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In praise of the dilettante

A wayfaring cosmopolitan who never gets stuck, the dilettante is the right anti-hero for our hyper-specialised age - by Jay Miller Read on Aeon

Culture •

Cooperation (the fall book list)

Last week’s book list was a success, and I realized that it would work even better with others. Bookstores work precisely because they stack the books right next to each other. Even though each of these authors has a book out this fall, they’re not my competition. Too often, we

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What Is Your Refugium?

For courage, says Bulgarian folk wisdom instructs, keep a horse chestnut in your pocket. Even as a child, I was mistrustful of superstition. But every autumn, I would pick up dozens of them from the sidewalks of Sofia and fill my pockets — not as a spell against fear but as an

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Rest In Peace, Patrick Stewart (1940-2026)

Sir Patrick Stewart , best known for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation, has died at the age of 86 . He passed at home in Los Angeles from Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia. He was largely considered an unknown when the “Star Trek”

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Star Wars: The Radio Drama

Somehow I’d never heard of this before: NPR produced and aired 1 radio dramatizations of the films in the original Star Wars trilogy. The first program was particularly popular, garnering NPR hundreds of thousands of new listeners. The original versions are available in full on

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The Remarkable Serbian Election

I’ve been reading a bit about the recent election in Serbia and some of the details are fascinating. A student-led coalition toppled the 12-year corrupt reign of “the increasingly authoritarian leader” Aleksandar Vučić in recent elections. But in order to ensure voters and

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