Highlights and Review Index
Below you’ll find what I consider to be my best posts, and an index of shows and books I’ve done review/impressions posts for. You may also be interested in the main site, On the Origin of Fire…
First, a sampling of some of my better posts from each category:
- What’s the Appeal of Mishima Yukio?
- Why Do You Not Study the Odes?
- Plato’s Dialogues: Republic
- “For a Few Thousand Battered Books” - Ezra Pound and the First World War
- Lewis Carroll, the Alice Novels, and Sensible Nonsense
- One Hundred Leaves, Watson’s translation of the Hyakunin Isshu
- Richard III, Reading Shakespeare, and Another Way to Fail at Kingship
- Takimoto Tatsuhiko’s Welcome to the NHK
- A Decade’s Worth of Serial Experiments (Lain)
- Mischief Making in Two Wonderful Dimensions
A few essays and editorials:
- An Ascent with Xenophon - On making up for a poor education, featuring Xenophon and Bl. John Henry Newman
- Cardinal Newman’s Portrait of a Gentleman - Largely quoting from his Idea of a University
- Cardinal Newman on Education and Journalism - More from Idea of a University
- What Books Have Most Influenced Me? - Asked and answered
- What’s the Appeal of Mishima Yukio? - As the title advertises
- Which Translation of the Analects Should I Read? - Also, as the title advertises
- Notes on Approaching the Confucian Canon - Advice on how, and how much, to read of the Four Books and Five Classics
- Notes on Praying the Divine Office - Some tips for people new to the Office
- On Human Sacrifice in the Book of Judges - On Jephte’s daughter
- The Catena Aurea on Biblical Genealogies - Why does Scripture include long genealogies?
- The Happy Game of Mahjong - On learning and enjoying mahjong
- The King of Sports - On professional wrestling
- You’re the Mandarin Now, Dog - On learning Chinese
- Against James Burnham’s Interpretation of Dante - Responding to his portrayal of Monarchia in his The Macchiavellians
- I’ll Hang Around As Long as You Will Let Me - The blog’s tenth anniversary special
- Junior-year Reflections, which ties in with Education without University
- On Surrounding Oneself with Books - An apology for my bibliophilia
- Why Do You Not Study the Odes? - On the value of good art, and focusing on the beautiful
- Is There a Hierarchy Among the Arts? - On the distinction between high and low art
- Notes on the Purpose of Poetry - What is poetry, and what is its end?
- What’s Up with Anime Fans? - Addressing some criticisms of anime fandom
- An Experiment in Fandom Criticism - A follow-up of sorts to the above
- The Moral Dimension of Judging Art - On the interaction between art and the broader culture
- How to Write About a Book - Advice for learning to write about literature and non-fiction
- That 50 Questions Meme - Twenty-five questions on my experience as an anime fan, and twenty-five personal questions
- Why I Watch Anime - Just as the title indicates
- We Hope You Will Enjoy the Show… In One Piece - A very early post about the album as a unit of composition
- How Do We Judge Anime? - On how to compare disparate works of animation, and to a lesser extent art in general
I’ve also done a handful of special series on specific subjects. These lead to category pages.
- Making One Hundred Friends - memorising one hundred poems (introductory post)
- lain20th - on serial experiments lain’s twentieth anniversary.
- Anime Autobiography - on my experiences with that medium, written in 2012.
- Maynguh Memories - an irregular follow-up to the above, on Japanese comics.
- Uncle Walt-a-thon - reviewing every major Disney movie that Walt Disney was personally involved in.
- 75 Book Challenge 2015 - reading 75 books in one year, successfully completed (technically).
Next, an index of review/impressions posts, by categories.
Poetry:
- Alighieri, Dante - La Vita Nuova
- Anonymous - The Book of Odes (Arthur Waley’s translation)
- Anonymous - Edward, Edward
- Anonymous - The Epic of Gilgamesh
- Campion, Thomas - “Rose-Cheeked Laura”
- Carew, Thomas - “Mediocrity in Love Rejected”
- Carroll, Lewis - The Hunting of the Snark
- Catullus - Various poems
- Cavalcanti, Guido - Various Poems
- Cecil, William, 1st Lord Burghley - “To his Daughter Ann, New Year’s Day, 1567”
- Cowley, Abraham - “The Given Heart”
- Desbordes-Valmore, Marceline - “Le Rendez-vous”
- Denham, Sir John - “A Song”
- Donne, John - Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud
- Frost, Robert - Fire and Ice
- Fujiwara no Masatsune - Hyakunin Isshu 94 (“Fair Yoshino”)
- Graham, James, Marquis of Montrose - “On Himself, upon Hearing What was his Sentence”
- Henry VI - “Kingdomes are but Cares”
- Hesiod - The Works and Days, Theogeny
- Homer - The Homeric Hymns, The Iliad, The Odyssey
- Hopkins, Gerard Manley - “The Windhover”
- Housman, A. E. - “Here Dead Lie We”
- Lindsay, Vachel - “The Congo” and “Factory Windows are Always Broken”
- Martial - Epigrams
- Milton, John - Sonnet XIX: When I Consider how my Light is Spent
- Pindar - The Odes
- Poe, Edgar Allan - poems
- Pope, Alexander - A Little Learning
- Pound, Ezra - Hugh Selwyn Mauberley and The Cantos, “A Pact," and “In a Station of the Metro”
- Randolph, Thomas - “Upon his Picture”
- Ransom, John Crowe - “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter”
- Sage, Alison (Ed.) - Treasury of Children’s Poetry
- Sappho - Various poems
- Shirley, James - “The Glories of Our Blood and State”
- Spenser, Edmund - “Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote her Name”
- Stevenson, Robert Louis - A Child’s Garden of Verses
- Thomas, Dylan - Various poems
- Various - Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets
- Various - One Hundred Leaves (Hyakunin Isshu) (Frank Watson translation)
- Various - The Penguin Book of Haiku
- Villon, François - “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” (English) (French)
- Waller, Edmund - “Go, Lovely Rose”
- Whitman, Walt - “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
Prose Fiction and Drama
- Banville, John - The Sea
- Carroll, Lewis - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
- Chesterton, G. K. - The Man Who Was Thursday
- Dick, Philip K. - The Man in the High Castle
- Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
- Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
- Hasekura Isuna - Spice & Wolf (vols. 1-4)
- Heinlein, Robert - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
- Kafka, Franz - The Castle
- Molière - Le Misanthrope
- Murakami Haruki - Kafka on the Shore
- Neovictorian - Sanity, Reality
- O’Brien, Tim - Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried
- O’Connor, Flannery - Various short stories
- Ogle, Garth - The Bowl of Tears and Solace
- Poe, Edgar Allan - Tales of Mystery and Imagination
- Pu Songling - Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio
- Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus
- Stevenson, Robert Louis - Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Stoker, Bram - Dracula
- Takimoto Tatsuhiko - Welcome to the NHK
- Tanigawa Nagaru - The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Series) (Books 1-7) (Dissociation)
- Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
General Non-fiction:
- Adler, Mortimer J. and Charles van Doren - How to Read a Book
- Alighieri, Dante - Monarchia and The Monarchia Controversy (ed. by Anthony Cassell)
- Anissimov, Michael - A Critique of Democracy
- Aristotle - Poetics
- Azuma Hiroki - Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals
- Bernays, Edward - Propaganda
- Bloom, Harold - How to Read and Why
- Carter, John - ABC for Book Collectors
- Chapman, John “Borzoi” - Cultured Grugs
- Clark, Christopher - Iron Kingdom
- Cochran and Harpending - The 10,000 Year Explosion
- Dabney, Robert Lewis - A Defense of Virginia and the South
- Evola, Julius - Fascism Viewed from the Right and Notes on the Third Reich
- Garfunkel, Art - What is it All but Luminous?
- Grenby, M. O. and Andrea Immel (eds.) - The Cambridge Companion to Children’s Literature
- Herodotus - The Histories
- Hitchens, Peter - Short Breaks in Mordor
- Hobbes, Thomas - Leviathan
- Ingrao, Charles W. - The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618-1815
- Israel, Ann and Gregg Swain - Mah Jongg: The Art of the Game
- Jones, Dan - The Plantagenets
- Kissinger, Henry - Diplomacy
- Kondo Marie - The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
- Maine, Henry Sumner - Popular Government
- Mangan, P. D. - Best Supplements for Men’s Health, Strength, and Virility and Muscle Up
- Marchant, Bill - Northern Reaction
- Maritain, Jacques - Education at the Crossroads
- Metternich, Klemens von - Metternich: The Autobiography (1773-1815)
- Okrent, Arika - In the Land of Invented Languages
- Pines, Yuri - The Everlasting Empire
- Sallust - The Catiline Conspiracy and The Jugurthine War
- Santagata, Marco - Dante: The Story of his Life
- Scott, Emmet - Mohammed & Charlemagne Revisited
- Semmes, Raphael - Memoirs of a Service Afloat During the War Between the States
- Southern, A. C. - Elizabethan Recusant Prose: 1559-1582
- Tanizaki Junichiro - In Praise of Shadows
- Taylor, A. J. P. - The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809-1918
- Trudeau, Noah Andre - Robert E. Lee
- Trump, Donald and Tony Schwarz - The Art of the Deal
- Tuchman, Barbara - The Guns of August
- Various - The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists (ed. by Robin Waterfield)
- Walther, Peter - The First World War in Colour
- Weaver, Richard - Ideas Have Consequences
- Xenophon - Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises
- Young, Philip H. - The Printed Homer: A 3,000 Year Publishing and Translation History of the Iliad and the Odyssey
Religion/Catholicism:
- Bellarmine, Robert - The Art of Dying Well, De Laicis, De Romano Pontifice vol. 1, and Doctrina Christiana
- Benedict XVI - Saint Paul
- Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy
- Calloway, Fr. Donald - Consecration to St. Joseph
- Chesterton, G. K. - The Everlasting Man, Heretics, and Orthodoxy
- de Liguori, Alphonsus - How to Pray at All Times
- Hockenmaier, Fr. Fructosious - Confession Made Easy
- Kinkead, Fr. Thomas - Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism
- Mamalakis, Philip - Parenting Towards the Kingdom
- McGovern, Fr. James - The Religious and Moral Training of Children
- Various - From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought (ed. by Oliver O’Donovan and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan)
Confucianism:
- Anonymous - The Analects of Confucius (Leonard Lyall translation) (Choosing a translation)
- Anonymous - The Book of Documents (a.k.a., the Shujing)
- Anonymous - The Book of Odes (Arthur Waley’s translation)
- Anonymous - The Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean
- Gongyang Commentators - The Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals
- Herbert, Edward - A Confucian Notebook
- Mencius - Mencius
- Pines, Yuri - Foundations of Confucian Thought
- Yao, Xinzhong - An Introduction to Confucianism
Plato:
- Introduction; Lysis, Laches, and Charmides
- Meno
- Euthyphro
- Socrates' Defense (The Apology)
- Crito
- Protagoras
- Greater Hippias
- Gorgias
- Lesser Hippias
- Symposium
- Phaedrus
- Republic
- Phaedo
- Cratylus
- Ion
- Euthydemus
- Menexenus
Shakespeare:
- 1 Henry VI
- 2 Henry VI
- 3 Henry VI
- Titus Andronicus (and Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew)
- Richard III (with notes on reading Shakespeare generally)
Graphic Novels and Comics:
- Aida Yu - Gunslinger Girl (vols. 7-8) (vols. 11-12) (finale)
- CLAMP - Gate 7 (vol. 1)
- Fujishima Kosuke - Oh, My Goddess! (vol. 41) (vol. 47) (vol. 48) (vols. 1-7)
- Go Nagai - Devilman
- Kamachi Kazuma (story) and Fuyukawa Motoi (art) - A Certain Scientific Railgun (vols. 1-2)
- Kio Shimoku - Genshiken Second Season vol. 6-7
- Kishiro Yukito - Battle Angel Alita: Last Order Omnibus vols. 3-5
- Ishinomori Shotaro - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- Ito Junji - Frankenstein, Gyo, and Uzumaki
- Kon Satoshi - Opus
- Koume Keito - Spice & Wolf (GN) vol. 9-10
- Kumeta Koji - Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (overview) (vol. 9)
- Mori Kaoru - A Bride’s Story vol. 6
- O’Connor, Flannery - The Cartoons
- Oshii Mamoru and Kon Satoshi - Seraphim 266613336 Wings
- Suenobu Keiko - Limit vols. 3-6
- Suetsugu Yuki - Chihayafuru (French Edition)
- Tadano Nobuaki - 7 Billion Needles
- Takemiya Yuyuko (story) and Zekkyo (art) - ToraDora (vols. 1-2) (vol. 3) (vol. 7)
- Tanigawa Nico - Watamote vols. 5-7
- Tezuka Osamu - Dororo
- Ueda Hajime - FLCL
- Unita Yumi - Bunny Drop (vols. 1-2)
- Yasuhiko Yoshikazu - Joan; and Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (vols. 4-5), (vols. 6-7), (vols. 8-10)
Animation:
- 101 Dalmatians
- Alice in Wonderland
- Bambi
- Cinderella
- Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (both seasons)
- Dumbo
- Evangelion 2.0
- Evangelion 3.0
- Fantasia
- Fate/Stay Night
- Fate/Zero (box set 1) (box set 2) (final impressions)
- FLCL (blu-ray)
- Ghost Hound
- The Hobbit
- Interstella 5555
- The Jungle Book
- Lady and the Tramp
- Last Exile (eps. 1-2)
- The Last Unicorn
- The Lord of the Rings
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Endless Eight arc)
- The Mystic Archives of Dantalian
- Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV Series)
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth
- Peter Pan
- Pinocchio
- Return of the King
- Rozen Maiden and RM: Träumend
- Rozen Maiden: Zurückspulen
- serial experiments lain (blu-ray) (the “theology” of) (personal experience with)
- Sleeping Beauty
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
- Sword in the Stone
- The Three Caballeros
- Watamote
- The Wind Rises
- Your Name and 5 Centimetres per Second
Miscellaneous:
- Akira Club (art book)
- Board Books by various authors
- The Chekist (film)
- Dr. Seuss (picture books)
- Dr. Zhivago (film)
- Jurassic Park (film)
- Katyn (film)
- Maniac (film)
- Medieval Monsters (art book)
- Mischief Makers (video game)
- Moby Dick, by Geraldine McCauhrean (picture book)
- Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber (video game)
- Pokemon: White Version (video game)
- The Road Home (film)
- Sweeney Todd (film)
- Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (PS version) (video game)
- Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (video game)
- Tales of Mystery and Imagination (album)
- The Wicker Man (film)
Bibliophile’s Journal (Short Book Reviews):
- Akira by Otomo Katsuhiro
- Alex Cross, Run by James Patterson
- Anything and Something by Mori Kaoru
- The Arthurian Handbook by Norris Lacy and Geoffrey Ashe
- Battle Angel Alita: Last Order (Omnibus 1) by Kishiro Yukito
- Biblical Commentaries: Romans by St. Thomas Aquinas
- A Bride’s Story (v.4) by Mori Kaoru
- Bunny Drop (v.3-4) (v.8) by Unita Yumi
- Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
- Confessions of a Mask by Mishima Yukio
- Considérations sur la France by Joseph de Maistre
- Cromartie High School (v.1-2) by Nonaka Eiji
- Disappearance Diary by Azuma Hideo
- Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
- Gate 7 (v.3) by CLAMP
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- Great Expectations (started) (finished) by Charles Dickens
- Gunslinger Girl (v.13-14) by Aida Yu
- History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Sir Winston Churchill
- The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya by Tanigawa Nagaru
- Limit by Suenobu Keiko
- The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Navarre Bible Commentary: Jeremiah
- Neon Genesis Evangelion (v.1-3) (v.7-9) by Sadamoto Yoshiyuki
- Oh, My Goddess! (v. 42) by Fujishima Kosuke
- Rules of Prey by John Sandford
- The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Spice & Wolf (graphic novel) (v.7) by Koume Keito
- Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Mishima Yukio
- Thermae Romae (v.1) by Yamazaki Mari
- ToraDora (v.5) by Zekkyo
- A Troublesome Inheritance by Nicholas Wade
- Twenty Prose Poems by Charles Baudelaire
- The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
- X (Omnibus III, Omnibus V) by CLAMP
- Yotsuba&! (v.11) by Azuma Kiyohiko
Finally, the year-end retrospectives, which may be of interest since they contain a “highlight reel” of each year:
- 2023: A New Career in a New Town
- 2022: Watch Out, You Might Get What You’re After
- 2021: For this Child did I Pray
- 2020: O My Dove, in the Clefts of the Rock
- 2019: Mais où sont les neiges d’antan! (also: Book Report)
- 2018: Tomorrow Will Be Special, Yesterday Was Not (also: Book Report)
- 2017: The Speed at Which Cherry Blossoms Fall (also: supplemental Book Report)
- 2016: A Human Work
- 2015: The Other Side of Agincourt
- 2014: It All Comes Tumbling Down, Tumbling Down, Tumbling Do~wn
- 2013: The Agincourt of Weblogging
- 2012: An OK Year in Review
- 2011: A Personal Reflection