StoryCubes

playful cubes for storytelling, brainstorming ideas or playing games in three dimensions

Community & Events

Diffusion engaging with the community, online and out in the world.

Residencies

an ongoing programme enabling residents at Proboscis studio to create eBooks and StoryCubes for their own projects.

Learning, Schools & Education

eBooks & StoryCubes created for learning and educational purposes

Library

Browse the collection of Diffusion Shareables: eBooks & StoryCubes

Three Essays by Samuel Johnson

Submitted by on April 13, 2008 – 6:25 pm

3 Essays

Download A4 | US Letter PDF 390Kb

Selected and Introduced for Short Work by writer and journalist, Bill Thompson

Every journalist should read Samuel Johnson from time to time. First, because the quality of his writing, especially in his essays, is enough to put even the most self-important hack in their place. Second, because he so often discusses why he writes and what writers do with a brutal honesty and lack of self-regard that we should all try to emulate. And third, because he is witty, entertaining and engaging.

The three essays I’ve chosen here cover the range. In Rambler 2 we see Johnson considering the nature of ambition and the many ways we find to deceive ourselves. In Idler 48 he speaks to every Twitter user and blogger of how we ‘play throughout life with the shadows of business’.  And in Adventurer 95 he explores the process of writing in an age when, it seemed, there was nothing new under the sun.

They are the perfect refuge from the blogosphere and, since they require no external power, excellent for those long journeys when your laptop battery dies before you reach your destination and the only discarded newspaper to hand is yesterday’s Daily Express.

Bill Thompson
April 2008

Texts sourced from EText Library, University of Virginia and Project Gutenberg.

4 comments - Latest by: