When I Was a Child I Read Books

These essays address topics related to the culture wars in the United States–attitudes about the nature of democracy, human nature, education, generosity to those with whom you do not share opinions, heritage or class, and cosmology. They are worth reading slowly, partly because Robinson's writing is such a delight in word choice and sentence structure, but also because they are complex creations, traveling through many subjects to forge an argument for study of the humanities. I am not much of an essay reader–I prefer to be absorbed in longer reads–but these essays were satisfying.