Reader recommendation: John Keats

Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.

Nicholas Roe's new biography of John Keats: A New Life, researched in minute detail, still resides on my desk, awaiting shelving. Roe employs a technique used by Hilaire Belloc, a sneakers-on-the-ground intimacy, complete with geography and weather.  Brilliant!  Roe does err in using some slang ("bang-up" and "box-office smash"), perhaps in an unfortunate attempt to appeal to a broad audience.  But this is a pettifoggery. I am not worthy to unlace Roe's hiking shoes. This is a terrific book for lovers of Keats and, as Sergeant Hathaway of "Inspector Lewis" says of the other Romantic writers, "the rest of the guys in the band."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Reader recommendation: John Keats
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Readers-Picks/2013/0614/Reader-recommendation-John-Keats
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe