Ten Seconds Too Long
Standing in the echo of the last show’s fading note, wondering through the night about the last song that I wrote: the one that drew …
Time Enough: a byr a thoddaid
What there is left to say, I have said; let's leave off talking, and try instead another way to listen and be heard that words …
Eliot’s Month, Not Mine
cywydd deuair hyrion April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. …

Tag: Sarah Bakewell

A Boost for Sarah Bakewell

Published on August 13, 2025

Paperback Humanists

I’m now reading my third book from Sarah Bakewell. The first two (on Montaigne and the Existentialists, respectively) were really quite good, and provided writing prompts for months 🙂 #SarahBakewell #Humanism #BookSky #Writing #Philosophy

Using Twenty Questions as a Starting Point

Published on November 14, 2016

Maybe a better way of organizing a life is using something like Franklin’s admirable virtues and contrasting one’s life events against it. In that vein, Sarah Blakewell’s How to Live, or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer is perhaps more helpful. In any case, it’s a starting point – and every journey, or so we’re told, must have one.