Here are my top reads of 2023, an eclectic, personal, and incomplete list that shows just how much I no longer care about people judging me for my wide-ranging tastes.
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
reading
Children’s classics find a new life in Classical languages
Latin and Greek translations of beloved children's classics are a trend worth celebrating.
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What I am reading: reminders from literary introverts
Literary introverts remind us of cosmic truths
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What did Richard Nixon write in the margins of his books?
Today The Atlantic is running a fascinating piece by Andrew Ferguson on researching Nixon’s marginalia. Here is a taste: Call it coincidence, serendipity, an aligning of the planets—whatever the term, the moment was creepy and amusing all at once. I...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What I am reading: Jacob Hiserman on Gerard O’Shea’s Educating in Christ and takeaways for college classroom pedagogy
Oftentimes, we pick up books for one reason and discover more reasons why we’re reading them as we go along. That recently happened to me. I’m reading Australian teacher Gerard O’Shea’s Educating in Christ: A Practical Handbook for Developing the Catholic Faith...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What I am reading: Brian Scoles
Summer is the season for reading, whether re-reading old favorites or finding new ones—on your porch, in a cabin in the woods (bears optional), or at the playground or the beach. Because there have been so many wonderful essays on...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What I Am Reading: Colleen Vasconcellos
Summer is the season for reading, whether re-reading old favorites or finding new ones—on your porch, in a cabin in the woods (bears optional), or at the playground or the beach. Because there have been so many wonderful essays on...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What I am reading: John Ferling
Summer is the season for reading, whether re-reading old favorites or finding new ones—on your porch, in a cabin in the woods (bears optional), or at the playground or the beach. Because there have been so many wonderful essays on...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What are you reading?
Summer is the season for reading, whether re-reading old favorites or finding new ones—on your porch, in a cabin in the woods (bears optional), or at the playground or the beach. Because there have been so many wonderful essays on...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
The best road trip novel you’ve never read (probably)
A young man, bored with his life and searching for excitement, takes a road trip. He gets much more excitement, however, than he had bargained for, when his new girlfriend accidentally turns him into a donkey by smearing the wrong...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
Another reminder to be a generous reader
In the course of teaching college classes, I encounter all kinds of readers among my students. Some don’t like to read, some love to read. Some are overly accepting of everything in print. Some are the opposite. Occasionally, a student...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What I am reading: Faith, hope, and love in Eugene Vodolazkin’s Brisbane
Over the course of these first four months of Anno Domini 2023, I have read through all of the novels of the Russian writer Eugene Vodolazkin. This was not planned, but this is the sort of thing that is bound...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
Ideas in progress: Jon D. Schaff on liberal arts education, favorite recent reads, and the intellectual life
What is the focus of your current writing? What are the big questions that you are investigating and the main stories that you hope to tell in your projects right now? I am working on two different projects. I just...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
Your reading and writing life is better with (copy)editors in it
When we read books or shorter essays, such as those published at Current, we generally take certain things for granted. We expect that the book or essay will be free of factual and typographical errors, sentences should read smoothly, the...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
Current contributing editor Christina Bieber Lake reviews Cormac McCarthy’s latest novels
Current Contributing Editor Christina Bieber Lake has reviewed Cormac McCarthy’s latest two novels for Comment. Bieber Lake describes McCarthy’s work as a whole as “Tales that make you ache for goodness and beauty… Tales written in prose that begs you...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What I am reading: lessons on marriage from Janice Holt Giles
Marriage roles are hotly contested in our society. Wrapped up as they are not just in the deeply important work of the family but also in debates over conceptions of biological sex itself, these roles are difficult to define. Efforts...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What are you reading?
Billy Budd is one of Herman Melville’s most enigmatic writings. It involves an inexplicable animosity toward a handsome sailor, an accidental death, and a verdict of ambiguous justness. The captain of the ship on which the events take place is...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What I am reading: binge-reading Vodolazkin on the fly
It has been an unusually excitement-packed couple of weeks for the Williams household. Last week, Dan traveled to Wheaton College to give a lecture on the fragmentation of American evangelicalism (and you can read his blog post about it). This...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What I am reading: reflections on Vodolazkin and the joys of communal reading
Perhaps the first sensation you experience as you walk in is the smell. One way to describe it is musty, but that is not entirely it. It is not entirely unpleasant. The wooden walls of the old cabin have absorbed...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)
What I am reading: Brian Scoles
How did I become a quirky reader? In large part, I blame it on the World Book Encyclopedia. I can only imagine how many hours I joyfully wasted on my guilty pleasure. This probably tells you something about the social...
(To access this content, become a member or log in.)