The Reading Room

The OLL blog explores the fascinating, vital, and often surprising texts and people that fill our library. Come talk in our library!

Charles Murray on Dignity and the American Dream

By: Anna Leman

Mitch Daniels sings nothing but high praise of Charles Murray, for the social scientist says what no one else will. In this Future of Liberty episode, Daniels and Murray discuss some of Murray’s boldest claims about social welfare, education, and personal liberty.  
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Self-Help with Smiles

By: Caroline Breashears

While self-help books have been around for millennia, the popularity of the genre owes a great deal to Samuel Smiles's Self-Help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct. 
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Reading is, and should always be, a pleasure

By: Carlos Alejandro Noyola Contreras

I buy books. Lots of them. Lots of books. For years, if I remember correctly, I haven't spent a week without adding - at least - a new book to my library.
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Marlowe, Goethe, and the Faust Legend

By: Gary McGath

The Faust legend has held the imagination of Western culture for many years. Variants of the story have appeared as stage works, poems, novels, and even instrumental music. The man who makes a deal with the Devil sometimes achieves…
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Why You Should Read Adam Smith

By: Amy Willis

Our friends at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center launched an interesting program this year in which they are asking authors and experts to tell us why WE should read the books that helped shape them or those that have…
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The Libertarian With the Guillotine

By: Janet Bufton

Isabel Paterson's argument against government charity hasn't held up, but it still offers important lessons about liberal, and libertarian, politics.
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George Washington’s Rules of Civility

By: Steve Ealy

John Adams, in a letter dated April 22, 1812, confided to Benjamin Rush his belief  that George Washington was “too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station and reputation.” This was not the first time that the…
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The Satyr Play: The Friar’s Tale and the Summoner’s Tale

By: Nathaniel Birzer

Geoffrey Chaucer’s attack on the clergy in his prologue to The Canterbury Tales takes on new life in the form of the rivalry between the Friar and the Summoner, who each take their turn following the Wife of Bath. In their…
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Cato and George Washington

By: Walter Donway

I suspect many admirers of the American Revolution fail to appreciate the influence that the history of ancient Rome, its philosophers and statesmen, and its fate exerted on our founders—almost all Age of Enlightenment thinkers in…
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Why You Should Read “All the King’s Men”

By: Steve Ealy

Our friends at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center launched an interesting program this year in which they are asking authors and experts to tell us why WE should read the books that helped shape them or those that have…
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The Spectator: Get Some Class, Folks!

By: Walter Donway

In 1663, there were 82 coffeehouses in London; by 1734, there were 551 in the city.
With coffee and coffeehouses came conversation and meetings to discuss business. This applied to coffeehouses but also to taverns and homes of the…
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Dante, Statius, Virgil and the Nature of Being in Dante’s Divine Comedy

By: Alexander Schmid

When one lets drip a drop of water into a placid lake, what happens? Circles ripple from the origin. What then is the drop of water, exactly? Is it the water which drops into and merges with the larger body of water, or is it the…
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The Other Bennett Sister

By: Renee Wilmeth

“Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet’s being quite unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still…
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The Reading Room Archives

Reading Room Contributors

Anna Leman

Anna Leman

Caroline Breashears

Caroline Breashears

Carlos Alejandro Noyola Contreras

Carlos Alejandro Noyola Contreras

Gary McGath

Gary McGath

Amy Willis

Amy Willis