I came for the essays on the craft of writing, but stayed for her views on RV life, dogs, opera, marriage, friendship, etc. An eclectic collection, but all Ann Patchett. What a writer. β β β β β
I enjoyed these episodic adventures in the wilds of South Africa amongst elephants and the incredible struggle to preserve and cohabitate with these massive and intelligent animals. An Immense World by Ed Yong introduced me to the ways in which elephants see the world from a scientific basis. Here, the author tells the story from practical experience.Β
Anthony is a good storyteller. Much of the book feels more like a suspense novel than memoir. The writing isnβt great, but the stories are good enough to look past that.
What I didnβt expect was the sadness mixed in with the joy. There were hard losses sprinkled throughout the book that spoke to the necessary interchange between growth and decline, life and death. I was pretty emotional at the end with the loss of two brave souls, one then the other.Β
I was saddened to learn that Anthony passed away a few short years after publishing this book. May he rest in peace with the knowledge of the incredible legacy he left behind. β β β β β
From this week’s release notes from journaling app Day One:
By streamlining the appβs features, we can focus on delivering a better overall experience for all users, regardless of the device they use.
Day One has been under fire for removing features and mucking up their intuitive user interface. This problem pervades all indy software firms that expand beyond their core platform (i.e. 1Password). Developing for Android and Web will increase their potential customers, but hurt quality as their capabilities and UX as they stoop to the lowest common denominator.
I loved Lamott’s Bird by Bird memoir on the writing craft. The writing here was good, but forced. Too many similes, too many quotes from others. Great life advice: be kind to yourself & others, all we need is love, etc., but too much hand-wringing. β β β ββ
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 posted my question as a reply to the closest topic on the help forum. My reply triggered a temporary account suspension – four days ago.
I’ll read anything that Amor Towles writes. He’s one of my favorite living writers. This collection of six short stories and a novella hit the mark, though each left me wanting more, to know happens next. A master storyteller. β β β β β
Community is a body of people crying for one another, working together for a common cause, enjoying and overlooking (or grimly tolerating) each otherβs foibles; itβs a rough and beautiful quilt sewn of patches that donβt seem to go together at all, and then do.
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 and rotates into any position I need, even fully reclined. Expensive, but worth it. Headaches are gone!
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 candlelight, and how the leather wing chair barricades the door. “Don’t bother me, I’m reading,” it seems to suggest. β€οΈβ€οΈβ€οΈ
Two-thirds of the books released by the top-ten trade publishers sell fewer than a thousand copies, and less than four per cent sell more than twenty thousand.
I knew that bestselling authors dominate book sales, but these are humbling statistics for anyone contemplating the Herculean effort of writing and publishing a first book.
A strange meta-detective novel with an unreliable narrator who slowly dissolves into insanity.Β I followed maybe half of the literary and Biblical allusions. Not at all what I expected, but oddly satisfying.
My quest to read all eleven volumes of Durantβs Story of Civilization continues. Volume VII has returned to the shelf with hundreds of scribbles and notes and many, many exclamation marks. If you think the world is crazy now, you ought to revisit these darker times of wholesale human butchery, religious wars and inquisitions. This has been an eye-opening and hair-raising experience.