{"product_id":"9781590955376","title":"Points of Light","description":"\u003cp\u003eMost of the essays in this book first appeared as newspaper columns and differ from the originals only in minor, editorial ways. The real challenge for me, used as I was to academic and fiction writing, was the necessary brevity of the essays. The discipline of having to compress my ideas into a finite word count troubled me at first. Later, however, I was grateful for the experience because it forced me to get to the point and stay strictly on task. Instead of grumbling, I came to relish the challenge and to appreciate journalistic brevity as a special literary form more fitting for our hurried times than the ponderous writings of earlier, more leisurely times.\u003cbr\u003e The themes treated are an entirely different matter. They are far-ranging, and the freedom I surrendered in linguistic spaciousness I gained back in the latitude I had to treat many topics as fairly and clearly in space permitted.\u003cbr\u003e But there is method in what may appear to be unrelated themes. At a near or far remove, and from a variety of perspectives, all rest on the master concepts that undergird all my philosophical work:  the uniqueness of human reality, the dignity, humor, and pathos of the person, and the possibilities of life that set it far apart and high above all other earthly realities.\u003cbr\u003e A noted thinker once said that clarity is the courtesy an author extends to the reader. Insofar as my abilities permit, I have tried to add another kindness: word economy, which I understand to mean saying as much as possible in the fewest words. In those cases in which there is neither clarity nor economy, I alone take the blame.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TotalRecall Publications, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47171264217328,"sku":"9781590955376","price":8.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781590955376_p0.jpg?v=1763807894","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781590955376","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}