The Nightstand

That’s the great cultural task now: to relearn this old language, to keep it from dying out, to nurture it and refine and expand it, to develop new idioms and accents. Holston’s book is part of that project.

Disagreements aside, however, Byung-Chul's argument remains a valuable one: the cultures of consumption that rule the modern world are death to the cultures of community that give life meaning.

Seen through his most redemptive lens, Bjartur stands as a cautionary tale for those who would pursue independence as an end in itself.

When we refuse to engage our fellow citizens, we are also taking a public position. There is such a thing as non-partisan economics. But there is no such thing as non-political economics.

This is the story of a bruised soul touched by grace but still frustrated by the passivity that others continue to show in response to the unspeakable.

After a pandemic took his son, the Bard would never be the same

All of this only touches the surface of Escaping the Housing Trap’s arguments and only begins the many productive discussions that should—and hopefully will!—follow in its wake. Buy and read the book, and join with your neighbors in talking about how Strong Towns can help make your community a place that can house all who need it.

As such, these papers provide the means for understanding how imperial concerns shaped the way Entente soldiers perceived themselves and the war. But even more importantly to my mind, the papers provide a window into the human soul and how humor springs eternal in the human breast, even in the most inhuman conditions imaginable.

The book is at its best when it embraces a more generous spirit. If one wishes to learn about traveling grain harvesters and to follow a literary description of the landscape, one will find it here.

Wendell Berry’s sprawling, uneven, brilliant, and sometimes frustrating The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice will likely not, I think,...