The Dead of Winter

   Once again I will bring up the subject of weather, something we all do when we are having a discussion and have little to say; an "ice breaker" of sorts. The title of the post is an appropriate one since it is very cold and the landscape is devoid of living things. I thought the "dead of winter" was the coldest part, but remembered that Canada's national meteorologist and one-man Farmer's Almanac defines it more optimistically as the date when there "is more winter behind than ahead of us." In this neck of Canada, the day is around Jan. 23rd, but we are still a long way from the "dog days of summer." One has to remember that there are several weeks to go before we enter "our severest winter commonly called spring."

Source: 
   The national weatherman is Dave Phillips and for more see: "Winter is Leaving, For Some of Us, Climatologist Says," The Canadian Press, Jan. 13, 2017.
   The really good definition for the Canadian spring is by Cowper and it is the real reason for this post since otherwise I would have forgotten it when the sleet is falling on MAY TWO FOUR. I didn't find the quote in something written by Cowper, but it is in a book written by Edwin Way Teale: Springtime in Britain. 

Post Script:
   As an old-timer I still think in Fahrenheit and find it preferable not simply because I am old.  If I was talking to my sisters in Florida today where it is about 70F I could brag that it is just about 70 degrees cooler here. In Celsius there would be only a 38 degree difference. If they happen to call me during those few days in July when it gets into the 70s, I can say so. There is no Celsius equivalent. If you say it is going to be in the 20s Celsius the temperature could be anywhere from 68 to 84. The Celsius teens are even worse. Although no one wants to agree with the Yanks these days, perhaps they were correct to keep the old method.
   I don't usually provide sources for the stuff found in the Post Script section, since the stuff usually consists of my thoughts for which there is usually little support. But, with just a little bit of searching I learned that my views may not be as unreasonable and antiquated as I thought. See: "Fahrenheit vs. Celsius: Did the U.S. Get it Right After All?" Daniel Faris, zmescience.com, Nov. 20, 2017
"Fahrenheit is also more precise. The ambient temperature on most of the inhabited world ranges from -20 degrees Fahrenheit to 110 degrees Fahrenheit — a 130-degree range. On the Celsius scale, that range is from -28.8 degrees to 43.3 degrees — a 72.1-degree range. This means that you can get a more exact measurement of the air temperature using Fahrenheit because it uses almost twice the scale."
  As far as other weights and measures go, I am not bothered, but my very long drives in golf still travel in yards and my weight is being gained in pounds. Don't forget, however, that many people were bothered and changes such as these can have unintended consequences.
"Remember the Metric Martyrs? The fishmonger and greengrocer in Camelford, the market trader in Hackney, the greengrocer in Sunderland, all convicted in the early 2000s for using imperial scales and labelling? It was one of the darkest times for the EU’s reputation in Britain. If we’re looking for specific reasons why so many people voted Leave, it’s worth contemplating the lingering ill-feeling left by those small acts of bureaucratic bullying, when the ‘little guy’ going about his daily business was squashed and criminalised by the rigid mechanics of Council Directive 80/181/EEC, stipulating the use of metric measurements, incorporated into English law in January 2000."
"The Original Metric Martyrs Are Still Waiting for a Royal Pardon: Their Story Became a Turning Point in Britain’s Relationship With the EU. It Isn’t Over Yet," Ysenda Maxtone Graham Spectator - July 9, 2016.

Russell Baker (August 14, 1925 - Jan. 21, 2019)

   


    You youngsters will find it hard to believe that in the last century there used to be many newspapers and it was usually fun reading them. Columnists could be both funny and harshly critical and one of them, Russell Baker, wrote a "casual column without anything urgent to tell humanity." It has just been reported that Mr. Baker died at the age of 93. You should read him and you still can. The university close by has several of his books and the London Public Library has a few, including So This is Depravity, a title which should attract you.

Sources: 

  When Mr. Baker turned 91 a few years back, I did a post about him and since it contains some of his writing you should read it: Russell Baker's Birthday.

  For obituaries see: 

"Russell Baker, Droll Columnist and Memoirist Who Twice Won Pulitzer, Dies at 93," Jon Thurber, Washington Post, Jan. 22, 2019

   The obituarist offers this sample from a column in which there was failure to pass legislation that would have put a warning label on cars:

“Put yourself in the Congressman’s shoes,” Mr. Baker wrote. “One of these days he is going to be put out of office. Defeated, old, tired, 120,000 miles on his smile and two pistons cracked in his best joke. They’re going to put him out on the used-Congressman lot. Does he want to have a sticker on him stating that he gets only eight miles on a gallon of bourbon? That his rip-roaring anti-Communist speech hasn’t had an overhaul since 1969? That his generator is so decomposed it hasn’t sparked a fresh thought in fifteen years?”

" Russell Baker, Pulitzer-Winning Times Columnist and Humorist, Dies at 93," Robert D. McFadden, New York Times, Jan. 22, 2019.

“What Baker does,” Ronald Steel wrote in Geo magazine in 1983, “is punch holes in vast bubbles of pretension, humanize the abstract and connect the present with what one predecessor, Walter Lippmann, once described as the ‘longer past and the larger future.’”

His last column, “A Few Words at the End,” on Christmas, “a day on which nobody reads a newspaper anyhow,” spoke of his love affair with newspapers."

 Back in the last century there were also many more reporters and, believe it or not, they had good and enjoyable jobs. Baker notes:

“Thanks to newspapers,” he wrote, “I have made a four-hour visit to Afghanistan, have seen the Taj Mahal by moonlight, breakfasted at dawn on lamb and couscous while sitting by the marble pool of a Moorish palace in Morocco and once picked up a persistent family of fleas in the Balkans.”

Endangered Species in Ontario

American White Pelican (Endangered)

Endangered Species Act

On Jan. 18, 2019 the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks issued a press release which is both readable and reasonable. The title of the release is "Ontario Taking Steps to Improve the Endangered Species Act" and in it the government asks for our input and we have about 40 days to offer some. The Act was passed over 10 years ago and it is not unreasonable to assume that it could be tweaked a bit to improve it, particularly since it is the government's desire to ensure "stringent protections for species at risk."

I will declare an interest at this point: I am interested in the environment. I have also come to think that it might be better for all of us if we paid more attention to local issues rather than to shiny foreign ones. I will also admit to being skeptical of the stated intention of the Ontario Conservative Party to "achieve positive outcomes for species at risk" since the sentence concludes this way, "...while reducing burden and increasing efficiencies for businesses." Given some of the recent actions of the Ontario government there are other reasons for skepticism.

I do believe we are in for hard times economically speaking. I do think we also need to find efficient ways to ensure that Ontario is "Open for Business". I am not sure, however, that we need to close safeguards that were created to protect the environment, although there may be ways to improve them.

If you are a confirmed libertarian or charter member of the CFIB you should be interested in this issue. You should also pay attention to it if you are a devoted environmentalist or Greenpeace Canada activist. Here are some sources that will be of interest.

Sources:

The news release: Ontario Taking Steps to Improve the Endangered Species Act: Government Invites Public Input on Increasing Efficiencies, Achieving Positive Outcomes for Species.

Links to the Discussion Paper are provided and there is a link to the government's Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan.

As I indicated above, many of the statements in the document are reasonable and many would be accepted by the most ardent environmentalist. Here are a couple that are a little more problematic:

"Authorization processes can create significant administrative burdens and delays, in particular for applicants filing numerous authorizations or registrations under the rules-in-regulations, for routine activities."

And

"The requirements that applicants must fulfill to obtain an authorization can be extensive, creating barriers to economic development (e.g., in some cases achieving an overall benefit to a species as required under a s. 17(2)(c) permit can be long, onerous, and unpredictable)"

The picture above is from the Ontario Species at Risk web site.

See also:

TVO The Agenda with Steve Paikin The Ontario PC Environment Plan "Last week, the Ontario PCs revealed their plan to clean up the environment. But critics charged that it wasn't much of a plan at all. The Agenda welcomes Rod Phillips, minister of environment, conservation and parks, to explain why he thinks his plan is best for Ontario."

"Ontario Reviews Endangered Species Act to find ‘efficiencies for businesses’ By Marco Vigliotti. Published on Jan 18, 2019 (ipolitics,ca)

"Doug Ford is reviewing Endangered Species Act to find 'efficiencies for businesses'" By Fatima Syed National Observer, Jan. 18, 2019.

"Ontario premier defends carbon tax recession claims in wake of criticism By Shawn Jeffords, The Canadian Press — Jan 22 2019

Doug Ford is blowing smoke by warning about a recession By STAR EDITORIAL BOARD, Toronto Star,Tues., Jan. 22, 2019

For an earlier related post see: Bill 66

Library Furniture

     If someone read this blog they would probably say that I focus too much on libraries, so I will shift the focus for a bit to the subject of furniture for libraries. If you are in the market for some, shop at Kennedy Galleries in Toronto where you will find such items as an Althorp Butterfly Accent Table, an Althorp Original Wingback Chair and an Althorp Spencer House Chair. “Althorp” is the name of the home of the Spencer family and within it you will find a “storied library.” Charles, 9th Earl Spencer was in that colonial city during the past summer to promote the furniture made by Theodore Alexander and which is of the type found in the library at Althorp.
     You would probably be much more interested in this, even if you are an American republican, if I mentioned at this point that the Earl is the younger brother of Diana, Princess of Wales. She surely romped through at least some of the 90 rooms where it was said that “a shetland pony might be conveniently kept to carry the more delicate visitor from one extremity to the other.”
     That such a patrician should be reduced to a pitchman should not bother you too much since the Earl visited Toronto from Windsor Castle en route to one of his homes in Los Angeles. The Spencer family circumstances must be somewhat straitened, however, since the estate can be visited by the likes of you and rented for the wedding of your daughter.
     The estate is truly splendid and I encourage you to have a look at ALTHORP which occupies over 500 acres in Northamptonshire. As for the “storied library”, it has been reduced in size and the remaining “10,000 books include the remnants of the private library amassed by the Second Earl, which at one time was the finest private library in the world. Comprising 43,000 early printed books, including 58 Caxtons, it was sold complete in 1892, and now comprises the backbone of the John Rylands Library, Manchester University.”

Sources:
   For an article about the Earl’s visit and the Kennedy Galleries see: “A Storied Library,” Kristina Ljubanovic, The Globe and Mail, June 30, 2018.
   Additional information about the library is found on the Althorp web site. You will note that  Althorp hosts both a Literary Festival and a Food & Drink Festival and daily tickets to enter the estate and grounds can be purchased during the summer.
   Information about the John Rylands Library is found at the University of Manchester Library.
For specific information about the books from Althorp see; the Spencer Collection.

Post Script:
     Now, back to the subject of libraries. Lord Spencer had to sell much of the material in the library back in 1892 and it was purchased by Enriqueta Rylands who was the wife of the wealthy Manchester merchant, John who died in 1888. She paid over £200,000  and contributed additional money for a library and then later bequeathed over 200,000 additional pounds for the purchase of more books. That the Althorp Library was more-or-less kept intact was a good thing.

   Once again, I will offer premium material by letting you know that the story does not end well. The John Rylands Library was absorbed into the University of Manchester Library in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, University Libraries, like Dukes, can become poor and during a period of austerity the University of Manchester decided to offer for sale some of the ‘duplicates’ that were now found in the amalgamated collections. A bitter controversy ensued, for,  “As a writer in the Times Literary Supplement(TLS) subsequently observed, ‘The very notion of duplicate books is one which meets with hollow laughter from scholars, bibliographers and collectors. No two copies of early printed books are ever exactly alike: they vary in small but significant ways.’ There was also the additional matter of breaking faith with the benefactors.
   The University pocketed £1,620,000, but not everyone was happy. A “mock-Victorian penny-dreadful’ was circulated which called the sale,  ‘A Cruel and Inhuman Murder Committed upon the Body of the University of Manchester’.
   University libraries in Ontario are now experiencing hard times and looking for ways to save money and gain space for the ‘student experience’. In doing so, books are being disposed of and many are being sent to a centralized storage facility in Downsview. I am sure due diligence is done and that the books are not generally unique ones published before 1500. Still one hopes something is not lost.
[Some might assume here that, in attempting to make  a point I might have exaggerated the ‘Manchester event’. You can decide for yourself by looking at Chapter 11, “Research and Rationalisation,” in A History of the University of Manchester, by Brian Pullan and Michele Abendstern, pp. 239-268. The quotations immediately above are from this source.]

BILL 66

It is highly likely that we are all paying more attention to the politics and to the, shall we say, "more interesting" politicians south of our border (and even to those in Brazil) than we are to the issues and elected individuals up here. Even I confess to reading more articles about Stormy Daniels than softwood lumber. But, like you, I have resolved to be better this year and even if I am not, I do believe that we would all be better off if we spent more of our energy on local matters.
Which brings me to Bill 66, Restoring Ontario's Competitiveness Act, which follows Bill 47, Making Ontario Open for Business Act. Judging from the titles, who could be opposed? That great 'Canadian' company GM just largely left the province and the truly Canadian Barrick Gold is likely soon to leave Toronto. It is surely time to stimulate business investment, create good jobs and make Ontario more competitive, all things which the Bills are designed to do.
Unfortunately our restoration seems to be possible only if there is a massive reduction in regulations. Unfortunately, as well, the reduction in red tape is likely to result in a major increase in green things such as algae blooms. Bill 66 could only be more controversial if it was renumbered Bill 666.
Put simply, Bill 66 involves major labour and environmental issues. If you are a developer or builder you are likely to be in favour. If you are concerned about climate change or the environment you are likely to be opposed. If you are against asinine regulations, but enjoy your cottage on the lake, you are likely to be conflicted.
The legislation is important and it will be worth your while to read up on it.
Sources:
   Information about the Bill is found at the OLA. I would begin, however, with the Wikipedia entry which is not likely to be high in your list of search results. It is here.
   I am attempting to be impartial. It is the case, however, that your google search will likely yield results that are opposed to Bill 66. Nature and environmental groups are opposed as are many labour organizations. I looked for arguments from the other side, but was not very successful. I went to the site of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, but their search doesn't seem to work very well. Since the CFIB is about to launch their 9th Annual Red Tape Awareness Week on Jan. 22, it is not too difficult to make an assumption about their position.
   Among your google results you might want to consider those from law firms that specialize in HR/Labour Issues such as: Blakes.com, Filion.on.ca and Stikeman.com.
   For environmental websites see "Bill 66: What You Need to Know" at Ontario Nature and environmentaldefence,ca
   Links are not provided because there is not much worse than "link rot" and I generally avoid including them for that reason.
   Here are some very recent results from news sources. Most seem to be negative, but I just grabbed them in chronological order and did not filter them.
"Consequences of Bill 66 could be devastating,"New Hamburg Independent, 11 January 2019
"They never learn," The London Free Press, Roy Merkley, Saturday, 12 January 2019, [letter]
"Bill 66 is all wrong," Waterloo Region Record, James Akeroyd. Waterloo, Saturday, 12 January 2019
"Local advocates look for municipalities to reject province's plans in Bill 66," New Hamburg Independent, Friday, 11 January 2019,
"OPEN FOR BUSINESS: Local activists, politicians voice concerns about Greenbelt, water protection with Bill 66, Orangeville Banner, Wednesday, 09 January 2019
"Bill 66 - A danger to the environment and our health,"Thornhill Liberal, Wednesday, 09 January 2019,
"Local advocates look for municipalities to reject province's plans in Bill 66,"New Hamburg Independent, Wednesday, 09 January 2019,
Waterloo Federation opposes Bill 66,"Today's Farmer, Tuesday, 08 January 2019
"Ontario bill 'offensive' threat to city water supply, The London Free Press, Norman De Bono, Monday, 07 January 2019
"Opinion: Is Ontario entering Dark Ages with new bill?,"Whitby This Week, Monday, 07 January 2019,
Post Script:
     If, after during your research, you feel opposed, there is a good petition against Bill 66 found on the website of the Ontario Rivers Alliance - http://www.ontarioriversalliance.ca/
    I mentioned algae blooms, which are not uncommon around here on Lake Erie. I do recall this summer that I was surprised to learn that they had blossomed way up north on Lake Superior. See, for example, "Scientists Investigating 'Unprecedented Algae Bloom on Lake Superior, Dan Kraker, Aug. 14, 2018, MPRNEWS.

GAME ON!

NACE

(Gamers in the Lambton Esports Arena)

There may be some hope early in this new year for those of you who still have very mature and overly ripe basement-dwelling children (or grandchildren) residing on the premises. It can be found in the new collegiate sports organization known as the NACE. Perhaps there could be a scholarship for your electronic game-playing resident, even if he or she is undersized and unathletic.

The National Association of Collegiate Esports was formed a couple of years ago to "advance collegiate esports in the varsity space." There are now around 100 schools involved and almost $10 million in scholarships given. Canadian colleges are also found in the NACE.

At this point, you are probably thinking that sitting in a big chair in front of a console is not the same thing as running around on the gridiron. The debate about what constitutes a 'sport', however, was held last year over the game of Bridge and will not be iterated here. Certainly competition is involved, as are strategy and tactics and while playing "these young people can do up to 360 controlled precise actions per minute. Their fingers and hands and their eyes move so quickly in exact coordination."

Esports are not just played by those in the athletic department and 'gaming' is of interest in the engineering faculty where the games are designed. It is also a big business for the business schools. As this is being written, Saint Peter's University in New Jersey is launching a bachelor's degree in business that specializes in esports.

So if your adult child is not likely to be able to withstand the rigour required in the STEM subjects and unwilling to tolerate the bullying highly likely to be experienced when participating in the NCAA, consider the NACE. Sources: The place to begin is at the National Association of Collegiate Esports.

A good recent article: "Video Games Are a Waste of Time?, Not For Those With Esport Scholarships," Arielle Dollinger, New York Times, Nov. 2, 2018. See: "List of Varsity Esports Programs Spans North America," Sean Morrison, ESPN.com, March 15, 2018. "Video Games As A College Sport," Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Inside Higher Ed, June 9, 2017.

Some Canadian Sources: St. Clair College - eSports Administration and Entrepreneurship
"St. Clair College Unveils eSports Administration Program: "St. Clair College Unveiled its New eSports Administration and Entrepreneurship Program on Wednesday, which the school hopes will build on the success started last year when it was the first post-secondary institution in Canada to launch an eSports gaming varsity team," Dave Battagello, Windsor Star, Nov. 1, 2016 "Scores of Gamers Compete at St. Clair College for e-Sports Scholarships,"CBC News, June 12, 2017. "St. Clair College Esports Team Holds Tryouts, Scholarships Offered to Top Video Gamers," CBC News, Jan.4, 2018. Durham College "Durham College Embraces eSports WIth Construction of Gaming Arena," July 10, 2018.

Lambton College Esports Entrepreneurship & Administration
Esports Arena - Lambton College officially opened its Esports Arena in September 2017. 

"Gamers Clash at Lambton College," Colin Gowdy, Blackburnnews.com, Nov.30, 2018.

Post Script: You will stop scoffing when you consider the statistics. In the clash at Lambton against St. Clair noted above, 40,000 viewers were expected to watch. Contrast that with the approximately 312 people at the Western University Homecoming Game. (The large number above comes from the Gowdy piece. The smaller number is based on my estimate and it includes the concession stand employees, the security officials required to make sure the students didn't have any fun and the few people on the LTC bus that passed by on nearby Western Road early in the first half.) One also has to consider the spillover effect that will spread across campus. Already grants are being given in the health sciences to study things like the neurological impact of constant video viewing. There are signs of action in other academic areas and I will leave you with this example which argues "...persuasively that digital games embody "the most powerful economic, technological, social, and cultural forces at work" in the current regime of accumulation (p. 74). Where "Fordist commodities were governed by a 'metalogic' of massification, durability, solidity, structure, standardization, fixity, longevity, and utility," post-Fordist commodities are governed by a metalogic of the "instantaneous, experiential, fluid, flexible, heterogenous, customized, portable, and [are] permeated by a fashion with form and style" (p. 74). According to Digital Play, the digital games industry falls into the post-Fordist category, even though it still draws upon some of the characteristics of a Fordist media-entertainment industry." (From a review of: Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing).
I suppose the point of my rambling, in this case, is that video games are not just being played in your basement. Both scholars and athletes may be playing them on a campus near you.
I confess, however, that I have not played a video game (other than that one with the bouncing dot back in the last century) and I lack the expertise to understand the sentence bolded above.
Post Script:
By the way, one of the co-authors of Digital Play is a faculty member at Western University, but perhaps he is not responsible for the bit of prose bolded above.

Cooking With the MLA

Having recently provided you with a large number of historical sources about food, I now alert you to a new cookbook that presents "cherished recipes inspired by literature." In it one will find everything “From a soup honoring the Chinese writer Su Dongpo to Pablo Neruda–inspired Hasselback potatoes to Wilkie Collins–themed cocktails to a vegan take on Emily Dickinson’s coconut cake..." Apart from Neruda-inspired potatoes, the table-of-contents lists: "The Line by Line Martini," "The Pear-enthetical Citation," a "Word Salad," "Walt Whitman's Cranberry Sauce" and "Much Ado About Gnocchi."
Although I recently indicated that I should not be buying more books, I do have to get this one based on this description of a cheesecake which "was smooth and lush, with the personality of a warm and well-to-do uncle who knows a hundred dirty jokes and will die of sexual exertion in the arms of his mistress."

Sources:
You should begin first by viewing my very good guide to FOOD HISTORY. Be the first to do so. It also contains some literary references.
Based on the dirty uncle quote I am sure you will want to order the book and you can find it at the MLA Bookstore.
The uncle quotation is apparently from Don DeLillo's Underworld and I found it here: "Bon Appe-Lit! A New Cookbook From the Modern Language Association Celebrates the Subtle and Not-so-Subtle Links Between Literature, Food and Drink," Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, Jan. 11, 2019.

Post Script:


If you are thinking about serving madeleines and discussing Proust at your next book club meeting don't forget that the MLA publishes other guides which could serve you well - in this instance: Approaches to Teaching Proust's Fiction and Criticism.
In your eagerness to buy the recipe book, do not also purchase Fruits of the MLA by Edmund Wilson. It is an altogether different book and not about plants.

TSUNDOKU

Piles of Unread Books

Although lately I have gotten rid of hundreds of books, I still have hundreds left. I noticed that recently when I had to move a lot of them to paint a room. I also noticed that most were dusty, many unread and a sizeable number contained content I could no longer remember. There is no good reason for me to ever buy another book. Given that I am likely to do so, however, I need to come up with one.

Luckily, I found some information that will be useful to those of us who bought another book we did not need while out supposedly shopping for Christmas gifts for others. I assume there are lots of us since the word that describes our situation is Japanese and comes from the other side of the globe. It is tsundoku and basically it refers to piles of unread books. The word is the subject of a few recent articles from which I will supply snippets. Trust me, memorizing them and learning about tsundoku will be more beneficial to your well-being than playing sudoku is for your brain.

"A man who has quit expanding his personal library may have reached the point where he thinks he knows all he needs to and that what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him. He has no desire to keep growing intellectually. The man with an ever-expanding library understands the importance of remaining curious, open to new ideas and voices."

"A private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books."

"So stop beating yourself up for buying too many books or for having a to-read list that you could never get through in three lifetimes. All those books you haven't read are indeed a sign of your ignorance. But if you know how ignorant you are, you're way ahead of the vast majority of other people."

Sources:

The last quotation is from an article by Jessica Stillman found on the website of Inc. "Why You Should Surround Yourself With More Books Than You'll Ever Have Time to Read: An Overstuffed Bookcase (or e-reader) Says Good Things About Your Mind." The quotation about the private library is from Taleb's book, Black Swan, and is taken from the Stillman article.

See also: "All Those Books You've Bought But Haven't Time to Read? There's a Word for That," by Kevin Mims, New York Times, Oct. 8, 2018.
"Tsundoku: The Art of Buying Books and Never Reading Them," BBC News, July 29, 2018

In response to such articles, some readers were asked about their tsundoku and from them you will learn we are not alone. See Atlas Obscura, a source that is well-worth looking at for other reasons:

"How Does Your Tsundoku Stack Up?", Eric Grundhauser, Atlas Obscura, Oct. 24, 2018.

Post Script:
 I will try to continue to offer bonus information for premium subscribers and try to make them as interesting and useful as the footnotes provided by A.J.P. Taylor.
   For those of you who don't think tsundoku will suffice, I will provide a new Dutch word: DWARSLIGGERS. Consider it to mean 'tiny books'. They are very small and are now being offered by Dutton. Your piles of unread books will then be a bit smaller. See: "Tiny Books Fit in One Hand. Will They Change the Way We Read," Alexandra Alter, New York Times, Oct. 29, 2018.


 As a last resort, sacrifice all your books for this one by Pierre Bayard: How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read and add this one if withdrawal sets in and you need a book fix: How To Really Talk About Books You Haven't Read, by Henry Hitchings. If you can't break the habit and are going to sit around all winter surrounded by books, you might consider this purchase.

Intellectual Resolutions - 2019

 Other editions
      By now you have probably abandoned any attempts at elevating your level of fitness for 2019 and have grown very tired of all those advertisements for machines and gyms designed for that purpose. Perhaps your goal now is improving your brain which is a more realistic option in that it can be done inside where it is warm. You probably don’t have a lot of time and I am quickly running out of it so I will offer here some shortcuts to smartness.

     They come in the form of books which are short and lighter than dumbbells. Brevity is not necessarily achieved by eliminating substance. Some of the subjects covered in these brief books are heavy indeed. I am not referring to the many titles that begin with  ….For Dummies and here will offer you works produced under the imprimatur of a scholarly publisher.

Very Short Introductions - Oxford University Press

     The folks at Oxford produce a large number of intellectual self-help books, all of which conveniently mention in the title, Very Short Introduction…. There are over 600 in this series arranged into six broad subject areas: Arts & Humanities, Dictionaries & Reference, Law, Medicine & Health, Science & Mathematics, and the Social Sciences. Those broad categories are broken into many narrower ones ranging from Agnosticism  and Adam Smith to Viruses and Zionism. I chose to skip, Ageing: A Very Short Introduction since I feel like I know something about that subject and, as I mentioned, am increasingly short of time. Additional details are offered below.

30 Second Books - Ivy Press

       

     If you don't even have enough time to read a very short introduction to a subject, you may be able to spare a few minutes to glance at these books which are produced by Ivey Press. Although not a university press, it does appear to be based in the U.K., which should be good enough. According to them, the 30 Second series is internationally acclaimed and has been translated into 30 languages. More details below.

Sources:
OUP
If you are looking for a very short introduction to something see the OUP website.
The entry for the series on Wikipedia is also helpful.
IVY
Ivy Press is part of the Quarto Group and the website is here.
The 30 Second titles are more easily found here. 

Post Script:
If you live in the London, Ontario area over 65 Very Short Introduction...are available up at Western. (Other institutions of higher learning offer these shortcuts; see this guide and description from the University of Michigan.)
There are also around 10 titles in the London Public Libraries. One of them is devoted to Derrida, about whom we no longer need to know.
I only located one 30 Second book, but it is a good one if you want to figure out philosophy:
30 Second Philosophies: The 50 Most Thought-Provoking Philosophies Explained in Half a Minute.

Happy New Year?

     Although I am just getting around to posting for 2019, I can at least assure you that I have been more active when it comes to breaking resolutions. I will now get back into the blogging business by presenting you with a quotation which expresses my feelings about the future much better than I can.
     "Given the present outlook, only the faithful who believe in miracles from heaven, the optimistic who anticipate superwonders from science, the parochial fortunate who think they can continue to exist on islands of affluence in a sea of world poverty, and the naive who anticipate nothing, can look to the future with equanimity."
     I suppose as a welcome to the new year, you were expecting sanguine sentiments so I will leaven that quotation by letting you know that the prediction above was made fifty years ago and we are still here. Perhaps he was too negative and I should be more optimistic. I will try to be so as we move into the new year which is, I hope, a good one for all of us.

Source:
     In 1968 the Foreign Policy Association (U.S.) published a book of predictions with the title: Towards the Year 2018. In one of the essays contained in the book Philip M. Hauser, who was feeling rather Malthusian about the growing global population problem, offered the observation quoted above. I found it in a column discussing the book. See: "Comment: Unforeseen" in 'The Talk of the Town'," by Jill Lepore, The New Yorker, Jan. 7, 2019, p.14.

Post Script:
     I am obviously not the smiling gentleman in the photo. He is Guy Lombardo who was born here in London, Ontario.
     If you live in the area and are interested in the book of predictions from 1968, you will find three copies up in the Western Libraries.