Just before I started this publication I was at a dinner party with mostly philosophers. The conversation was general, and there wasn’t a lot of talk about where anyone worked or what their positions might be. At the end, as I walked out with a younger couple, one of them asked what I did.
I said that I used to be an academic, and that now I was a person who lived in the countryside and wrote things.
I expected to fall in his estimation, but instead he looked, for a moment, wistful. And that, somehow, provided the impetus to put more of the writing out into the world.
The resulting publication is a home for essays that are more personal, more bookish, more messy than academic writing. They’re not trying to be perfect, but they’re hoping to say things that matter, or at least to add something to a discussion that one would be glad to be part of.
They draw on books, on conversations in the little village I moved to, on things that I’ve worked with over the years, and more. They’re meant to be enjoyable to read, and I’ll do my best to make them so.
The essays fall into two kinds. Those listed under the heading “About a book” use specific books as starting points for broader topics.
The pieces under the heading “Occasional essays” still tend to be bookish, but they usually draw on books while writing about a particular topic, rather than using a specific book as the starting point or frame. They tend to be a little more personal — sometimes even veering into straight memoir — but overall the difference, in truth, is fairly slight.
The ethos of the whole is that people, and community, matter. And that human connection is paramount.
So far the essays have tended to come out every week or ten days or so, but sometimes two might come in a week, or there might be a six-week gap.
Comments are welcome, and you are welcome to share the publication with others. The same with any particular essay that you find worth passing along.
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Warmly welcome to this word-garden.
