You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
This was such a fun book to read. Funny, somewhat random, thought provoking.
Laugh out loud funny and extremely thought provoking. This has been my 'handbag book' to dip into, and it has been wonderful!
Chesterton's personality drives these essays perhaps even more than his ideas. So many of the essays make me wish I had known Chesterton and gotten to tag along on his adventures.
Yeah for another Chesterton read. The strength of each story was somewhat up and down, but you know by now that I love everything by Chesterton. This book would be a good entry point for anyone looking to read some more non-fiction style Chesterton because each story is very short and you are not signing up for a huge project with this short book.
I gleaned yet more extremely valuable pieces of wisdom about how to understand the world. Yet again, Chesterton reminds me to find joy in pleasure in the reality of the world. I should see a missed train connection not as a frustration but an adventure. I should see God's Hand in the minute details of life.
The other interesting thing to me about this book is the way that certain of the stories (all of which he originally published as a journalist in a newspaper) were clearly the motivation for him to write a longer book. The obvious example is the story about traveling to the continent so that he could see England, his home, as new and wonderful again. Chesterton views vacations primarily as helpful to us to enjoy where it is that we normally are. Wonderful. And this story clearly motivated him to write Manalive, which is still right up there for me in terms of my favorite by him.
I gleaned yet more extremely valuable pieces of wisdom about how to understand the world. Yet again, Chesterton reminds me to find joy in pleasure in the reality of the world. I should see a missed train connection not as a frustration but an adventure. I should see God's Hand in the minute details of life.
The other interesting thing to me about this book is the way that certain of the stories (all of which he originally published as a journalist in a newspaper) were clearly the motivation for him to write a longer book. The obvious example is the story about traveling to the continent so that he could see England, his home, as new and wonderful again. Chesterton views vacations primarily as helpful to us to enjoy where it is that we normally are. Wonderful. And this story clearly motivated him to write Manalive, which is still right up there for me in terms of my favorite by him.
The world will never starve for want of wonders … but only for want of wonder.
– Gilbert Keith Chesterton
I do sincerely love the Early Reviewers giveaways on Librarything. It was through this that I received [b:Tomato Rhapsody|6090444|Tomato Rhapsody A Fable of Love, Lust & Forbidden Fruit|Adam Schell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320422913l/6090444._SY75_.jpg|6267393], for which I am deeply grateful; and it was through this that I received [b:On Tremendous Trifles|2806539|Tremendous Trifles|G.K. Chesterton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1267283250l/2806539._SX50_.jpg|256529], by G.K. Chesterton. GKC is perhaps best known as the author of the Father Brown mysteries, but wrote so very much more – reams and sheaves and shelves, including essays for The Daily News, twenty-one of which are gathered here.
This is a small, slender trade paperback from Hesperus Press, which just feels pleasant to the hand, with its matte finish and front and back flaps. (The margins could be wider, but I’m half Scot; more words to the page I understand.) It is foreworded by Ben Schott – who is clearly someone I need to follow up on soon; the foreword was as much fun as one of the essays.
And when I say it’s as much fun, that’s a tremendous compliment, because these essays are great fun. I’ve laughed out loud reading them more often than during any other book I can think of recently; the best word I can associate with this book is “delight”. A turn of phrase here, the turning upside down of a phrase there, a philosophical conceit somewhere, a purely GKC insult elsewhere – I love it.
One essay in particular, "A Piece of Chalk", was especially delightful in that I can honestly imagine it as having inspired two of the giants in my reading pantheon, Dorothy L. Sayers and J.R.R. Tolkien. For JRRT: I found myself grinning as GKC played “what have I got in my pockets” – “Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past…” I can just imagine a thought process whereby that subliminally influenced the beginning of the Ring story. (Then, of course, the 12th essay in the book is actually called “What I Found in My Pocket”.) And for DLS: suffice to say without spoiling anything that something forgotten in this essay is almost exactly identical to something that helped give Lord Peter the tip that an artist’s death was murder, no accident, in [b:The Five Red Herrings|132676|The Five Red Herrings (Lord Peter Wimsey, #6)|Dorothy L. Sayers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634238669l/132676._SY75_.jpg|3359709]. From what I can find, DLS certainly read Chesterton; it’s no great stretch of the imagination that Tolkien did as well. I love it. (Head canon accepted!) (Also, his preference is exactly the way I like to draw, in every detail.)
Throughout, the essays provoke laughter, and nodding of my head, and blank stares as a new way of looking at things unwinds behind my eyes. They’re essays about his sprained ankle – and thus the advantages of having a leg; and the wind in the trees, or is it the trees in the wind?; and a cab-man’s mistake, which becomes a metaphysical question about what is real. There is the hansom cab that throws him out, and the cows which gather to consult about his strange behavior, and the croquet game which alarms him (which was one of my favorites), and, of course, his pocket contents … I would start listing my favorite quotes, but that would encompass most of the book. What a gift and treasure this book is. Everything else I own by him just moved up a great many rungs on the “need to (re)read soon” ladder.
Wikipedia: “Chesterton is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on June 13.” (Why not the 14th, which is the anniversary of his death in 1936? Oh – the 14th belongs to Basil the Great, Bishop of Cae.) But how did that happen? *Did* it happen?? I’m not seeing it on calendars I can locate online … Perhaps it’s in the works. This will bear further looking into. What fun. There’s a saint I could feel utterly comfortable calling upon. Though his response might be somewhat erratic…
– Gilbert Keith Chesterton
I do sincerely love the Early Reviewers giveaways on Librarything. It was through this that I received [b:Tomato Rhapsody|6090444|Tomato Rhapsody A Fable of Love, Lust & Forbidden Fruit|Adam Schell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320422913l/6090444._SY75_.jpg|6267393], for which I am deeply grateful; and it was through this that I received [b:On Tremendous Trifles|2806539|Tremendous Trifles|G.K. Chesterton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1267283250l/2806539._SX50_.jpg|256529], by G.K. Chesterton. GKC is perhaps best known as the author of the Father Brown mysteries, but wrote so very much more – reams and sheaves and shelves, including essays for The Daily News, twenty-one of which are gathered here.
This is a small, slender trade paperback from Hesperus Press, which just feels pleasant to the hand, with its matte finish and front and back flaps. (The margins could be wider, but I’m half Scot; more words to the page I understand.) It is foreworded by Ben Schott – who is clearly someone I need to follow up on soon; the foreword was as much fun as one of the essays.
And when I say it’s as much fun, that’s a tremendous compliment, because these essays are great fun. I’ve laughed out loud reading them more often than during any other book I can think of recently; the best word I can associate with this book is “delight”. A turn of phrase here, the turning upside down of a phrase there, a philosophical conceit somewhere, a purely GKC insult elsewhere – I love it.
One essay in particular, "A Piece of Chalk", was especially delightful in that I can honestly imagine it as having inspired two of the giants in my reading pantheon, Dorothy L. Sayers and J.R.R. Tolkien. For JRRT: I found myself grinning as GKC played “what have I got in my pockets” – “Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past…” I can just imagine a thought process whereby that subliminally influenced the beginning of the Ring story. (Then, of course, the 12th essay in the book is actually called “What I Found in My Pocket”.) And for DLS: suffice to say without spoiling anything that something forgotten in this essay is almost exactly identical to something that helped give Lord Peter the tip that an artist’s death was murder, no accident, in [b:The Five Red Herrings|132676|The Five Red Herrings (Lord Peter Wimsey, #6)|Dorothy L. Sayers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634238669l/132676._SY75_.jpg|3359709]. From what I can find, DLS certainly read Chesterton; it’s no great stretch of the imagination that Tolkien did as well. I love it. (Head canon accepted!) (Also, his preference is exactly the way I like to draw, in every detail.)
Throughout, the essays provoke laughter, and nodding of my head, and blank stares as a new way of looking at things unwinds behind my eyes. They’re essays about his sprained ankle – and thus the advantages of having a leg; and the wind in the trees, or is it the trees in the wind?; and a cab-man’s mistake, which becomes a metaphysical question about what is real. There is the hansom cab that throws him out, and the cows which gather to consult about his strange behavior, and the croquet game which alarms him (which was one of my favorites), and, of course, his pocket contents … I would start listing my favorite quotes, but that would encompass most of the book. What a gift and treasure this book is. Everything else I own by him just moved up a great many rungs on the “need to (re)read soon” ladder.
Wikipedia: “Chesterton is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on June 13.” (Why not the 14th, which is the anniversary of his death in 1936? Oh – the 14th belongs to Basil the Great, Bishop of Cae.) But how did that happen? *Did* it happen?? I’m not seeing it on calendars I can locate online … Perhaps it’s in the works. This will bear further looking into. What fun. There’s a saint I could feel utterly comfortable calling upon. Though his response might be somewhat erratic…
Absolutely wonderful. I've been carrying this book around at work the past couple of weeks, and reading the very short chapters ("trifles") on my breaks has been a big part of what's kept me sane. Chesterton is so good for one's perspective. He is such a healthy human being. He takes joy in the ordinary, unravelling the divine in the contents of his pocket and in the chaos of a train station. His whole premise is that there are two ways of viewing the world: as a giant, to whom the Himalayas and Niagra Falls are nothing more than specks on the landscape... or as a nymph, to whom a box garden on the balcony of a city apartment is an alien landscape, vast and unfathomable. As far as Chesterton is concerned, the latter is the only honest way of living (and I'd agree with him). The world is a strange, uncommon place, and we are uncommon creatures in it. As he writes, "The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder."
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Methodologically, this is an excellent arrangement; the title aptly describes the collection. There were a few that stood out to me particularly, but politically, culturally, and occasionally geographically, I was a bit lost at times, which detracted from my overall enjoyment. Some of my favorite essays and lines from Chesterton are found in this volume, however, so I think 4 stars is a pretty solid rating.
Tremendously tickling--as Chesterton's words often are; trifling with all sorts of trifles and tiddly-winks of experience. They are essays like stepping stones; or like the quick-flash glimpses through gaps in the garden fence. The best is that they do what one of the best essays within remarks upon: make one sees things for the first time, things you thought you'd seen a thousand times. Hence, the value of babies, non-experts, and juries.
funny
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
A wonderful collection of columns from Chesterton's career as a journalist for the Daily News. Chesterton is a brilliant writer; he takes a seemingly common topic and makes it profound. His brilliance, wit, and humor color the entire collection. A classic well worth reading.