About

My name is Katja. I'm a mum with an M.Litt in Systematic and Historical Theology.

Cæsura is my space for writing about the books I read and the thoughts they inspire. It is a place where I record what I read, work out what I think, and give those thoughts room to breathe.

The name 'Cæsura' comes from the pause in the middle of a line of verse: the break between one movement and another, the moment of held breath before the line continues. There is a physicality to reading, and it was Kierkegaard who convinced me to read aloud:

My dear reader, read aloud, if possible! If you do so, allow me to thank you for it; if you not only do it yourself, if you also influence others to do do it, allow me to thank each one of them, and you again and again! By reading aloud you will gain the strongest impression that you have only yourself to consider, not me, who, after all, am "without authority," not others, would would be a distraction.

Most of what appears here concerns literary fiction, poetry, theology, philosophy, and the kinds of books that give you what you give them. I care about the experience of reading: the design of the page, the line, the leading, the rhythm. This site pairs MonoLisa Text for reading with Skolar PE for display, and follows Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style. Writing is not only a matter of what is said, but of how words are presented on the page.

The colophon gives more detail about the site's typesetting. The bibliography is a record of what I have read, not a list of recommendations.

For book recommendations or anything else, there is the Contact page. I read and try to respond to everything that comes through.