Latest posts
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The Enlightenment on Trial: Voltaire, Paine, Montaigne
We live inside the Enlightenment — a world three writers argued into being. On Montaigne, Voltaire and Paine, and the case for reason, now on trial again.
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The French Realists: Balzac, Flaubert, Zola
If the Russians gave the novel its soul, the French gave it its eyes. On Balzac, Flaubert and Zola — and the invention of the realist novel.
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Where to Start With the Russians
The enormous books, the unpronounceable names, the reputation for gloom. A practical map to the Russians — where to start, and which giant to choose.
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Dead Souls: The Great Unfinished Russian Novel
A stranger arrives in town and starts buying dead peasants. On Dead Souls, Gogol’s comic epic of a rotten society — and the second half he burned.
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The Invention of the United States
A country is not discovered; it is invented — argued into being. On reading the American founding documents as what they were: debates the founders tried to keep quiet.
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The Human Comedy: How to Read All of Balzac
Ninety interlocking novels mapping a whole society, bound by characters who recur across them. On the Human Comedy — and how to begin reading all of Balzac.
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The Last Man: Mary Shelley’s Forgotten Apocalypse
She invented science fiction twice. On The Last Man, Mary Shelley’s 1826 plague apocalypse — two centuries ahead of its time, and born of grief.
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Siddhartha: The Search That Became a Generation’s Bible
A young man leaves everything to find the meaning of life — and learns wisdom cannot be taught, only lived. On Siddhartha, Hesse’s gentle masterpiece.
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Faust: The Bargain at the Heart of the Modern World
A scholar wagers his soul that the Devil can never satisfy him. On Faust, Goethe’s sixty-year masterpiece, and the restless striving at the heart of the modern world.
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The Sorrows of Young Werther: The Book That Started an Epidemic
In 1774 a young lawyer wrote a novel so moving it was blamed for a wave of copycat suicides. On Werther, Goethe, and the book that founded Romanticism.