D. A. Hosek

Author: D. A. Hosek

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 202.11 WAU God: The Biography

    It was the name on the spine that caught my attention. I discovered the writing of Waugh’s grandfather, Evelyn Waugh when I was in college after encountering a mention of him in Graham Greene’s Ways of Escape. The elder Waugh, like Greene, was notable as an author who had converted to Catholicism and who had…

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 198.9 KIE Parables of Kierkegaard

    I first learned of the parables of Kierkegaard from a reading a short story a friend asked my to critique. I was intrigued enough that when I spotted this slender volume among the 190s, I picked it up to add to my project. The parables are drawn from throughout Kierkegaard’s writing. In context, they were…

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 181.11 LAI An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy

    I went into this book knowing little more about Chinese philosophy than a handful of “old Confucious say…” jokes. Reading this book expanded my horizons a great deal although my lack of knowledge of Chinese history impeded me somewhat in my understanding.  Overall, one of the more enlightening things was the whole question of whether…

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 174 SAN What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

    I’m not a strong believer in the absolute value of capitalism. It is a good generator of wealth, but that assumes that wealth is an end worth pursuing for its own sake. It also has the problem of not necessarily distributing the generated wealth in a fair or equitable way. In this book, Sandel offers…

  • And draft twelve is done

    Finally, I think I have the novel in a good enough state to start querying.  The chart above is one of those things that comes from obsessively tracking my writing. I can see my word count through each of the revisions. All the jagged lines that start from the bottom of the page are the…

  • The Big Countdown

    Continuing my tradition of checking my life expectancy every year on the day before my birthday, today I’ve been told I can expect to live to the age of 88. This is up from last year, but down from two years ago. Either way, I’m in the final half of my life, a somewhat sobering…

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 160 BEN Logic Made Easy: How to Know when Language Deceives You

    When I used to teach math, students fell into two categories when it came to logic. There were those who got it almost immediately and those who seemed to struggle with some of the ways in which logic seemed, well, illogical. For example, given the statements If today is Tuesday, Dawn is in trouble. and…

  • Beautiful sentences

    I think hope is the worst thing in the world. I really do. It makes a fool of you while it lasts. And then when it’s gone, it’s like there’s nothing left of you at all. Marilynne Robinson, Home.

  • 150.195 LAC The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis

    I first encountered Lacan in the context of literary theory. It shouldn’t be too surprising that Lacan was of interest to literary theorists as he had a great deal to say about the linguistic and psychological nature of utterances, signifier, signified and the communication of ideas. And yet, his ability to communicate his ideas seems…