I've acquired a taste for book reviews. It's sort of meta, since they describe the book but also try very hard to provide context at the same time. Given that I've loved Andrew Gelman's very back-of-the-envelope style reviews, this new preference is probably no surprise.
In any case, I've read "Mantel Pieces" which is a collection of Hillary Mantel's reviews for the London Review of Books, and it's an insane display of powerful language. Mantel has a brutal clarity coupled with restrained playfulness that just blows me away.
Take this picture of what it must feel like to be a small child:
> “For some time now you have been able to take your eyes off your own feet without the general danger of falling over; that’s the stage of walking you are up to.”
or
> “I’m sticking by my joke. I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s the only joke I’ve got.”
or on Robbespierre:
> “For most people, the era of selfless risk-taking is a phase. It irritates their elders while it lasts; though sometimes, in political movements, those elders find a way to exploit it. But then, if young persons survive their ideals, something happens which surprises them: they learn a trade, they develop ambitions, they fall in love, they get a stake in life. Or simply time passes, and middle age beckons, with its shoddy compromises. But for the Incorruptible, idealism was not a phase. He kept his vision carefully in his head through his twenties and carried it carefully to Versailles, where he arrived a few days before his 31st birthday.”
In any case, I've read "Mantel Pieces" which is a collection of Hillary Mantel's reviews for the London Review of Books, and it's an insane display of powerful language. Mantel has a brutal clarity coupled with restrained playfulness that just blows me away.
Take this picture of what it must feel like to be a small child:
> “For some time now you have been able to take your eyes off your own feet without the general danger of falling over; that’s the stage of walking you are up to.”
or
> “I’m sticking by my joke. I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s the only joke I’ve got.”
or on Robbespierre:
> “For most people, the era of selfless risk-taking is a phase. It irritates their elders while it lasts; though sometimes, in political movements, those elders find a way to exploit it. But then, if young persons survive their ideals, something happens which surprises them: they learn a trade, they develop ambitions, they fall in love, they get a stake in life. Or simply time passes, and middle age beckons, with its shoddy compromises. But for the Incorruptible, idealism was not a phase. He kept his vision carefully in his head through his twenties and carried it carefully to Versailles, where he arrived a few days before his 31st birthday.”