“With opinions, possession is more than nine points of the law. It is next to impossible to dislodge them.” Woodrow Wilson’s Study of Administration examines public opinion’s role in politics. It is one of 20 nonfiction readings chosen by the readers. Other faceted topics in volume 088 include culinary taste (Stewed Eels) the existence of the supernatural (Mayo v. Satan; Previsionary Dream); slavery (The Constitution and the Slave; A Scrap of Curious History); peace and war (Bumping into the Bolshevists; Russians as I Knew Them; Bogdan Chmielnicki; Armistice; International Peace) and culture (Who Thinks Abstractly; Apollo or Dionysus; Landscape Painting; the College Glee Club; Tagore’s Reminiscences; and Frances Burnett). Rounding out the volume are a survey of Martinique, and a medical treatise on the Organs of the Human Voice. (Summary by Sue Anderson)     [chương_files]  

“From vocalists you may learn much, but do not believe all that they say.” Robert Schumann’s Advice to Young Musicians is replete with good counsel. How, what, and from whom we learn is thematic to many of these 20 nonfiction selections, chosen by their readers. We learn from the lives of valorous persons (Simón Bolívar; José de San Martín; Booker T. Washington; Ishi, the last Yana Indian); from literature (Political Naturalism in England; Editorial Prejudice Against the Occult; Barbara Frietchie); from journalists, activists, and the opinionated (America and the English Tradition; Interned by the Bolshevists; The Cholera; Chimney Sweeping; Diet & Hygiene; Progress in Dairy Farming; Concerning Tobacco; Beer & Cider), and from nature (Duck Hawks of Taughannock; Sponges & Sponge Fisheries; The Grand Canyon; and Social Wasps Polistes). Summary by Sue Anderson     [chương_files]  

“A regard for decency, even at the cost of success, is but the regard for one’s own dignity” was novelist Joseph Conrad’s take on fame, a quote from the preface to his autobiography A Personal Record (1912). Other lives chosen by readers to examine in vol. 085 include the Borgias; the Cynocephali; Hermann von Helmholtz; Edgar Allan Poe; John Burroughs; a pre-Revolutionary War magnate named Browne, who built a mansion on the ridge of a hill; women as a social class; and an 1821 rabies victim named Thomas, who exhibited hydrophobia. Political history receives scrutiny in Some Materials and a Possibility; The House Famine; Cracow; The Dutch East India Company; and Across Africa by Air and Rail. The art of Japanning illuminates an ancient craft. Literature, by Irvin Cobb, is welcome humor. And for hungry souls, there are recipes for ice cream and for Army chow! Summary by Sue Anderson.     [chương_files]