June 2021 Edition
We have no lack of system or device to measure and to parcel out these poor days of ours; wherein it should be our pleasure that they be not squandered or suffered to pass away in vain, and without meed of honour, leaving no record of themselves in the minds of men; to the end that this our poor course may not be sped in vain.
~ From Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks.
Books, Russians and St.Paul's Cathedral. (📚🤬⛪️)
What a month! First of all I got scolded at St. Paul's Cathedral for... taking photos.
Don't take photos at St.Paul's kids. Not sure why, but don't. They really don't like that.
Every country I've lived in has one or two weird public places where filming or taking photos is prohibited, for no reason. Plus, St. Paul's is the only cathedral I know that asks you to pay for entrance. (20£)
The funniest part of this story was that the member of staff who scolded me turned out to be a Russian. So here's a situation - two Russians stand in the St. Paul's Cathedral in England, and argue about not taking photos. It reminded me of a proverb: 'You can remove man from a village, but you cannot remove the village from a man'. Ha!
On the good side, right after that, I discovered that there is another branch of the famous Daunt books right around the corner. I didn't need any more books, just two days before that I ordered bunch of them from Amazon. However, I still went in and came out with several books in a bag.
It made me think about the role of bookshops today. They're not there to buy particular books, but more about discovering what we don't know. Online shops don't give us the same opportunity to discover what we're ignorant about.
All the books that I mention in the video below were discovered and purchased by me in the bookstores. I hope you will find them as interesting as I did.
Hope you're all doing well my friends!
Vashik Armenikus 🪶
This is the second time I mention this book, but Frances Yates is so exceptional that she deserves two or three more newsletters about her alone.
This book is the history of mnemonics - the art of memorising large parts of information.
From the Ancient Greeks and Romans to Renaissance Italy and to our day - these techniques helped scientists to remember whole textbooks by heart, rhetoricians to remember their hour-long speeches word by word, and thinkers to remember entire books by heart.
The first name that comes to mind when you hear about Stoicism is - Marcus Aurelius.
Of course, his 'Meditations' is an exceptional book, but there's so much more in Stoicism than just Marcus Aurelius.
In this book, Ryan Holiday gives short and very concise bios of 20+ Stoic philosophers and their ideas.
This is one of the best contemporary books on philosophy that I read recently.
