Reading for the Week of 5/15/2022

Here is what I read this week. Some of the articles/posts may require a subscription to read them. I was heavily focused on book reading this week and so my article reading is down again.

Books

Finished

• The Age of Louis XIV: The Story of Civilization, Volume 8 by Will and Ariel Durant. I went into this book not sure I would like it, but it turned out to be one of my favorite of the series thus far. Eight down, three more to go.

In Progress

• The Age of Voltaire: The Story of Civilization, Volume 9 by Will and Ariel Durant. After making my way through this series intermittantly over the last few decades, I’ve decided I want to finish it up this spring. After The Age of Louis XIV, I was particularly excited for The Age of Voltaire because the book is centered around the 18th century debate between science and religion, which is a fascinating debate.

Articles/posts

• Office Shape by Melanie Novak (blog, 5/15/2022).
• 3P Placement by Mike Dariano (The Waiter’s Pad, 5/20/2022)
• The African Queen (1951): A Rising Souffle by Melanie Novak (The Golden Age of Hollywood, 3/18/2022)

Rest in Peace, Roger Angell

I spent this morning reading obituaries of Roger Angell, who died yesterday at 101. For those who don’t have the joy of knowing who Roger Angell is or what he did: He was the son of Katherine Seargant Angell White, first fiction editor of The New Yorker; we was the stepson of E. B. White; he was a longtime fiction editor for The New Yorker. And he was one of the greatest baseball writers who ever lived. Read a few of the obituaries below to get a sense of him. It will be well worth the time.

• Roger Angell, Who Wrote About Baseball With Passion, Dies at 101 by Dwight Garner (New York Times, 5/21/2022)
• Roger Angell, editor, baseball writer at the New Yorker, dies at 101 by Matt Schudel (Washington Post, 5/21/2022)
• Roger Angell and Succeeding Utterly by Joe Posnanski (Joe Blogs, 5/21/2022).
• Remembering Roger Angell, Hall of Famer by David Remnick (The New Yorker, 5/20/2022).

Any recommendations for books, articles or posts I should read? Let me know in the comments?

Written on May 21, 2022.