Howdy folks:
Adding something new this week.
This is still Michael Perry’s Voice Mail. Episode #164, to be specific. This episode is available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen.
In each episode, I’ll still be reading and reflecting on a passage from the past (today, a painfully relevant passage from Montaigne in Barn Boots). But if you look down there below, we’re also adding a new section: “Mike’s Marginalia.” Marginalia are the little notes we make while reading a book. Sometimes in the margin, sometimes between the lines, sometimes on a separate scrap of paper, sometimes in a journal, or—more and more frequently, in my case—electronically in an eBook. And for the sake of this project, I’ll expand the definition to include underlined and highlighted passages.
Over the years I’ve created miles and miles of marginalia…and revisited only a fraction of them (it?). “Mike’s Marginalia” gives me an excuse to dig through the bookshelves and book stacks and refresh my mind. Maybe learn something. Or more likely, re-learn something. And share it with you.
THIS WEEK’S READING
It’s from the “Confound the Fool” chapter of Montaigne in Barn Boots, which is all about absentmindedness. In this case, I’ve chosen a pair of passages that relate to books and marginalia—specifically, how I have to read and re-read things because I don’t retain them, and even more specifically the story of how my absentmindedness led to my losing the best book’s-worth of marginalia I ever marshaled.
MIKE’S MARGINALIA
Today’s marginalia is from the book Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy.
The cover suggests it won’t be a carefree romp:
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You can find Montaigne in Barn Boots in hardcover, paperback, audiobook (CD and digital), and Kindle and other ebook versions and all of my other hardcovers, paperbacks, and audiobooks here at the Sneezing Cow store.
Well, I s’pose…
Mike
Episode #164 "Mike's Marginalia"