Book report for August 2025
Letter No. 121: Includes disparagement of a canonical author, a subtle knife, and the only book I’ve ever read about fashion.
Commonplace Book, Pt. 1
Letter No. 120: In which Dr Essai experiments with a new sort of transmission; includes batshit physics, Hannah Arendt, and hints of desperation.
Book report for July 2025
Letter No. 119: Includes spies, spies, and damned spies; Iceland when travel there was really fun; and stories worthy of slow reading.
No thinking, please, we’re a university, and besides, what good is it?
Letter No. 118: Includes the usual grousing, a writer named Zena, and a jaundiced view of higher education, just in time for back to school.
Revealed! Clandestine humor at The Gray Lady!
Letter No. 117: Includes ferocious teeth, a terrifying mutant predator, and much concern about language.
Book report for June 2025
Letter No. 116: Includes more completed reads than usual, one book about a crow and another about horses, and impenetrable verse.
Because…puffins
Letter 115: Entirely given over to some insufferably cute images from Dr Essai’s recent excursion to Iceland.
Book report for May 2025
Letter No. 114: Dr Essai returns after an unplanned hiatus due to various distractions and misfortunes.
Book report for April 2025
Letter No. 113: Five volumes completed, nine purchased. May need a bigger house.
Slouching toward disaffection
Letter No. 112: Includes poetry, commentary, more than a little bitching, and the most I've ever had to say about James I.
