Around the World with William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. kept busy. Between the publication of “God and Man at Yale” in 1951 when he was 25 years old and his death in 2008 at age 82, the founder of National Review magazine and leader of the conservative intellectual movement in America rarely stopped to catch his breath. In addition to penning a thrice-weekly newspaper column and innumerable magazine essays, Buckley gave speeches, hosted the television program “Firing Line,” wrote 57 books, performed on the piano and harpsichord, flew planes, painted, skied, traveled the globe and crossed oceans on his sailboat. He packed more activity and experience into a single year than most people could fit into a century.

Buckley’s enemy was tedium. He resisted indolence with the same intensity he brought to his fight against global communism and intrusive government. “Boredom is the deadliest poison, and it is a truism that it strikes hardest at the most comfortable,” he wrote, adducing one of Solzhenitsyn’s most memorable characters: “Ivan Denisovich suffered everything—except boredom.” Buckley inherited wealth from his father, a Texas oilman, but did not succumb to idleness. His collected writings record decades of sustained engagement in the political, cultural, social and recreational life of his country.

This summer offers a chance to revisit Buckley’s wit and zest for life. Editor and scholar Bill Meehan has gathered Buckley’s travel pieces and essays in a volume titled “Getting About.” Meanwhile publisher Rowman & Littlefield has reissued the first two of Buckley’s four sailing books—“Airborne” and “Atlantic High”—with new introductions by his novelist son, Christopher. These volumes are delightful reminders that the famous polemicist was also a gifted memoirist and raconteur.

Continue reading at The Wall Street Journal.