conference. The keynote speaker, author of the upcoming book Strive: How Doing the Things Most Uncomfortable Leads to Success, made … Read More
“By and large, art both instructs and entertains us.”
“Many modern books on ‘style’ have suggested that there are only two styles: good and bad.”
This book, Clear and Simple as the Truth, takes a much different view. The authors argue that there are many styles for writers to choose from – including contemplative, classic, romantic, plain, oratorical, practical, and diplomatic. This book focuses primarily on the classic style – its history, conventions, philosophy, … Read More
“Every work of literature has both a situation and a story.”
The situation, Vivian Gornick explains in this book about the art of personal narrative, is the context or circumstances, while the story is “the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say” (13). Gornick argues that the most difficult and important work of memoirists is to understand why… Read More