Book-ish

It’s the end of a long semester. I’ve now spent just about one full academic year as a Princeton student, the last three months of it here on campus, in the best old place of all, just south of Nassau Street. Princeton’s a strange, strange place, at least the one I’ve experienced for the last year or so. It’s full of distinctly odd and incredibly talented people. And they’re all made more odd and more strange in their proximity to everyone else. There’s a particular spirit of the place, a blend of prestige, history, and emotion that hovers over campus like a wet fog.

This podcast was written and recorded by Gabe Robare, and was produced under the 145th Managing Board of The Daily Princetonian. It was edited by Cammie Lee and produced by Francesca Block with copy-editing and production help from Isabel Rodrigues.

Have a book you want us to review, or want to talk about a previous episode? Send us an email at [email protected].

I play basketball in the park every morning –– I’m not any good at it. Standing five foot, eight inches tall, I don’t have the physical tools, and I’m not especially athletic. Skill does develop through practice, but slowly.

Here’s the thing. When I go out and play basketball, I could make every shot if I stood next to the basket and shot layups. But where’s the fun in that? I run around and chuck up three-pointers, try to make shots off one foot from the corner, and shoot from behind the backboard. I miss a lot of shots. And it’s more fun that way.

My shots at the park in the morning, I think, are like how John McPhee chooses topics to write books about. It’s easy to shoot layups, and it’s easy to write books about popular topics, like World War II or Henry VIII. But McPhee chooses to instead shoot threes from half-court: he writes books about esoteric, strange topics, like orange production in Florida or the Pine Barrens of south Jersey, or, as in The Founding Fish, about the history of shad fishing in America. 

Wild topics, I know. And here’s the thing. McPhee never shoots a layup. But he makes all his shots. Listen in.

Before I record each episode of “Book-ish,” the script is fact-checked by The Daily Princetonian’s intrepid copy editors. While editing the last episode on Sarah Bakewell’s “How to Live,” they marked two of the passages from the book I quoted to be checked. I was confused because, well, I quoted them! Why would they need to check those?

Lo and behold, they were wrong. Only slightly wrong — but wrong indeed. You heard the correct quotes on the podcast two weeks ago.

This whole fiasco could have been avoided if I had taken the time to properly cite the book. Citations both prove that you’ve done your work and make it easy to check.

Anthony Grafton’s book, “The Footnote,” digs into the history of citation. I sat down with him to talk about his book, how history is made, how we understand the past, and the nature of truth. The humble little footnote is behind it all. Listen in.

This podcast was written and recorded by Gabe Robare, and was produced under the 145th Managing Board of The Daily Princetonian. It was edited by Cammie Lee and produced by Frannie Block with production help from Isabel Rodrigues. Special thanks to Professor Grafton for speaking with me for today’s episode.

Have a book you want us to review, or want to talk about a previous episode? Send us an email at [email protected].

For The Daily Princetonian, this has been Book-ish. Have a great day and keep reading.

Rock Over London by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4301-rock-over-london
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Few inventions can truly be attributed to one person. We say Edison made the lightbulb, and we say Bell made the telephone, but in reality both of them were just at the end of a long line of cumulative innovations. 

Michel de Montaigne, the Renaissance French writer, is one of the few true innovators in human history. Before Montaigne first published his Essays in 1580, the personal essay did not exist. After Montaigne, it was one of the most popular art forms in Europe. Montaigne was to literature what Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, and Grandmaster Flash were to popular music, combined.

Innumerable writers since the 1580s have been influenced by Montaigne and saw themselves in his Essays, as Sarah Bakewell writes in her biography of him, How to Live. Ever since the book came out, Montaigne has been an extremely relatable figure in contemporary society. After having read Montaigne, Stefan Zweig said “Here is a ‘you’ in which my ‘I’ is reflected; here is where all distance is abolished.” More simply –– Bernard Levin said “How did he know all that about me?” Listen to the latest Book-ish podcast to find out.

This podcast was written and recorded by Gabe Robare, and was produced under the 145th Managing Board of The Daily Princetonian. It was edited by Cammie Lee and produced by Frannie Block with production help from Isabel Rodrigues.

Have a book you want us to review, or want to talk about a previous episode? Send us an email at [email protected].

It’s the beginning of March in Princeton, New Jersey. Packed snow from a succession of February storms remains sturdy and tired on the ground. It doesn’t seem to want to leave, although the snowmen have long since collapsed into heaps of mush.
Today I come to you with a ballad, a song of seasons passing, of nature, and of our place in it, to warm you when Princeton’s climate surely won’t. I’ll tell you about Mary Oliver and American Primitive, her Pulitzer Prize-winning book of poems. And together we will learn what it is to live in nature. Listen in to the newest episode of Book-ish, a Prospect podcast.

This podcast was written and recorded by Gabe Robare, and was produced under the 145th Managing Board of The Daily Princetonian. It was edited by Cammie Lee and produced by Francesca Block with copy-editing and production help from Isabel Rodrigues.

Have a book you want us to review, or want to talk about a previous episode? Send us an email at [email protected].

This podcast was written and recorded by Gabe Robare, and was produced under the 145th Managing Board of The Daily Princetonian. It was edited by Cammie Lee and produced by Francesca Block with copy-editing and production help from Isabel Rodrigues. Have a book you want us to review, or want to talk about a previous episode? Send us an email at [email protected].

In the summer before my senior year of high school, I read my first Jane Austen novel, Emma. And I hated it. But then, I read it again, this past winter, wanting to give it another chance. And I loved it. In this episode, I’ll tell you why.

The transition music in this episode is Frédéric Chopin’s Ballade No. 2, performed by Michael McClure. For more of Michael’s music, visit his YouTube channel at Michael McClure Music, or his website, at michaelmccluremusic.com.

This episode contains minor plot spoilers for Emma.

From The Daily Princetonian, Book-ish is more than a book review podcast: every other Saturday, listen for a candid discussion of a great book –– ranging to thoughts inside and outside the text at large. Book-ish is written and hosted by Gabriel Robare ‘24 and produced by Francesca Block ’22 under the 145th Managing Board of The Daily Princetonian. The theme was composed and performed by Robare, and the cover art is by Sydney Peng ’22.  

Have a book you want us to review, or want to talk about a previous episode? Send us an email at [email protected].