If the chief is no good…
Written in the 1930s, this still resonates. It's also an unusual example of a fool or clown openly stating that the...
Be sweet, be useful, and even be true
It seems Horace wanted to fulfill this injunction, intending his poems to be ‘helpers of humanity’.
Perhaps another reason his...
The lobsters of Skopelos
Hyperbole, nothing like it when suitably blatant, creative and outrageous.
You couldn't possibly eat one of these, only engage them...
Captain Grekov’s eyes
This is a memorable description of Captain Grekov, commander of House 6/1 in the rubble of Stalingrad, summing up so...
It’s New Year’s Day – call someone!
This made me laugh on the one hand – a funny image to receive a phone call from a dog...
Pleasant things
Jane the young woman is now entering a milieu where her deprived childhood is in stark contrast with her employer's...
A long lane
Keats had a humbling capacity to squeeze out moments of joy even while grappling with the illness which would kill...
This is my life
This statement of arrow-straight simplicity could serve as an occasional sanity check. If it rings true, we’re on track. If it causes a flinch or a...
Why read literature?
‘Why read literature? Because it enriches life in ways that nothing else quite can. It makes us more human.’
I'm...
People to go with the furniture
Orlando goes on a massive interior design spree, lavishing huge expense on new furniture and other luxuries for the 365...
Love among the rubble
This refers to a love affair that burgeons in the grimness of Stalingrad, and I like how Grossman expands the...
A sense of happiness in the light of spring
What a beautiful corrective lens for the 'nasty, short and brutish' view of distant human lives. I did not realise...
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