Per the Kindle app on my phone, I am 64% of the way through Voltaire’sCandide.  No spoilers! I’m serious. Candide was on the Stanford “Western Culture” reading list thirty-odd years ago, but I’ve never read it before.  That’s not because I didn’t do the assigned readings; I always did, with one notable exception that I’ll get to in due time in this series. It’s simply because many of the eight Western Culture tracks, including mine, were already teaching modified versions of the core reading list well before it was officially retired in favor of the common reading list. (There was Read more