An episode from 9/9/25: Tonight, I read from three books: A small passage from The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe, by Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, on how pocket calendars were essential references for popular knowledge. A longer passage, on the Protestant Reformation (and the invention of moveable type that facilitated its spread), from Jacques Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life. I conclude with small passage on Martin Luther's contemporary, Erasmus of Rotterdam, from my book Notes from the Grid.The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, sharing it with others, or sending me a note on what you think. You can also order any of my books: Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, due out next year, is now available for preorder. Other books include Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series.Email me at [email protected].

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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