Subscribe
Sign in
Home
Notes
Classical Education
Digital Devolution
Books
Seven Essentials
Wunderkammer
Top-10 Lists
About
Latest
Top
Discussions
The Problem of Beautiful Art About Terrible Things
On John Singer Sargent’s "Gassed", and its exploration of truth versus beauty in the aftermath of World War One.
May 14
•
Michael S. Rose
5
3
What Passing-Bells for Those Who Die as Cattle?
On the Poets of the First World War and the Language That Replaced Honor
May 11
•
Michael S. Rose
11
2
2
3. On War, and What Art Does with It
War produces art of such power and truth that you wonder whether there's something about extremity itself that forces a kind of honesty unavailable in…
May 7
•
Michael S. Rose
13
2
6
Ten Bookshops for the Serious Reader: A Pilgrim's Guide
These ten shops are offered as a curated gathering, organized around a conviction that they belong in conversation with each other and with the reader…
May 4
•
Michael S. Rose
11
2
2
April 2026
Architecture and the Great American Reading Room
Andrew Carnegie built 2,509 libraries. Each one made a claim about the dignity of the person who might walk through its doors. We have spent seventy…
Apr 30
•
Michael S. Rose
11
1
Used Bookshops and the Culture We Are Losing
On Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, and the Wunderkammer principle applied to a hundred yards of Victorian shopfronts in the heart of London.
Apr 27
•
Michael S. Rose
21
1
5
2. On the Joy of Browsing the Stacks
The art of the purposeless journey through arranged knowledge requires a willingness to be diverted and the openness to the genuine possibility of…
Apr 23
•
Michael S. Rose
23
8
3
Ten Polymaths Every Serious Reader Should Know
From Aristotle to Leibniz to Wojtyla, here's a curated guide to the minds that refused to limit themselves by specialization, with reading…
Apr 20
•
Michael S. Rose
58
5
5
Leonardo: the Man with One Question
Da Vinci asked: What are the principles that govern the behavior of the world? The things we’ve since carved up into separate academic departments…
Apr 16
•
Michael S. Rose
12
2
The Lost Art of the Commonplace Book
Readers, don’t just wander from book to book like a nomad. Gather what is best. Write it down. Return to it. Make it yours.
Apr 13
•
Michael S. Rose
45
2
5
1. On Beginning 'The Wunderkammer'
This "cabinet of curiosities" was the Renaissance collector’s answer to a world too rich to organize neatly. Into it went everything that astonished…
Apr 9
•
Michael S. Rose
31
3
6
February 2026
Is the Head of a Classical School a CEO?
The comparison is common. It is also mistaken. A school is not a business.
Feb 18
•
Michael S. Rose
24
3
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please
turn on JavaScript
or unblock scripts
