History of My Own Time

Gilbert Burnet is my favorite prose writer. Not the greatest, not the most literary, no ingenious stylist moving the goalposts of English. But in the last few years, he's the writer I go to most when I can't sleep or need to quiet the drone that passes for thinking. I read novels to distraction; if they're good enough to keep reading, they become obsessions that last till the book's consumed. I like Burnet too much to treat him like that. I dip in and out irresponsibly, mix up who's who...