Stephen Miller (1)

This is a rather nice book reviewing the institution of Sundays in community and indivual life in the English-speaking world, with a short nod to antiquity. The book covers well both the religious aspects of Sunday, including those who had very specific mandates as to what one should and should not do to the more current causal look, where the author explores the many for whom the day is meaningful more for aspects of recreation and attiude rather than church attendance. Stpehen Miller all explores those for whom the day is grim, and surveys various poets and writers, such as James Boswell, Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, and Robert Lowell.… (mehr)

I plucked this book from my TBR pile after a recent feature about it on CBS's Sunday Morning. Lovers of conversation will wish to take a time machine back to the Turk's Head to have coffee with Boswell and Johnson or track down Dr. Franklin to raise a mug. Stephen Miller does more than recite a history of talk, but brings great conversationalists back to life. Even though the state of modern conversation is enough to cause despair this work will make one take enough heart to exercise their verbal dexterity to delay its' demise as long as possible.… (mehr)