The classics have a reputation for being a chore to read, but if they didn't spark joy they wouldn't have become classics.

Today I bring you ten books that are just pure pleasure: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. No other book of its era—no other book, period—better captures the medievalist mindset and a certain idea of England. The air of horror and jollity, of strange ladies and green men, would later give us Narnia and Middle-Earth.

It’s been called “the medieval Titanic.” On an icy November night in 1120, a ship carrying the future king of England and 250 young men and women sank to the bottom of the English Channel, killing nearly everyone on board.

This is the story of the White Ship disaster. First, a bit of context. In 1066, William the Conqueror had crossed the Channel from Normandy and become King of England at the Battle of Hastings. His son, Henry, had then declared himself king in 1100 after Henry’s brother William II was killed by an arrow whilst hunting.

Summer is here, and many of you are seeking books to keep your kids occupied during the school break.

Today I bring a summer reading guide with essential classics for kids and teens. THREAD: First: please make sure your kids read this summer. We’re in a crisis. The percentage of kids who read for pleasure has dipped from 35 percent (in 1984) to 27 percent (in 2012) to 13 percent (in 2023). As @faithkmoore says, “Civilization depends” on kids reading.

That said…

I went through a massive reading slump in 2014. Today I typically read 30 books in a given month. And I want to offer some practical suggestions on how to get back into reading, from someone who’s done it.

Thread:

https://twitter.com/boywaif/status/1930223914463961335

01. Start with shorter books and build up your reading stamina. If you’re like me a decade ago, your ability to focus has been sapped by other media. Luckily, this is a problem with a simple solution. The more you read, the easier reading will become.

We went astray when college became about the conferring of a degree to make students competitive in the job market. If they can get the degree without doing the work, they will do it. Schools need to return to their original mission, making kids into well-rounded people. …

https://twitter.com/pourfairelevide/status/1920124843128685014

As @jhendersonYT said in a recent video, the modern university has two competing and contradictory missions: to get students well-paying jobs, and to educate them in the things that humans have always deemed important: history, music, art, the humanities…

I read 30 books in April, including a saga, an ancient poem, a play, a classic American bildungsroman, a memoir of rural living and a book beloved of the Inklings. Today I’m sharing my ten favorites: Beowulf (Craig Williamson translation). I’ve read several versions of Beowulf this year and this is probably my favorite. It’s vigorous, alliterative and exciting, capturing the vileness of Grendel and the clamor of the mead-hall in language that rings with perfect clarity.

Quick thread of lost and forgotten words that we need to bring back:

“Overmorrow,” the day after tomorrow, and “yesterneve,” yesterday evening.

“Nodcrafty”: to nod along sagely when someone is talking, despite not having a clue what they’re banging on about. “Brumal” is Middle French for “belonging to winter,” and is the origin of the modern French “brume,” or fog.

I read 32 books in March and today I wanted to share ten of my favorites—the ten books that dismayed, delighted and bedazzled me this month: Agatha Christie’s Golden Age, by John Goddard. The first of a projected three-book series. Goddard, a retired lawyer, lists and analyzes every clue in the first two dozen Poirot novels. The Spectator called this an essential textbook for the aspiring crime novelist.

People are always asking “what are some books that capture the feeling I get when I read The Lord of the Rings” so I made a list: The Saga of Grettir the Strong. One of the better-known Icelandic Sagas, “Grettir” tells the tale of a rough and rowdy outlaw who is cursed to be unlucky after killing a revenant in battle. Scholar Amy Amendt-Raduege has drawn comparison between Grettir and Boromir.

I’m not kidding: those who delegate all their writing, thinking and creative expression to machines are going to wake up one day and discover that they can no longer write or think. You need to make your own art. You need to keep your brain working. You need to stay human. There’s a moment in Brave New World where one of the leaders of this fictional dystopia celebrates the fact that art and writing have been abolished, because people have been “delivered from those horrible emotions.” Creation was emotionally taxing, so they stopped doing it.

In 1969, newly elected president Richard Nixon resolved to defund PBS and use the money to wage war in Vietnam.

Fred Rogers was summoned to testify before Congress, and what he said that day changed the course of history.

A thread: First, some context. Former president Lyndon Johnson had been a vocal advocate of public television, directing 20 million dollars to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In the first year of his term, Nixon thought he could score an easy win by axing LBJ’s pet project.

A thread of contemporary fantasy authors you might enjoy if you’ve recently been disappointed by a once-beloved author: Susanna Clarke. My favorite living author, and I think in fifty years we’ll find that her influence on the fantasy genre rivals Tolkien’s. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell centers on two magicians in Regency England, while Piranesi features a man trapped in an infinite house.

Inspired by the guy who had never heard of the Odyssey, here’s a thread of books you should at least KNOW about, if you want to be culturally literate. Why does this matter? For one, you won’t enjoy modern stories if you’re not familiar with those of the past. You’ll miss, for example, how the romance of Peggy Carter and Captain America is a riff on the Odyssey. Those echoes deepen the story, give it resonance.

I read over a hundred books in 2024 (it can be done!) and today I’m counting down my ten favorites. A thread: Enlightenment, by Sarah Perry. The story of a gay astronomer and his friendship with a young woman, and how that relationship changes over the years, reads like a Victorian novel set in the present day. Perry grew up reading Dickens, Hardy and the King James Bible, and it shows.

Last night I met up with my favorite English teacher, a lifelong friend who teaches both high school and college courses.

In thirty-five years of teaching, she has never been more worried about her students. She suspects half of her college students use chatbots to generate their essays. They’re turning in “master’s level papers” on subjects they can’t answer basic questions about. She’s started grading on a curve: if a paper is badly written but shows effort, she gives it an A.

There’s been a lot of discussion about how young men are becoming isolated and radicalized.

Let me offer some perspective, as someone who was once a troubled young man. The year 2001 was one of the lowest points in my life. I was a freshman and in desperate need of friends. My parents had split up and were getting divorced. We were desperately poor, and surviving on my mother’s meager income was proving difficult.

And then 9/11 happened.

The holiday season is approaching, and that means warm drinks, cold rain and plenty of time for reading.

Today I bring you a list of some beloved festive classics. Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett. My favorite Discworld novels tend to be the ones featuring Death as a main character, and in this—one of the best books he ever wrote—Death must impersonate the Discworld version of Santa after he’s abducted on Hogswatchnight.

Those who only know the Tin Woodman from the movies are likely unaware that in the original fourteen Oz books, his origin story is the most messed-up, horrifying thing you can imagine.

And his ultimate fate is even worse. First, some context. In 1900, L. Frank Baum published his most beloved novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, an American fairy-tale heavily inspired by Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books. He tried to end the series several times, but being in debt he was forced to keep writing.

What are the roots and origins of fascism? How can it be most effectively resisted?

Today I offer you a reading syllabus: “Mario and the Magician,” by Thomas Mann. Written in the 1920s, this chilling short story about a charismatic hypnotist examines the psychological tricks of demagogues and their seemingly effortless ability to sway crowds towards perverse ends.

I see people saying “why should we give free lunches to schoolchildren?” and I think some folks truly have no idea what it’s like to grow up in poverty, never knowing where your next meal is coming from, forever being one paycheck away from eviction.

Let me explain some things. I grew up in one of the poorest areas of Texas, but was still visibly poorer than any of my classmates. Despite working several jobs, my mom and stepdad (when he wasn’t in jail) struggled to afford meals and clothes for their three school-aged children.

Since people are yelling at me, let me just say: no, Heathcliff is not Caucasian. Emily Brontë did not intend him to be. He’s described in the text as a “dark little thing,” “dark almost as if it came from the devil,” and his perceived racial otherness is central to the text. 🧵 Mr Earnshaw finds the boy in Liverpool, which scholar Maja-Lisa von Sneidern describes as “the premier slaving port in Britain” in 1771. Mr. Linton calls him “that strange acquisition my late neighbor made … a little Lascar [Indian sailor] or American or Spanish castaway.”