A model for a short book

 Isaiah Berlin’s Freedom and Its Betrayal strikes me as the kind of book I ought to write, and you should too.

I’m talking about the form of the book, not the content.

One of the recurring themes of this journal is the notion that most people should leave something of themselves behind, even if that something disappears within a generation. A short book is better than a gravestone.

In 1952, Berlin gave six lectures on the BBC about thinkers he described as brilliant but dangerous — especially dangerous to the idea of liberty.

The lectures were for a popular audience. And the length — one hour each — wasn’t negotiable.

I took a stab at the theme of Berlin’s book yesterday. What I’d like to point out today is that the form of this book has two advantages for readers.

• The book offers the promise of learning something during the course of a week — six evenings with a day off.

• Each evening, you could read about one of the thinkers, that is, you could spend on hour considering a different way of looking at the problem that’s the subject of the book. Henry Hardy, who edited the lectures into the book, said Berlin edited his notes heavily. Each of the six lectures, now in essay form, is 9,000 to 10,000 words. That’s still about an hour of reading.

So here’s a writing assignment if you’re looking for one:

• Consider six aspects of your life or thought that might be helpful to others.

• List them.

• Talk each one through on your walks and in the shower. Get your speech down to where you can explain each aspect in an hour or less. Less is always better.

• Get it down on paper. Consider that you’re first draft.

• Source: Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and Its Betrayal; Princeton University Press, 2002.