Finished reading: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William L. Shirer 💙📚
I’m glad I read this hefty tome. I can put current events and government decisions into the context of what happened in Nazi Germany. I know better what to look for. ★★★★☆
Finished reading: Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard 💙📚
A recent New Yorker article by Anthony Lane prompted me to read this one, my first Elmore Leonard book. I enjoyed the pacing and dialogue and colorful cast of characters, all set in languid south Florida.
★★★★☆
America has been a terrific country for investors. All they have needed to do is sit quietly, listening to no one.
— Warren Buffett, 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter
Take gratefully any pleasures the world provides, but don’t curse God when they fail. Nobody in the universe ever promised you anything. Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of a life amount not to wisdom but to scar tissue and callus.
Wallace Stegner, The Spectator Bird
Good news for Kobo readers or those looking to escape the Amazon ecosystem: Instapaper Read-It-Later comes to Kobo e-Readers later this summer.
David Barber returns to Evernote after a dalliance with Bear:
When I’m using Evernote, it becomes my central repository for receipts, travel plans, info that came to me via email, desk scraps, web-clips, and quick thoughts. I don’t even have to think about it.
I used Evernote from 2008 to 2016, but the data lock-in, ads, feature bloat, and outrageous price hikes eventually pushed me to DevonThink. Since its acquisition by Bending Spoons, it has improved significantly. People like David are choosing it over excellent alternatives. This is an amazing and unexpected turnaround.
@amylouise on Madame Bovary:
I hope that when you pay attention to the world, see every flower on every oat-stalk and every bumbling country doctor, you find that you can look them into loveliness. I hope that even being bound to a dull community of foolish people could bring unexpected graces. I hope that reality has a richer romance than fantasy.
I loved every word of this review. 💙📚
Finished reading: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 💙📚
See my review for notes and favorite highlights. Still and always ★★★★★.
Irreverent take on why the internet hates ‘performative reading’:
We’re told by college professors that students can’t read entire books any more, that gen Z parents don’t like reading to their kids, that smartphones ruined our ability to focus on anything longer than 30 seconds, that AI slop will take over publishing. Don’t be a chump. Read everywhere, and read often.
I walk through Central Park every day and see lots of young people reading books. I’m always peeking at covers. I don’t think this is performative. The pure joy of reading seems very much alive and well.
The Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library. It’s just a few subway stops from our apartment, so I’m able to spend time here often. What an inspiring place for a reader or writer!
Finished reading: Brightness Falls by Jay McInerney 💙📚
McInerney’s great American novel: flawed characters grappling with timeless themes, set in what is arguably the greatest city on earth. I loved it. ★★★★★
See my full review for notes and favorite highlights.
Tuesday, May 13, 2025 • 1 min read
We’re in the middle of a cross-country car trip from Phoenix to New York City. We’re traveling with two dogs, which has put a serious crimp in our sightseeing options. We are living on truck stop coffee, fast food, and DoorDash in dog-friendly hotel rooms.
As we near Louisville, I know we have to visit the final resting place of Muhammad Ali in Cave Hill Cemetery. I met Ali when I was an aspiring teenage boxer and he was the heavyweight champion of the world. I’ll never forget that handshake and that famous smile. Or the courage he had to stand up for what he believed was right, no matter the personal cost.
The cemetery is beautiful. Lush, green, and quiet. The only sound is birdsong and the dripping of water from an earlier rain. It feels peaceful here. There are two benches for visitors to sit and reflect. His tombstone reads:
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room in heaven.
Rest in peace, Muhammad. You really were the Greatest.
Wednesday, May 7, 2025 • 1 min read
One of the things I love about keeping a journal is how a past entry can transport me so completely back in time to that moment. Here’s a passage from my journal on this day eight years ago:
I try to soak this in - the goldfinches perched on the feeders, fluttering and pestering one another for the best feeding spot, Puget Sound so blue and ruffled, distorted by the heat of the fire, the sight and smell of fresh cut grass, so green and healthy, the sounds of birds in every direction announcing their delight that spring has sprung. Ah yes.
Reading this, I am back on the porch of our old house, basking in the newfound sun after a long Pacific Northwest winter. I hear the birdsong. I see the ruffled waves on the blue water.
My life is so different now. I am worlds away from where I was back then. But in the space of a paragraph, I am transported.
Savor the moments. Write what you feel and see in a journal. Write something every day if you can. Practice time travel.
Tuesday, May 6, 2025 • 1 min read
So much of my work in strategy revolved around the achievement of goals: quarterly goals, annual goals, and five-year goals. All of these were tied to a specific metric, which often produced an unintended counter-result. Focus on the inputs that will make you smarter and stronger. Do the workouts, practice your craft. Be one percent better every day. Play the long game.
After poking and prodding the capabilities of Micro.blog for the past 18 months, I have decided to consolidate my online writing on Wordpress where I’ve kept a blog for more than a decade.
This wasn’t an easy decision. Micro.blog is an innovative, capable, affordable service run by a smart, conscientious entrepreneur. It balances simplicity and power like no other blogging platform.
I’m always curious about why a blogger leaves a certain platform and moves to another. In case this is helpful to others, I’m sharing why I am making this change.
Currently reading: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William L. Shirer 💙📚
Seems timely.
Currently reading: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain 📚💙
This has been an eye-opening book for the ways that extroverts and introverts differ. Bloggers, who Cain suggests are almost all introverts, will share personal details with an online multitude they would never disclose at a cocktail party. This hits close to home!
Om Malik recently launched a separate “daily” blog, which looks like a subdomain off his Wordpress site. For folks who keep a Wordpress blog, have you considered this as an alternative to separate Wordpress/Micro.blog sites for short and long posts? Puzzling through a longer term solution to POSSE.
Currently reading: Laozi’s Dao De Jing by Laozi 💙📚
To solve the hard you must begin with the easy; To do something big you must start very small. All difficulties must be resolved through simple steps. All grand deeds must be performed through tiny details.
One of my minor complaints about the Matter read-it-later app was addressed in a big way today. “Co-Reader” provides AI assistance at the paragraph level. Tap any paragraph in an article and to see AI-generated questions and answers. All within the app. Immersive reading at its best.
Question for @manton: I notice that sometimes when I make small changes to my site, like changing the category of a post, my website won’t reflect the change. I’ve switched devices, browsers, etc. No difference. The only thing that works is rebuilding the site. Is this normal or a sign of a problem?
Wisdom from Kevin Kelly:
Productivity is often a distraction. Don’t aim for better ways to get through your tasks as quickly as possible, rather aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.
Apple is launching a new product this week — probably an iPhone SE. But what if they unveil an e-reader and a subscription reading service? Books are in the cross-hairs of the intersection between arts and technology. Amazon and e-readers are ripe for Apple-style disruption. A man can dream!
I love my Kindle Oasis, but Amazon is sure making it hard to stay loyal. Maybe Kobo will save the day and release an updated black and white e-reader to replace its discontinued Libra 2. This should be the golden age for e-reader innovation. Kobo? Apple? Sony? Anyone?
Wednesday, February 12, 2025 →
Ah, Patrick O’Brian. He was truly one of a kind. If you haven’t discovered Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, there’s not a moment to lose. 💙📚
💬 You learn to dance with the limp.
Sometimes I’ve thought of grief as missing an amputated limb, but walking with a limp is better. Thank you @chrisheck for sharing this.
My blog had its tenth birthday last July, and I forgot to celebrate: Why Blogs Matter
Think different. 💬
Finished reading: Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks 💙📚
An entertaining book filled with practical advice on how to improve your storytelling, whether in front of a live audience, on a date, or in a written essay. Dicks shares examples of his own stories, then breaks down why they work. ★★★★☆
<img src=“https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/125484/2025/dd54e41e-b5b4-42ca-bc9a-83d3b708188c.png" width=“600” height=“337” alt=“Quote from Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks: “Storytellers end their stories in the most advantageous place possible. They omit the endings that offer neat little bows and happily-ever-afters. The best stories are a little messy at the end. They offer small steps, marginal progress, questionable results."">
Incredible update to the Readwise app today. You can now “chat” with your highlights, which uses AI to find connections you probably overlooked or forgot from your reading. Since it only draws from the highlights you saved, the results are astonishingly personal. This is my kind of AI! 💙📚
