For most of the readers who replied to our last email (Words - Written in Stone or on the Wind?), a book and light bulb team up beautifully for reading pleasure. While some new electronic devices deliver the words and the light together, our readers generally prefer the older "format."

I appreciated hearing from each of you who took the time to share your thoughts. Here are excerpts from just a few of the many comments we received. [cont. reading]

Zift

Vladislav Todorov

Translated from the Bulgarian by Joseph Benatov

"Pulp fiction by a historian of ideas." —Literary Weekly (Sofia)

"Tongue flambé." —Kultura

December 21, 1963: Having ser . . . [read more]

The Tables of the Law

Thomas Mann

Newly translated from the German by Marion Faber and Stephen Lehmann. Afterword by Michael Wood.

"Beautiful . . . one of the best short novels he has written." —New York Times Book Review

"Can rank with the best of Mann's writing" —Boston . . . [read more]

Flotsam

John Stewart

"John Stewart is a rare combination: an artist, an adventurer, a survivor of a prison camp, a great photographer and a rambunctious, rollicking prose writer. He's had marvelous, unlikely exper . . . [read more]

The Flight of Ikaros

Kevin Andrews

"One of the great and lasting books about Greece." —Patrick Leigh Fermor

In 1947, at the age of twenty-three, Kevin Andrews received a Fulbright fellowship to study mediev . . . [read more]

The Six-Cornered Snowflake

Johannes Kepler

In 1611, the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote The Six-Cornered Snowflake, which was the first scientific reference to snow crystals. Kepler wondered why snow crystals always exhibit a . . . [read more]

Seven Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges

Fernando Sorrentino

Translated from the Spanish by Clark M. Zlotchew

These wide-ranging conversations have an open and intimate tone, giving readers a uniquely personal glimpse of one of the most fascinating figures in contemporary world literature.

Interv . . . [read more]

Homage to Americans

Eva Brann

In Homage to Americans, her latest collection of essays and lectures, Eva Brann explores the roots and essence of our American ways.

In "Mile-High Meditations," her fl . . . [read more]

The Metalogicon

John of Salisbury

Written in 1159 and addressed to Thomas Becket, John of Salisbury's The Metalogicon presents—and defends—a thorough study of the liberal arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. T . . . [read more]

Fat Wednesday

John Verdi

"Experiencing a change of aspect is characterized by our recognition that something has altered and nothing has altered." —from Fat Wednesday

In Fat Wednesda . . . [read more]

In Pursuit of the Good

Eric Salem

Where does happiness lie?

What is the best life?

Aristotle ponders these abiding questions in his Nicomachean Ethics—a work which has profoundly influenced Western thinking on . . . [read more]

Strange Relation

Rachel Hadas

In 2004 Rachel Hadas's husband, George Edwards, a composer and professor of music at Columbia University, was diagnosed with early-onset dementia at the age of sixty-one. Neurodegenerative ailments . . . [read more]

Ill Met By Moonlight

W. Stanley Moss

Ill Met By Moonlight describes the dazzling World War II kidnapping of a German general from the island of Crete. Two Englishmen, W. Stanley Moss and Patrick Leigh Fermor, pulled off the a . . . [read more]

Naughty Boy

John Keats

Illustrated by Grant Silverstein

While John Keats earnestly thought he might be "among the English poets," he also knew how to play with words. Full of whimsical rhymes and jolly rhythms, Naughty Boy: A Song About My . . . [read more]

Desert Islands

Walter de la Mare

Illustrated by Rex Whistler

Desert Islands opens with a captivating essay on the romance of islands and castaways in literature and life. The essay leads on to over 200 pages of what De la Mare himself calls "a . . . [read more]

Philadelphia Architecture

John Andrew Gallery

This updated, comprehensive guide to Philadelphia's architecture will appeal to tourists and locals alike.

"The architectural heritage of over 300 years is visible on every st . . . [read more]

The Book Shopper

Murray Browne

"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?" —Henry Ward Beecher

The Book Shopper is a spirited and witty guide to the world of disheveled used boo . . . [read more]