Reading Maxine Greene’s Dialectic of Freedom, which has alerted me to the value of seeing the familiar in new ways. One way to do that is to see unfamiliar things, things, people, events, sceneries, that are similar overall but different in the details.

I was reminded of this when I read on the Internet someone recommending Naguib Mahfouz’s novels as a way to get to know Arab culture. Well, just today I came across the name Naguib Mahfouz again: his obituary.

Books: a way to communicate with dead people.