This Is What Happens When Things Fall Apart
“Once we’re thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost; but it’s only here that the new and the good begins.” — War and Peace We’ve all had moments when our world suddenly snaps. It’s as if we’ve just woken up from a troubled night’s sleep — or perhaps even a good one — to find the…
Read MoreThis is How Homemade Wisdom for Troubled Times Can Help Us Now
I can’t catch my breath or hear myself think, what with political divisiveness having reached Dostoyevskian proportions, my head spinning from the nonstop barrage of news—most of it bad, all of it “breaking”—and the general anxiety in the air. And yet, recently, out of this maelstrom there has emerged a miraculous little book by philosopher…
Read MoreCrime and Enlightenment: Important Lessons Teens Teach Me About Life
The Inmate, the Student, and Tolstoy The gate closes behind me with an iron thud. I walk down the hallway, enter the classroom, and take my seat, flanked by the prison guard on my right, and on my left the chaplain and library administrators. Fifteen pairs of male eyes—wary, curious, bemused, intense—look at me…
Read MoreTen Russian Novels You Need To Read To Be a Better Human
As President Trump and Vladimir Put get chummy amid political turmoil at home, serious accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and a general sense of social malaise in both countries, Americans and Russians alike have a lot to think about these days. Both nations would do well to get beyond their ideological differences…
Read MoreWhy Now Is The Time To Give War and Peace a Chance
Summer, for many of us, offers a few of those long, unbroken stretches of time that, unlike the rest of our hurried, fragmented lives, positively cry out for a great big, abiding read. So perhaps this is the moment finally to tackle War and Peace. Widely acknowledged as the greatest novel ever written, War…
Read MoreChanging How Juvenile Offenders See Themselves—One Book at a Time
Duane is an eloquent 19-year-old who enjoys discussing world history and Russian literature. He has taught himself to count in multiple foreign languages and hopes to be an ambassador someday. This is not your typical teen — or youth inmate. He immersed himself in liberal arts while serving a sentence at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional…
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