Gists, Orts, Shards: A Commonplace Book

For 500 years teachers and scholars have commended the practice of recording "commonplaces" - that is, striking and noteworthy phrases encountered while reading - for later reference. Few in recent times have taken this advice with such good effect as Jonathan Greene. A poet, publisher, book designer and translator, Greene is foremost a reader of vast range and expansive curiosity. The fruits of over forty years of reading with pen in hand are collected here for the enlightenment and delight of his fellow readers. Ancient Chinese sages mingle with modern jazz masters, Yogi Berra meets Einstein, and the wisdom (and wit) of great minds known and unknown is on parade. In the end, this collection of such seemingly disparate thinkers and themes coalesces into an original work in its own right, an intellectual and artistic portrait of Greene himself, offering new and deeper insights into the mind and heart behind his many volumes of poetry.