One should read the classics in winter, because then one’s mind is more concentrated; read history in summer, because one has more time; read the ancient philosophers in autumn, because they have such charming ideas; and read the collected works of later authors in spring, because then Nature is coming back to life.
— Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living
This year, my big reading project is going to be The Story of Civilization, by Will and Ariel Durant. I’ve encountered single volumes many times over the years, and I’ve always been impressed by the scope of the undertaking, as well as the prose style, which I like to call “mid-century middlebrow.” It’s from a time when it was naturally assumed to make sense to write an eleven-volume summary of Western civilization aimed at a general audience who would of course be interested to read such a thing for the sake of general knowledge. O tempora, o mores! Anyway, eleven volumes — one a month, to finish the whole thing this year? We’ll see.