A lively and wide-ranging collection from David Bentley Hart, A Gathering of Leaves invites readers to rediscover the sheer joy of reading. David Bentley Hart brings together reflections on everything from literature and music to baseball and tortoises in his newest book. The pieces roam freely in subject and tone-sometimes serious, sometimes playful-but are united by Hart's distinctive voice: witty, attentive, and unafraid of digression. Rather than advancing a single argument or theme, Hart lets each essay follow its own path. Short notes sit alongside longer meditations; close readings give way to cultural commentary or unexpected enthusiasms. Hart focuses on the joys of style, observation, and thought in motion. A Gathering of Leaves is a book for readers who enjoy the art of the word-writing that informs and entertains, wanders and returns, and reminds us why reading itself remains a pleasure.
David Bentley Hart is a prolific theologian, philosopher, cultural commentator, and writer of fiction. He is the author and translator of over twenty-five books, including The Light of Tabor.
A Brief Introduction 1. Non Compos: Extracts from the Court Record 2. America's Team (or: The New York Yankees Are a Moral Abomination) 3. On Writing English Prose: Ideals, Exemplars, Rules 4. Birthday Greetings for Marcel 5. Goethe's "Orientalism" 6. ??The Georgia Peach 7. Nabokovian Ruminations: Four Notes 8. The Peach Blossom Spring: A Translation (and apologia) 9. The Saint James Bible 10. Encomium for a Tortoise 11. By Sea-Girls Wreathed 12. Nothing at the Bottom: Four Notes on AI 13. Wings of Light: On Translating Proust 14. La regle du jeu: Five Notes on the Great American Pastime 15. Organism and Paradigm: Six Notes on Mind and Matter 16. Frank: The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole 17. Revenants: Five Notes on Photography and the Deep Past 18. O Divine Monkey! 19. Echoes From the Past: Four Notes Mostly on the Beatles 20. On Yurei, Jibakurei, and Phone Booths: Four Notes on Ghostly Japan 21. A Tale Told by an Idiot 22. The Ethos of the Ants 23. Mr Toad and the Judge: On the Relative Merits of Kenneth Grahame and Cormac McCarthy 24. Thoughts on The Hindus: Wendy Doniger and the Rise of Indian Nationalism 25. "Dream-Journey to Mount Tian-Mu: A Sigh of Farewell" 26. Noli Episcopari: Four Notes on Political Power 27. Dispatches from the Antipodes 28. The Net of Indra 29. The Cunning of History: Seven Notes on Chance and Fate 30. Scattered Reflections: On Themes Cinematic and Televisual 31. Dispatches from the Flowering Fenlands 32. The State of Exception 33. Slouching Towards DC 34. L'Ebauche d'un homme civilise: On Paul Valery 35. Neither Wilt Thou Suffer Thine Holy One to See Corruption 36. On The Feast of Stephen: Six Notes on Boxing Day 37. Gods of the Wayside 38. Leave at Once, or I Shall Set the Dogs on You: Mon Doppelgaenger, Moi-Meme
"David Bentley Hart is a great essayist. He is a belle-lettrist in the old-fashioned sense, but at the same time a contemporary thinker and writer of real consequence. He is possessed of immense reading in a wide variety of areas, and he has the capacity to get to the root of the matter without wasting time. I regard him as one of the most important intellectuals of our era and someone whose work is of real and lasting significance. This is an important book, one that deserves the widest possible audience." - Henry Weinfield, author of An Alphabet
