I recommend reading the first footnote before starting It started with Plato, but it didn’t end there[1]. This fact isn’t often discussed. Plato lived in Athens in Ancient Greece about 2400 years ago. He himself studied informally under Socrates, and Plato, in turn, had his own students and disciples at a school (of sorts) called The Academy.[2] The very first person to succeed as...
Editorial notes: This is Shai’s first dedicated write-up relating to Jorge Luis Borges. Borges is referenced in two earlier essays and between Jan 2010 and Nov 2017 is referenced by Shai 17 times. The Writing of the God (Spanish: La Escritura del Dios; also sometimes entitled The God’s Script) is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. It first appeared in Borges’ short story...
History has recorded Anaximander as one of the first of the Ancient Greek philosophers, preceded only by his teacher Thales. Anaximander lived around 2600 years ago, in the large Ionian city of Miletus, which can be found on the West coast of modern day Turkey. Anaximander is famous, together with his teacher Thales and his own student Anaximenes for being the first Greeks to begin a tradition of...
I hadn’t intended to review this book – Men and Cartoons: Stories by Jonathan Lethem – but then, like with so many other things, I got thinking. This was the first thing I’d ever read by Lethem – surely there must be something unique about a person’s first introduction to an author? Surely there must be something unique about my introduction to Lethem? But...
