Articles about fiction and non-fiction books and how they can help us live a better life.
. What is a good prose style? When I think about this question, I’m reminded of George Orwell, who famously named aesthetic enthusiasm as one of the “four great motives” for writing. For him, it was the “perception of beauty in … words and their arrangement” and the “pleasure in the impact of one sound … Read more
Artificial intelligence is no longer science fiction. It has become an essential — and sometimes insufferable — fixture of our everyday lives. While some celebrate AI as the ultimate tool for human advancement, others fear it as a potential threat to our labor, privacy, and very identity. In this era of rapid technological shifts, we … Read more
This article will be interesting to those of you who are particularly fond of C.S. Lewis (November 29, 1898–November 22, 1963) and his nonfiction books. In the introduction to one of them, “On Writing (and Writers): A Miscellany of Advice and Opinions,” David C. Downing writes that Lewis was “arguably one of the most lucid … Read more
Do you believe there’s a correlation between sentence length and the sophistication of an author’s idea or thought — even intelligence generally? “There isn’t,” writes Verlyn Klinkenborg in his book “Several Short Sentences About Writing.” “You can say smart, interesting, complicated things using short sentences.” In a sentiment that calls to mind George Orwell’s famous … Read more