I love to read – don’t you? Don’t you just love a good book? I do. There’s just nothing quite like a good book. Except maybe a really good brownie, or a really good walk on the beach, or a really good – I’m sorry.

Yes, I just love to read, especially when I have something good to read. Like – oh – a nice evangelical novel. Yes indeed. You can keep your old Jane Austen and your Emily Bronte (what was her problem, anyway?) and your George Eliot and Tolstoy and Stendhal and all those old-fashioned foreign people. Give me some good evangelical fiction with lots of adventure and violence and scary people and Jesus. That’s what I … Read the rest

This morning I read Mark Bauerlein’s article in Theory’s Empire, ‘Social Constructionism: Philosophy for the Academic Workplace’, originally published in Partisan Review. It’s great stuff.

When someone holds a belief philosophically, he or she exposes it to arguments and evidence against it, and tries to mount arguments and evidence for it in return. But in academic contexts, constructionist ideas are not open for debate. They stand as community wisdom, articles of faith. When a critic submitted an essay to PMLA that criticized constructionists for not making arguments in their favor, the reader’s report by Richard Ohmann rejoined that since constructionism is universally accepted by academic inquirers, there is no need to argue for it anymore.

That’s either hilarious … Read the rest

I listened to part of an Open Book on libaries earlier today. Michael Holroyd talked about how important the library was to him when he was a child – ‘It was a place of light.’ Yes – so it was to me when I was a child. I had two libraries: the public one, in an old brick colonial house painted yellow on Nassau Street, which had a wonderful library smell that I can conjure up whenever I think of it, and which fills me with an intense nostalgia; and the one at school, which was a series of three rooms (painted dark green I think) with arched doorways: it was usually empty (it was a tiny school), and it … Read the rest

Of course, it’s not just London. It’s never just London – or anywhere else.

It’s a suicide bombing in Iraq which killed more than twenty people, along with more bombings in Mosul and Kirkuk. It’s six Afghan policemen beheaded by suspected Taliban guerillas. It’s at least twenty people injured by a bomb in a litter bin in a tourist resort in Turkey. And this month is the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre when eight thousand Bosnian Muslims were killed and dumped in mass graves.

All part of the routine.… Read the rest

Now for another attempt to return to normal programming – at least for a moment.

I’ve been following several literary discussions lately. There is Daniel Green’s comment on that Judith Halberstam article – the one that Michael Bérubé commented on last month and I commented on the month before, at such length that I had to do it twice. That one – Daniel’s – ended with some comments that I’ve been musing about (on and off) ever since. About the distinction (and whether there is one) between literary and non-literary experience. Michael said one thing, Daniel said another, I said a third, Michael answered – and I’ve been trying to figure out what I think ever since. I’ve … Read the rest

A few more salient comments. From the Iranian commentator Amir Taheri:

But sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you.

Specific enough.

With the advent of Islam all previous religions were “abrogated” (mansukh), and their followers regarded as “infidel” (kuffar). The aim of all good Muslims, therefore, is to convert humanity to Islam, which regulates Man’s spiritual, economic, political and