this led to that

This book led me to that book which led me to next book I read, so on and on I read this way.

[Preparing for a presentation on the topic of commonplace books next Saturday.]

way leads on to way

There are books you mean to read but never get to, and those you read and mean to reread but never do, and so it goes like Frost’s famous lines, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come back.”

this way

Having a way with words will only get you so far. You must have a way into the world that others will want to follow.

not this way or that

No one way to write a true poem.

describe or explain

The subject was science, and I heard a useful distinction made between ‘describing’ and ‘explaining’. The former is more open to alternative interpretations of what the thing/phenomenon is, showing us what there is to experience. The latter is more closed, trying to say why it is and why it is the way it is.

path not theory

Walk this way: Bloom asked you to read this way.

perfect prospect

A poem that has many ways to go wrong.