Go Deep, Not Broad
I’d read only twenty pages of this rather slim book by Swiss writer Rolf Dobelli, when I thought, “Dobelli, you’re preaching to the converted.” But I still read the book twice in a fortnight.
For over ten years, I’ve avoided televised news, radio news and digital news-feeds. I read an article or two in a newspaper only every couple of weeks if I’m without a book in a cafe and there’s a newspaper available. I can’t claim my decision has made me wiser, but it has certainly made me calmer and more cheerful. My decision to focus on reading books and journal articles while avoiding the news cycle is based on the idea that I need to know what happened in the previous twenty-four centuries; I don’t need to know what happened in the past twenty-four hours. Rolf Dobelli is more succinct. He says, “Go deep, not broad.”
Stop Reading the News is a manifesto, as the subtitle specifies. It isn’t an academic tome and lacks the closing accoutrements of most non-fiction…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins