Anecdotal Evidence

There’s a category of reading I think of as functional or expedient. I associate it with appointments where I know I will have to wait – doc...

Edwin Arlington Robinson remembered his brother Herman’s death in 1909 from the combined effects of tuberculosis, alcoholism and poverty, an...

School field trips to the Cleveland Museum of Art were annual events beginning in third grade. I don’t recall these visits being connected t...

“If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life,” Dr. Johnson tells Boswell, “he will soon find himself left alone. A m...

“The first time I was ever confronted by myself in print was one Sunday morning (please don't append an editorial note here, stating jus...

A reader asks if I can identify the quality in a work of literature that most quickly causes me to stop reading and put the book away. An in...

When Dr. Johnson agreed to write The Rambler essays, he told friends they would serve as “relief” from the all-consuming work on his great ...