Month: June 2020

Books for the times

Pandemic, protests, economic crisis. Rougher times ahead, it all seems to indicate. What books to read? Some choose to read classic books somewhat related to pandemics. Such as Camus’ “The Plague“, or even better, Bocaccio’s “Decameron“. Good choices, but, perhaps what you want is something more relaxing that actually makes you forget the virus, the…

What do they have against Cervantes?

A statue of Miguel de Cervantes in San Francisco has been vandalized by Antifa and BLM militants. It is not clear what did they have against the greatest Spanish writer. Maybe they confused him with someone else? Maybe they are just destroying all white people statues at this point? The fact that Cervantes was taken…

Marvellous malacomorphs

What are “malacomorphs”? Well, “malakos” in Greek means literally “soft”, but it’s also by analogy how we scientifically call mollusks, including snails: malacology, for example, is the study of mollusks. So “malacomorphs” are snail-creatures. For some reason that even most specialists don’t know, many manuscripts have in their corners little illustrations of snails and other…

Reading on paper, reading on screens

We spend several hours each day looking at screens. Most of what we read, for work or for leisure – reports, student essays, blogs, newspapers – now we read on a screen. But reading on a screen is less conducive to concentration than reading on paper. At least, that’s what a recent study from 2019…

We love books. And you?

Some people love ice cream. Some people love video games. Some people love alcohol and drugs. We love books. Well, I know I do. I grew up surrounded by a large collection of books and by my dad’s full set of twenty volumes of the original Encyclopedia Britannica. It was my Google. There was no…