February 2007 Articles

Faking it at Literary Parties

If you are visiting this site you probably want to know more about the great books. Or think you know a bit about them already. You may even be able to talk at length about a few of them. But here is the dilemma. You mention to someone at a party that you were on thegreatbookslist.com. and they ask how many of the books have you read. Perhaps none. Oh the embarrassment. You once glanced at the jacket of ‘Ulysses’ or remember reading Homer in school but now you are stumped. But no worries. What is a poseur to do? Well, now you can fake it thanks to “How to Talk About Books that You Haven’t Read” a new French book by Pierre Baynard. You no longer need fear being exposed and can enthrall partygoers with your wit and erudition. Pretentious? Moi? Read the full article here.

It's been a long journey...

The long-awaited opening of the new rail terminal is celebrated by Simon Bradley's St Pancras Station and a re-issue of Jack Simmon's classic of the same name
St Pancras Station was designed and decorated inside and out by medievalists who finished off the booking office with carved screens, Gothic doorways and stone sculptures of railway personnel - frock-coated guard, engine-driver, signalman - nestling in tufts of acanthus on the corbels. The station hotel had a painting on the stairs of Patience, personified as a stout, bearded, balding man slumped in a ginger bath-robe beneath a pointed arch, expressing gloom and discouragement in every line of his sagging shoulders, drooping mouth and fiercely furrowed brow. Read the full article here.

The Virtue of Courage

Courage is a very common virtue, its presence observed by all, even by children, and its absence sometimes severely blamed, more often excused with disdain. Your reputation will suffer a good deal if you are seen to be a coward. Nor can you take refuge in the relativism of values that, in other matters, is such a feature in the thinking of our times. You will probably not be able to defend yourself from an accusation by claiming that one person's courage is another's cowardice. We do not believe there is great difficulty in defining it. Though some societies are peaceable, others warlike, all seem to prize courage and despise cowardice. Read the full article here.

Dr. Johnson Speaks
Samuel Johnson died 222 years ago, and in all that time there has been surprisingly little agreement about what he thought about many important questions. Read the full article here.

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