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Dec 14, 2024: Finished reading: A Rage in Harlem (Special Edition) by Chester Himes 📚 What a crazy rollercoaster ride through Harlem in the 1950s. I’m just …
Dec 5, 2024: Finished reading: Needful Things by Stephen King 📚 This one missed the mark for me. Too many characters — almost the entire town of Castle Rock. With …
Nov 19, 2024: Finished reading: A System for Writing by Bob Noto 📚 A guide to the Zettelkasten method of note-taking. Writing and linking atomic notes feels so …
Nov 10, 2024: Wrist pain prompted me to set aside my Magic keyboard and Mighty Mouse for more ergonomic options. Enter the KeyChron K15 Max Alice mechanical …
Nov 8, 2024: Finished reading: The Age of Voltaire by Will Durant 📚 Continuing my quest to read all eleven volumes of Will Durant’s Opus, The Story of …
Nov 5, 2024: Finished reading: This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett 📚 I came for the essays on the craft of writing, but stayed for her views on …
Nov 3, 2024: Finished reading: The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner 📚 A poignant novel on retirement, the fleetingness of life, and all those many paths not …
Oct 28, 2024: Finished reading: The Elephant Whisperer by Anthony Lawrence 📚 I enjoyed these episodic adventures in the wilds of South Africa amongst elephants and …
Oct 13, 2024: Currently reading: This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett 📚
Oct 2, 2024: Finished reading: Spook Street by Mick Herron 📚 The fourth Slow Horses book was fun. These books follow a formula, yet are so well written. Now I can …
Sep 25, 2024: Finished reading: The Age of Louis XIV by Will Durant Finished reading: The Age of Louis XIV by Will Durant 📚 My straight-through reading of this mammoth 11-volume history continues. Volume VIII shares a …
Sep 19, 2024: From this week’s release notes from journaling app Day One: By streamlining the app’s features, we can focus on delivering a better overall …
Sep 9, 2024: New Index Card Organizer for Notes I’m trying out a new note-taking method. I’ve switched from Field Notes to this custom index card holder. I prefer taking notes on index …
Sep 8, 2024: Finished reading: Somehow by Anne Lamott 📚 I loved Lamott’s Bird by Bird memoir on the writing craft. The writing here was good, but forced. Too …
Sep 7, 2024: “Book-wrapt — that beneficent feeling of being wholly imbooked, beshelved, inlibriated, circumvolumed, peribibliated …” — The …
Sep 7, 2024: What’s the best way to ask for @help on Micro.blog? I tagged @Manton in this post, but didn’t get a response. I know he’s busy, so I …
Sep 6, 2024: Finished reading: Table for Two by Amor Towles 📚 I’ll read anything that Amor Towles writes. He’s one of my favorite living writers. This …
Sep 5, 2024: Community is a body of people crying for one another, working together for a common cause, enjoying and overlooking (or grimly tolerating) each …
Sep 4, 2024: I was getting tension headaches from too many hours of looking down at a book at night, so I bought this Levo book stand. It holds the book securely …
Sep 3, 2024: For fun, I asked ChatGPT to create a cover image for an essay I wrote. The essay mentions old books and a Kindle: note the hybrid book/eReader lit by …
Sep 2, 2024: Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. Enduring and …
Sep 1, 2024: From Are Bookstores Just a Waste of Space? (New Yorker): Two-thirds of the books released by the top-ten trade publishers sell fewer than a thousand …
Sep 1, 2024: Bookshelves Completed Date vs. Date Read A question for @manton about using the bookshelves feature in Micro.blog: I’ve noticed that the bookshelves finished date for about 20% of the …
Aug 29, 2024: Currently reading: Somehow by Anne Lamott 📚
Aug 29, 2024: Finished reading: The Public Library by Robert Dawson 📚
Aug 26, 2024: Currently reading: The Public Library by Robert Dawson 📚
Aug 26, 2024: Currently reading: Table for Two by Amor Towles 📚
Aug 25, 2024: Finished reading: The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis 📚 Who knew a book about Chess could be so intense! This was a great, great book. ★★★★★
Aug 21, 2024: Currently reading: The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis 📚
Aug 21, 2024: Finished reading: City of Glass by Paul Auster 📚 A strange meta-detective novel with an unreliable narrator who slowly dissolves into insanity. I …
Aug 19, 2024: Currently reading: The Age of Louis XIV by Will Durant 📚
Aug 19, 2024: Finished reading: The Age of Reason Begins by Will Durant 📚 My quest to read all eleven volumes of Durant’s Story of Civilization continues. Volume …
Aug 19, 2024: Finished reading: Here is New York by E. B. White
Aug 18, 2024: Finished reading: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 📚
Jul 23, 2024: Finished reading: Move on Down to Mexico by 📚
Jul 20, 2024: Finished reading: Real Tigers by Mick Herron 📚
Jul 20, 2024: Currently reading: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 📚
Jul 16, 2024: Currently reading: Real Tigers by Mick Herron 📚
Jul 16, 2024: Finished reading: You Like It Darker by Stephen King 📚 This is a wonderful collection of short stories and novellas by our generation’s master …
Jul 13, 2024: Finished reading: Dead Lions by Mick Herron 📚 My second Slow Horses book and just as good as the first. There were a few more departures in this book …
Jul 7, 2024: I’ve seen so many beautiful postcards and photos of Crater Lake over my life. None of them, including this one I took today from the crater’s edge, …
Jul 6, 2024: We’re one week into a six-week circuit from Arizona through Nevada and Oregon to Washington State, then down the coast through Oregon and California. …
Jun 30, 2024: Currently listening: The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien 📚 How could it be that my wife of 27 …
Jun 28, 2024: Currently reading: Dead Lions by Mick Herron 📚
Jun 28, 2024: Finished reading: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt 📚 I enjoyed the setting of the fictional small town on Puget Sound. I liked the …
Jun 27, 2024: Finished reading: Consolations by David Whyte 📚 Ah, what a treasure. Two to three page poetic essays on 52 commonplace words or themes like …
Jun 20, 2024: Currently reading: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt 📚
Jun 20, 2024: David Whyte: A life’s work is not a series of stepping-stones, onto which we calmly place our feet, but more like an ocean crossing where there …
Jun 20, 2024: Finished reading: The Regulators by Richard Bachman/Stephen King 📚★★★☆☆ Continuing my quest to read every Stephen King novel … The Regulators …
Jun 17, 2024: There are 10,000 books in my library, and it will keep growing until I die. This has exasperated my daughters, amused my friends and baffled my …
Jun 12, 2024: Finished reading: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 📚 This book was nothing like I expected. Frankenstein (the scientist) is arrogant, self-absorbed, and …
Jun 7, 2024: Currently reading: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 📚 Slow to post this, but I’m doing a group read of this classic on BlueSky (#hotfranksummer).
Jun 7, 2024: Currently reading: The Regulators by Richard Bachman 📚
Jun 6, 2024: Finished reading: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 📚 I had an idea that this was a story about the trials of an orphan in Dickensian London. It …
Jun 6, 2024: I celebrated a big milestone today: Three Years of Sobriety.
May 31, 2024: Currently reading: The Age of Reason Begins by Will Durant 📚 One of the great diseases of this age is the multitude of books that doth so overcharge …
May 30, 2024: Currently reading: The Age of Reason Begins by Will Durant 📚 I took a short break in my marathon read of the 11-volume Story of Civilization by Will …
May 30, 2024: Reading a Book in 15 Minutes Interesting and humorous article by Anthony Lane in the New Yorker about the book summary app Blinkist: Can You Read a Book in a Quarter of an Hour?. …
May 30, 2024: Finished reading: 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff 📚 I know I’ve read this a long time ago, but it was nice to be reacquainted with …
May 27, 2024: The Booksellers documentary is so, so good. All the bookshelves, rare books, home libraries … and so many kindred spirits talking about their …
May 18, 2024: Finished reading: Stories of Books and Libraries by Jane Holloway (ed.) 📚 A book of short stories, excerpts and essays about the love of reading and …
May 6, 2024: Thank Your Teachers I came across a journal entry I wrote on this day ten years ago. I was reflecting on the people in my life that made a difference on how things have …
May 4, 2024: David Copperfield and the Magic of Amazon WhisperSync I’m currently reading the classic David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 📚 for the first time. I’m reading it on my Kindle with an add-on $3 splurge of …
May 3, 2024: Currently reading: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 📚
May 2, 2024: Finished reading: The Death of Grass by John Christopher 📚 A short 1950s SciFi novel about a virus that kills grasses. Starvation and violence breaks …
May 1, 2024: Finished reading: The Reformation by Will Durant 📚
Apr 30, 2024: Currently reading: The Death of Grass by John Christopher 📚
Apr 30, 2024: How A Hidden Feature in Bear Changed the Way I Review Notes The Bear app has continued to impress me as a Mac/iPad/iPhone note-taking and writing platform. I switched to Bear from Craft at the beginning of this …
Apr 30, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 30: Hometown Vashon Island will always be my hometown.
Apr 29, 2024: Finished reading: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 📚 An absolute masterpiece. Totally gutted by the end. I can’t believe it took me this long to …
Apr 29, 2024: Finished reading: Sibley’s Birding Basics by David Allen Sibley 📚 Ah, the inevitable slide into birdwatching. Great introductory guide to help …
Apr 29, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 29: Drift
Apr 28, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 28: Community Of all the communities I’ve been a part of - industry leader, islander, 55+ …
Apr 27, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 27: Surprise My all-time favorite Surprise. In fact, all twenty volumes of this Aubrey/Maturin series by …
Apr 26, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 26: Critters
Apr 25, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 25: Spine The spine of this tattered old book tells a story of how loved it is. I must have read these …
Apr 25, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 24: Light Is there anything more mesmerizing than the shifting light and shapes of a campfire under a …
Apr 23, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 23: Dreamy
Apr 22, 2024: Currently reading: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 📚
Apr 22, 2024: Finished reading: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin 📚 Characters who love books and reading, lots of fun literary references, a …
Apr 22, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 22: Blue Crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca on a clear, calm day.
Apr 21, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 21: Mountain Mount Rainier while under sail in Commencement Bay (2006).
Apr 20, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 20: Ice The winter before we moved full time to Arizona.
Apr 20, 2024: Currently reading: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin 📚
Apr 19, 2024: Finished reading: Desperation by Stephen King 📚 Maybe not one of Mr. King’s best efforts, but it was entertaining, and the ending came together better …
Apr 19, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 19: Birthday A puppy for my son’s 13th birthday back in 2015. Happy memories.
Apr 18, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 18: Mood Tonight’s camp site here in the Mojave National Preserve has put me in a good mood. It doesn’t …
Apr 17, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 17: Transcendence La Ventana Arch, New Mexico
Apr 16, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 16: **flâneur** 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 16: flâneur Today’s photo theme reminds me of Vacilando, which I learned from this passage in …
Apr 15, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 15: Small I’ve never felt quite so small or felt part of something quite so large as when standing …
Apr 14, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 14: Cactus
Apr 13, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 13: Page A random page from The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Definitely the trippiest book …
Apr 12, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 12: Magic
Apr 11, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 11: Sky
Apr 10, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 10: Train Hobo bunnies waiting on a train in Ladysmith, British Columbia.
Apr 9, 2024: 🥓 Day 9: Crispy | prompt submitted by @rom As an antidote to yesterday’s prevention theme, here’s a flashback to breakfast aboard our boat …
Apr 8, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 8: Prevention
Apr 7, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 7: Well-being
Apr 6, 2024: Currently reading: Desperation by Stephen King 📚 Tackling the remaining Stephen King books I haven’t read. I usually read fiction on my Kindle, but I …
Apr 6, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 6: Windy Gale force winds aboard MV Indiscretion.
Apr 5, 2024: Finished reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 📚 I loved this short, spare novella. In 109 pages, Keegan puts you squarely in the mind and …
Apr 5, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 5: Serene Toba Inlet, British Columbia, aboard MV Indiscretion.
Apr 4, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 4: Foliage
Apr 3, 2024: Currently reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 📚
Apr 3, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 3: Card A Father’s Day card from my son Connor in 2020 before he left home for college. He died in …
Apr 2, 2024: 📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 2: Flowers
Apr 1, 2024: 📷 Day01 : toy (@pcora)
Apr 1, 2024: Currently reading: Slow Horses by Mick Herron 📚 Lamb’s laugh wasn’t a genuine surrender to amusement; more of a temporary derangement. Not a laugh …
Mar 31, 2024: Finished reading: The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry 📚★★★★★ Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup. …
Mar 26, 2024: Currently reading: Sibley’s Birding Basics by David Allen Sibley 📚
Mar 23, 2024: Finished reading: Dune by Frank Herbert 📚 ★★★★★
Mar 18, 2024: There is no better teacher than history in determining the future. There are answers worth billions of dollars in a $30 history book.📚 Charlie Munger
Mar 17, 2024: Camped along the Colorado River here at Davis Camp on the Arizona-Nevada border. Smaller rigs can nose right up to the edge of the river. This is my …
Mar 3, 2024: Currently reading: Dune by Frank Herbert 📚 Rereading ahead of seeing the movie. I had forgotten how much I loved this book.
Mar 3, 2024: Finished reading: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh 📚 ★★★☆☆
Mar 1, 2024: A lifetime of buying books leads to an uncomfortable realization. Blog post: The End of Private Libraries.
Feb 23, 2024: After three good years with Craft, I’ve moved my reading notes and PKM to Bear. I really love Bear’s simplicity and hidden power on both …
Feb 18, 2024: Currently reading: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh 📚
Feb 15, 2024: Finished reading: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 📚 This was a good book. I liked the characters and the storyline. The …
Feb 10, 2024: Mac-only Apps I’ve been evaluating Bear 2 to replace Craft for my reading notes and quasi-Zettelkasten for the past few weeks. I’ve used Craft for over …
Feb 3, 2024: Finished reading: The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 📚
Jan 29, 2024: Currently reading: The Reformation by Will Durant 📚
Jan 28, 2024: Finished reading: The Renaissance by Will Durant 📚
Jan 26, 2024: Reflections on reading The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant, and how the study of history might be the antidote we need to make sense of …
Jan 21, 2024: Steinbeck captures my basic attitude towards New Years Resolutions here in the third week of January. <img …
Jan 19, 2024: On the benefits of keeping both a handwritten and a digital journal: My Two Journals.
Jan 16, 2024: It’s been a couple years since I finished In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. I read all six volumes with an amazing Twitter book group over the …
Jan 12, 2024: Currently reading: The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 📚
Jan 12, 2024: As personal finance apps go, Quicken Classic for Mac is pretty good these days. Here’s my assessment of the biggest improvements over the past …
Jan 4, 2024: Finished reading: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree 📚
Jan 1, 2024: I shared my favorite books of 2023 in My Year of Reading. 📚
Dec 31, 2023: Finished reading: Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li 📚 My 75th book of 2023, which is a new personal record for the most books I’ve read in a …
Dec 30, 2023: Currently reading: An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong 📚
Dec 30, 2023: Finished reading: Holly by Stephen King 📚
Dec 27, 2023: I found this lovely bookmark in my Christmas stocking. Santa knows me so well! 📚
Dec 20, 2023: The Private Library by Reid Byers Finished reading: The Private Library by Reid Byers 📚 Book-wrapt — that beneficient feeling of being wholly imbooked, beshelved, inlibriated, …
Dec 20, 2023: Currently reading: Holly by Stephen King 📚
Dec 18, 2023: Finished reading: Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark 📚 A slow read over the course of a few months, one chapter/writing tool per sitting. Lots of great …
Dec 17, 2023: Finished reading: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan W. Watts 📚 Another compelling argument for being present in our lives, and …
Dec 16, 2023: Currently reading: Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li 📚
Dec 14, 2023: Finished reading: The Vagabond’s Way by Rolf Potts 📚
Dec 13, 2023: Stephen King Finished reading: Christine and Blaze by Stephen King 📚 Continuing my quest to read the Stephen King books I missed along the way. With these two, …
Dec 10, 2023: The Age of Faith by Will Durant Finished reading: The Age of Faith by Will Durant 📚 I finished this fourth installment of Will Durant’s Story of Civilization after three months …
Nov 30, 2023: Finished reading: Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross 📚 Your Brain on Art is the latest selection from the Next Big Idea Club. The …
Nov 19, 2023: Finished reading: The Art of Living: Peace and Freedom in the Here and Now by Thich Nhat Hanh 📚 Impermanence is something wonderful. If things were …
Nov 14, 2023: Currently reading: The Art of Living: Peace and Freedom in the Here and Now by Thich Nhat Hanh 📚
Nov 14, 2023: Finished reading: The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King 📚 Continuing my quest to go back and read the Stephen King books I’ve missed along the …
Nov 13, 2023: Finished reading: The Silentiary by Antonio Di Benedetto 📚 What a strange little book. The narrator is slowly driven insane by all the commercial …
Nov 10, 2023: Started reading: Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen 📚
Nov 8, 2023: Enjoying a pint of Athletic Brewing non-alcoholic beer tonight. I gave up alcohol a few years ago, but still enjoy great beer thanks to this wonderful …
Nov 7, 2023: Finished reading: Skeleton Crew by Stephen King 📚 Working through the few books of Stephen King I haven’t read. This is a collection of his …
Oct 24, 2023: Replace “book” with “blog” and you’ve captured what makes a community like Micro.blog so special: Even the oddest, most …
Oct 23, 2023: Fascinating article in The Economist this week about the effort underway by computer scientists to use machine language models and a particle …
Oct 21, 2023: 🍿Went to see Killers of the Flower Moon last night. Parts of the movie were extraordinary. Such a sad, sad story. But gosh, the 3 1/2 hour length was …
Oct 20, 2023: Currently reading: Skeleton Crew by Stephen King 📚 Working my way through the backlog of Stephen King books I haven’t read (I’ve read over …
Oct 19, 2023: Getting some culture today at the Phoenix Art Museum. Since moving to the area last December, we try to see something new each week on what we call …
Oct 18, 2023: The first lesson of philosophy is that we cannot be wise about everything. We are fragments in infinity and moments in eternity; for such forked atoms …
Oct 17, 2023: Finished reading: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride 📚 A good premise perhaps weakened by too many characters and side stories. The …
Oct 17, 2023: The English word lost derives from the Old Norse los, which refers to the disbanding of an army. This etymology implies that losing one’s way is less …
Oct 15, 2023: The Curiosity of Micro.blog How I fell into a trance with the Indy blog service, Micro.blog, is a curious story. I received a renewal invoice from HostGator notifying me that the …
Oct 14, 2023: Finished reading: Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane 📚 Mary Pat Fennessy is one of the most compelling characters I’ve encountered in a while. She …
Oct 13, 2023: A Slow Read of the Story of Civilization 📚 I’ve had this old set of Will and Ariel Durant’s Pulitzer-prize-winning Story of Civilization on my bookshelves, collecting dust for …
Oct 12, 2023: Currently reading: The Age of Faith by Will Durant 📚
Oct 11, 2023: I’ve wanted to see the Grand Canyon for as long I could remember. I think it was a Brady Bunch episode from the early 70s that first caught my …
Sep 2, 2023: The Wastelands Grieving the loss of a child is a journey through wastelands you never expected to cross. Unlike every other challenge you’ve ever faced, there is no …
Jan 6, 2023: A Father’s Grief This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever written. I’m sharing this partly because I hope that releasing these words will provide some catharsis from …
Apr 21, 2022: The Art of Letting Go If the first half of life is about growing and accumulating, then the second half must see us disbursing, letting go. Life is full of cycles — like …
Feb 26, 2022: A Writer’s Journal: Day One or Craft? I’ve kept a journal for most of my adult life. I got started in my early twenties filling dozens of blank journal books. Ten years ago, I went digital …
Jan 13, 2022: Read Better with Craft and Readwise Have you ever run across a book you know you’ve read but can’t recall much about it? Or, come across a passage in a book while you were reading that …
Dec 30, 2021: Keep the Change As I walked through the throng of travelers at LAX recently on my way to a flight that would be canceled the minute I got to the gate, I reflected on …
Dec 15, 2021: The Craft App —A Year of Magical Linking It’s been a year since I adopted Craft as my primary research and note-taking app. I shared my impressions of Craft early on, but I thought I would …