For each issue we’ll highlight books, some new, some old, some for adults, some for children.

Shop Class as Soulcraft:

An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

 

by Matthew B. Crawford

 

A thought provoking and timely work whose relevance expands beyond its focused (and important) issue of shop class and the dignity of manual trades.

Only the Lover Sings

Art and Contemplation

 

by Josef Pieper

 

This is a collection of bite-size essays—think of a fine aged chees paired with a complex earthy smoky glass of red—on the topics of art and contemplation by someone who will be mentioned often in the days of SEi.

 

A few quotes for a taste:

 

“Man’s true existential lack would be his inability to celebrate a feast in a truly festive fashion…if the disposition of acceptance and love is absent, not only can there be no feast, but no song either!”

 

“But those, too, who experience the spark of poetry while listening to a poem…--yes, those who only listen and observe, as long as the conditions are right, can also touch, in contemplation, the core of all reality…”

The Complete English Poems

 

by George Herbert

 

A “best-seller” in its time, these gems provide beautiful inscapes into the natural search for meaning and the transcendent, and an inscape into a great humble soul who was also a master craftsman. Not just for the scholar or “liberal arts” types, but for the human whose being matters, it’s time to put these little books of poetry back on the kitchen counter, on the coffee table, under the pillow, wherever…

 

A selection from this collection is also a poem of the month.