Novelist Charles Dickens and the musician Prince were very different types of artists, but they also had a lot in common. A new book chronicling their extraordinary careers becomes a larger meditation on perfectionism and creativity itself. Plus...
In one memorable passage from Nick Hornby’s book, Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius (Bookshop|Amazon), the author wrestles with the question of what factors come together to make someone a creative genius. This is part of a...
Paula in Cheyenne, Wyoming, calls with the story of a moving pilgrimage to the home of Willa Cather in Red Cloud, Nebraska, and shares a favorite passage from Cather’s My Antonia (Bookshop|Amazon). This is part of a complete episode.
In a passage from How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education, Scott Newstok, a professor at Rhodes College, offers an apt description of class letting out and students wandering about while focused on their phones. This is...
Pam from Denton, Texas, says her mother-in-law always used the expression independent as a hog on ice. A hog that stubbornly gets itself stranded on a sheet of ice is in an extremely awkward position. A passage in the book Jack Shelby: A Story of...
In his book African Religions and Philosophy, Kenyan-born philosopher John Samuel Mbiti describes the East and Central African concepts of sasha, those ancestors who remain alive in human memory, and zamani, the vast ocean of time into which...