Ron Gilmour

I’ve seen their “Libertas”-becrested spines scattered among the classics in used book stores, but had never paid much attention to them. They are the Harvard Classics, and I guess they’re something of a cultural institution, or at least were a few generations ago. They are the work of Harvard president Charles William Eliot (1834-1926). Eliot had remarked that “a five-foot shelf would hold books enough to give in the course of years a good substitute for a liberal education.” The publisher P.F. Collier & Son invited him to “make it so,” and thus were the Harvard Classics born.
Continue Reading »

There was a lot of whining early on about how bad weather was going to make 2009 a bad year for Darjeelings. This may be true in a relative sense, but the teas that I’ve tried so far have been outstanding.
Continue Reading »

Folklore is filled with stories of hapless humans who find themselves captives in the Land of Fairy and of their rescue by brave knights and enchanters. But never has such a tale been told like this. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a first novel by Susanna Clarke, is a sprawling masterpiece of fantasy that examines the problems of practical magic and the challenges of dealing with fairies from a modern Victorian perspective.
Continue Reading »