He’s been described as the most famous author of his day, as “literature’s greatest whistleblower.” His influence on French, American, and world literature is undisputedly huge. And his books, as the title of this post suggests, are full of three things people love to read about, even if they don’t […]
[Editor’s note: Nella Cotrupi talks about the very special seminar she has planned on three women Italian novelists. The first, Elena Ferrante, needs no introduction. Grazia Deledda and Elsa Morante, both important influences on Ferrante, also write with keen psychological insight about their characters’ interior and exterior lives. This is […]
Daedalus could not have picked a better spot. As I walked the path leading up to the temple, I stopped to bask in the warm November sun that gilded the valley below and transformed the sea into a thin strip of silver. I was in Agrigento on the south coast […]
To mark Election Day in the US, we asked Classical Pursuits leaders to name some of their favourite novels, biographies, films, essays, TV shows and more where the focus is on politics and the political process. What would you recommend? Let us know! From Don Spandier: One of my favorite […]
I could feel my heart beat a little faster as I stepped out of the hostel lobby and onto the lilac-filled esplanade. Kids were playing soccer while next door at the Corsican wine bar, the owner chatted with a couple of regulars. Up the street, the a shout of laughter […]
The very name Ganges brings to the mind’s eye a swell of images that flow, just as the river itself, through 4,000 years of human history: the famous ghats at Varanasi, fishermen in narrow boats, the unmistakable profile of Kolkata’s Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly tributary. This relatively short river […]
One of the best things about returning to Paris this spring for the first time since 2019 was experiencing long-anticipated pleasures, both familiar and new. I was happy to once again be swept up in the rush-hour Métro crowds, or sip my favourite aperitif, a Suze, among the lilac trees […]
“Just look! It’s right there in the painting.” This exhortation from our guide Sara Magister seemed so intuitive, so easy. A painting is there to be looked at. What happens when we take the time to do it? Let me back up a bit. Who is Sara, and which paintings […]
How far would you go to save a painting? One of the people we’ll meet on our upcoming trip The First Modern Artist: Caravaggio in Rome and Malta found himself facing that very question. In December 1984, three men disguised as workers stole the painting St. Jerome Writing from St. […]
For me, the holiday season is synonymous with movies. During these last couple weeks of the year when work slows a bit, I love to get together with friends (or spend a few hours in my own company) to head out to the theatre or make spicy chili popcorn for […]