A World of Speculation

Book Review: The Substance of Style

For an Orthodox Christians, there’s a lot in Virginia Postrel’s book The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce. Culture. and Consciousness by Postrel. Virginia I. ( 2004 ) Paperback that generates an “aha.” From the ornately carved...

Substance of Style III

I’m heading south for a week, and when I get back I expect to have finished reading The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce. Culture. and Consciousness by Postrel. Virginia I. ( 2004 ) Paperback and have begun McKee’s...

The Substance of Style II

More about The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce. Culture. and Consciousness by Postrel. Virginia I. ( 2004 ) Paperback. I’m still not finished with the book so this constitutes a discussion with an argument in progress....

The Social Dimension of Literature

I love audio books. It’s another place where technology has brought us closer to our roots, and those roots offer much nourishment. Once upon a time, literature was stories, and stories were oral (and aural). People gathered with the clan to hear the...

The Cathedral vs. the Book

I enjoy bloggers with humor, who find profundity in daily events, who read the ingredients on the Can ‘O’ Rhetoric that is served up on every side. Especially good at this is James Lileks. He finds meaning in the great icons—architecture, publishing,...

To begin a blog . . .

This is an experiment, to find out if I have anything to say. I’m a middle-aged writer and editor with two teen-agers and a novel on the way. Mocha is a year-old Lab puppy and Thief of Socks. In religion, I’m Eastern Orthodox; in politics mostly...