I recently recommended "Stoner" as a book one should read to understand the loss in standards in Academia and I stand by that assertion, but there is much more to this novel than the protagonists fight for academic rigor and his eventual demise toward that pursuit 1/ The author, John Williams, tortures his protagonist without malice, portraying William Stoner's life as a series of disappointments. Stoner does not complain, but faces life with stoic resolve and it is that resolve that endears him to the reader and makes us admire him. 2/

Hey, do you kids like Westerns? Me, too. Especially that Clint Eastwood trilogy that goes over the opening of the West, it’s heyday, and the closing of the West. “I didn’t know the dollars trilogy did that?” you’ll say, but that’s not the one I’m talking about. I speak of course, about what I’ll call the “Man with Many Names” trilogy. The first entry in our trilogy is “The Outlaw Josie Wales”. We see in the beginning of the film, the protagonist is a farmer at the start of the Civil War. But, those damn Yankees come and kill his family.