the name in the stone
by Gerard Van der Leun
I find I don’t wish to explore new lands, but to explore again those I have already passed through, trying to see what I’d missed in the first hectic rush …
Gerard Van der Leun
This is how it all started…
Gerard Van der Leun had many readers who felt they knew him. Some had been reading his blog American Digest for close to twenty years and looked forward to it every day. When he died unexpectedly in late January of 2023, many readers felt sharp pangs of grief and loss.
Before he died, Gerard asked me to edit and publish a book of his essays and to call it THE NAME IN THE STONE, which is the title of one of his best-known and most personal and revealing essays.
It’s been a labor of love for me to do this. Now I’ve set up this website so that readers old and new can order the book and enjoy many of his most popular and beloved essays in book form. Because Gerard loved books – the old-fashioned kind – it will be available in a 9X6 paperback version with full color photos, as well as in a limited number of hardcovers.
The book contains 46 of Gerard’s essays, ranging in mood from humorous to philosophical to sarcastic to deeply contemplative to compassionate. Gerard’s uniquely personal voice comes through loud and clear. Because Gerard was also a very visual person, at least one photograph accompanies each essay.
My next planned project for Vanderleun Books is a volume of Gerard’s poetry, to be called INTO THE SMOKE OF THE WORLD.
Jean Kaufman
Who was GERARD VAN DER LEUN?
Gerard Van der Leun was the creator and author of the popular blog American Digest. He was an essayist, poet, humorist, and raconteur, with a long and colorful career as book editor, agent, author, magazine publisher, world traveler, and photographer. He had a larger-than-life personality, with vast stores of energy and playful humor which he freely dispensed. …
About the book THE NAME IN THE STONE
Gerard Van der Leun loved the look and feel of books, and so his book will be available in paperback and hardcover versions.
Gerard wanted the book to be called THE NAME IN THE STONE after one of his most popular essays, about his uncle who had died as a young man in World War II and was lost at sea, and Gerard’s accidental discovery of a monument in New York’s Battery Park with his uncle’s – and therefore his own – name on it. …
Excerpts from THE NAME IN THE STONE
My name, “Gerard Van der Leun,” is an unusual one – so unusual that I’ve never met anyone else with the same name. I know about one other man with my name, but we’ve never met. I’ve seen his name in an unusual place. …
Advance praise for THE NAME IN THE STONE
From Glenn Reynolds – Instapundit blogger, columnist, and law professor at University of Tennessee College of Law:
Gerard wasn’t just one of the great thinkers of the early blogosphere, he was one of the great thinkers of the early 21st Century. Buy this book. …
