That bookworm and great essayist, Joseph Epstein, once wrote, “I learned not to finish books by the time I was forty. I just don’t always love finishing them. Lewis (okay, they were Studies in Words and The Allegory of Love, so I don’t feel too bad about it). I’ve even failed to get through books by C.S. I thought for sure I finished it (I know how the book ends, so perhaps that’s why). with the bookmark on page 201 (of a 298-page book). As I go through my bookshelves, I come across Bernanos’ The Diary of a Country Priest. The twentieth century: Guardini, de Lubac, Gilson, Sheen, Sheed, Merton, O’Connor. The saints: Augustine and Aquinas, of course, but even those more modern, and therefore more accessible, holy men and women: Day, Doherty, Groeschel. both volumes host bookmarks as of this writing). (And if you don’t think I’ve jilted Shakespeare a couple of times, you’re more naïve than me when I thought I’d get through Dostoyevsky’s two-volume, A Writer’s Diary.
The masters: Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Dante, Montaigne, Pascal, Boswell. There’s virtually no type of writer that has escaped my inconstancy. I don’t even have enough time left in one life to finish all the great books I’ve started.
What’s even worse, I had to nod.įather James Schall observed that no one has time in one life to read all the great books. I use so many bookmarks, one of my young children once asked me if I collect them. I see them on my bookshelves, marked with that hideous symbol of failure: the bookmark. Oh sure, I finish a lot of books, but if I had to guess, the number of books I have read all the way is fewer than the number of books I’ve abandoned partway through.
#Dona dona allegory plus
My inadvertent love affair with book introductions Plus a dozen introduction recommendationsĪ serious, humiliating problem, one that reveals me as a man lacking fortitude, strength, energy, and determination.