Hope the new year finds all of you well. As you may have noticed, Weekend Reading posts have been on hiatus due to holiday busyness. Things will only be getting busier as the new semester ramps up, but I’ll try to keep these coming. For the sake of time, however, introductory/explanatory comments may be minimal as they are this week. Enjoy. All of these are quite interesting, the pieces by Havel and Lightman are particularly good.

“The Intellectual and Politics” by Vaclav Havel at Project Syndicate. By the late Czech poet, dissident, and president.

“Always the Optimist: Václav Havel’s transcendence of politics” by Stefany Anne Golberg at Smart Set.  On Havel.

“War No More?” by Timothy Snyder at Foreign Affairs. In conversation with Pinker’s recent book on the decline of violence.

“Their Noonday Demons, and Ours” by John Plotz in the NY Times. On distraction, past and present.

“The Accidental Universe: Science’s Crisis of Faith” by Alan Lightman in Harper’s. This article has gotten a lot of attention over the last couple of weeks. Very interesting.

“Christianity and the Future of the Book” by Alan Jacobs at The New Atlantis. Explores relationship between Christianity and the book form in light of the emergence of electronic forms of reading.