The famous detective Sam Spade is now 60 and living as an expat in the south of France in 1963. Watch trailer
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Month: January 2024
15 Literary Podcasts to Make You Laugh, Learn and Join Conversations About Books
Literary podcasts offer comfort and convenience. Most are free. They’re available across multiple platforms. And while you could curl up in bed and simply listen (as I often do), they’re designed to be experienced while you’re doing something else – whether that’s enduring a long commute, sweating it out at the gym or tidying the house. Read more
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Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa
Historian Grafton offers a superb account of the astrologers, alchemists, and sorcerers who practiced “natural magic” in Europe from the Middle Ages through early modernity. Grafton demonstrates that, while magical practice was already ubiquitous, what was innovative about these self-styled Learned Magicians was their belief that sorcery worked because of, and not despite, the rational laws of nature. Subjects include the historical Doctor Faustus, a “necromancer” whose exploits would become fodder for Marlowe and Goethe; the Renaissance humanist and reviver of Neoplatonist philosophy Marsilio Ficino; and the occultist and soldier Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. Read more
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What to Read If You Want to Reinvent Yourself
Changing oneself is harder than perky how-to guides and self-help books suggest. The genre is so popular because its titles briefly allow us to imagine that reinvention is a matter of performing specific actions, rather than an ongoing battle with our own recalcitrant nature. This is also precisely why their advice often doesn’t stick: The first step should be attempting to understand the self you’re trying to change. The books below, by contrast, are honest about the difficult emotional realities that accompany personal growth—discouragement, self-recrimination, fear of the unknown—and still offer hope. Read more
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