Walter Russell Mead

My high school experience was probably better than most, but I was dissatisfied nevertheless. I am not sure how my parents learned about it, but when I was a sophomore they took me to Simon’s Rock to be interviewed for acceptance. I recall that during the interview I was asked about my relationship with myContinue reading “Walter Russell Mead”

Robert Ruark

We come to know characters in books far better than we can people in our own lives because characters are immutable, crystalline in their structured captivity. I stole that thought from Milan Kundera – there is likely something similar in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. My mother sent me a book my father had wantedContinue reading “Robert Ruark”

Gabriele D’Annunzio

Before he died, my uncle Tony gifted me his first Italian edition of Il Fuoco (The Flame, 1900), signed by Gabriele D’Annunzio himself. I regret that I didn’t record where or why he acquired the book. He did teach himself Italian, but I don’t know if he mastered it sufficiently to read the original. IContinue reading “Gabriele D’Annunzio”