Career.
- Thirty Years that Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory … decided my major.
- Personal Knowledge … more recently set the stage for my thinking on philosophy of science.
Religion
- Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings locked in my falling away from the church.
- Chesterton’s Orthodoxy brought me back.
- Lossky’s The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Evagrius Ad Monachos, St. John Cassian’s Conferences, and Metropolitian John Zizioulas’ Communion and Otherness sent me packing smartly across the Bosphorus.
Politics
- Solzhenitsyn’s addresses (The Solzhenitsyn Reader) and Jouvenel’s political trilogy (On Power, Sovereignty, and Pure theory of Politics) form the basis of and anchor my political thinking.
- Huxley’s Brave New World and Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom describe the modern world.
- Chantal Delsol’s The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century: An Essay On Late Modernity is very very good as well.

Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…