When G K Chesterton's writing shines, it really dazzles. There were lots of delightful bon mots in this collection of essays, but there were wayyy more topics and musings that I just didn't find very interesting. ( )

A beginning of the 20th century equivalent of today's blogs (as GKC himself says at the very start, "These fleeting sketches [...] amount to no more than a sort of sporadic diary—a diary recording one day in twenty which happened to stick in the fancy"), with some quite good articles, some mediocre ones, and most somewhere in between. Should be read as a blog as well: one chapter at a time, enjoying the particular topic (and envying the author his mastery of language). ( )

This book, which I downloaded free for my Kindle, is a collection of some of GK Chesterton’s journalistic essays, published originally as part of a column.
Each is complete in itself. Most are thought-provoking, some are whimsical, some are downright bizarre.

The overall theme is of ordinariness. Chesterton claims, in the introduction, that he is encouraging his readers to look at everyday objects - ceilings, and pens, and fences - and ponder their significance. This is what he does in the essays which result. Some, I assume, are true anecdotes, others entirely imaginative.

It's not a book to read in one sitting. I found that if I picked it up when I was tired, or if I read an essay that required knowledge of specific places or politicians, I often took in very little. However, other stories appealed strongly; from time to time I came across a sentence or two that struck quite a chord.

As works of social history - this is the nearest the author got to journalling, he claims - these pieces have value, and there are nicely ironic touches that I appreciated. But inevitably it’s very dated, and unlikely to appeal to those of a less reflective, faster-paced generation. I doubt if I'll read it again, but for Chesterton fans it's worth perusing at least once. ( )