Buckley’s Mix

How To Write a Novel

Nothing easier. There are, after all, only two stories.
A Stranger Comes to Town: The Iliad.
A Man Goes on a Voyage: The Odyssey.
Some say that there is a third story: A boy meets a girl. But that is usually subsumed under the above two stories. Or else it is quite another genre, that of comedy.
In a [...]

Best Unwitten Books IV

An Intellectual History of Law and Economics would study one of the most important development of the last 50 years, a movement first stigmatized and then welcomed as a crucial tool in legal analysis.
The book would trace the now-familiar roots of law-and-economics from Bentham and Holmes to Coase, Manne and Posner, and then show how the [...]

Best Unwritten Books III: Lincoln

The book would celebrate one of the most intellectual of American presidents, the 200th anniversary of whose birth we remember tomorrow.
More books have been written about Lincoln than anyone save Christ, but an intellectual biography is still needed. Allen Guelzo came closest with Redeemer President, and no one else could write the book I have [...]

Best Unwritten Books II

Piece of cake. Simply match one part of the title from column a with another part in column b, and elminate that which has already been written:
a __________________________ [b]
The Anatomy of_______ [Melancholy]
The Morality of________ [Laughter]
The Concept of________ [Saskatchewan]
The Promise of________ [Wine]
The Enemies of________ [Women]
The Rise and Fall of ____ [Song]
The Death of___________ [Joy]
The Joy of______________ [Death]

Best Unwritten Books

The Transformation of America. This book extends Daniel Walker Howe’s study of the Whig Party backwards to the Federalists and forward to the Republican Party of the 19th century and today, to identify a form of conservatism that is nationalistic and economic, and which is far removed from the Jeffersonian libertarian tradition. It recognizes the need [...]