Book Express

The last day that the store will be open is this Thursday, February 20th. Come in for one last visit!

RETIREMENT SALE ON NOW
After 34 years selling books in Cambridge, John has decided to retire. Anne, John, Kelly, and all the staff, would like to express their appreciation to all their loyal customers and thank everyone for their good wishes for this change in our lives.

A Thousand Small Sanities
by Adam Gopnik

Adam Gopnik is a vigorous advocate for the small-l liberalism that encompasses the views of moderate Liberals and Conservatives around the world. He spends part of the book on the Enlightenment roots of modern liberalism, but his primary purpose is to demonstrate the absolute practical virtue of moderate, incremental, democratic, social progress. He argues that the quick fix alternative creeds–communism, fascism, authoritarian nationalism, Trumpian stupidity–are all delusional, offering false promises that always end in tears, or worse, for almost everybody.

Reading this book we are reminded of Winston Churchill’s argument that “… democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” The point for Gopnik, as well as for Churchill, is that we now have a few centuries of evidence about what works and what does not work when it comes to forms of government and political attitudes. We should pay attention to the evidence and be skeptical of the charlatans among us with their always coercive, violent, and intolerant alternatives.

Monsieur Ka by Vesna Goldsworthy

Some books require of the reader some specific advance knowledge. Before starting Monsieur Ka it is necessary to know Tolstoy’s great novel, Anna Karenina, and also to have a reasonable grasp of what happened in Europe between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. For the reader armed in this way, Monsieur Ka is a delight.
The story is set in England in 1947 and all of the main characters are dislocated Europeans who have washed up in London during the preceding chaotic decades. The past is overwhelming and the future is uncertain, so there is considerable intensity to peoples’ relationships. And the shadow of Anna Karenina hovers over everything.