Fancies Versus Fads

G.K. Chesterton was never boring, and this collection proves it. Written with his characteristic wit and wobbling prose, these 31 essays wander from lady barristers to cave-men, from psychoanalysis to free verse, somehow making every subject feel like the most important subject in the world. Chesterton's trick, as he admits himself, is that only a truly traditional spirit can afford to wander. He defends the odd things people forget to love and attacks the fashionable things people have not yet learned to hate. These are not mere opinions: they are arguments with souls. Whether he's dismantling a fad masquerading as wisdom or rescuing a fancy dismissed as folly, Chesterton writes with the gleeful urgency of a man who finds the modern world both hilarious and slightly terrifying. The man could make you reconsider your breakfast in 500 words or less. Read this when you want to remember that thinking sharply about small things is its own kind of heroism.