Currently reading: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt 📚
Microposts
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 is no path, only a heading, a direction, in conversation with the elements. Looking back, we see the wake we have left as only a brief glimmering trace on the waters.
Finished reading: The Regulators by Richard Bachman/Stephen King 📚★★★☆☆
Continuing my quest to read every Stephen King novel … The Regulators was published on the same day as Desperation. Many of the same characters bedeviled by the same evil spirit Tak, but set in a parallel universe. The book covers of the two novels make up a single scene:
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 accountant. If I had not picked up this habit in the library long ago, I would have more money in the bank today; I would not be richer.
— Pete Hamill
Finished reading: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 📚
This book was nothing like I expected. Frankenstein (the scientist) is arrogant, self-absorbed, and makes incredibly bad decisions. The story itself is unbelievably far-fetched. There were times I wanted to throw my Kindle on the floor at the dumb-assedness of our unreliable protagonist.
Taken more broadly, it’s a cautionary tale about mankind’s continual push for scientific advancement, which feels more relevant today than ever.
Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.
It’s easy to find fault in the style of the writing or the three-level deep epistolary narrative, but this novel arguably created the science fiction genre while delivering a warning about the unbridled use of science and technology … in 1831.
And get this: Mary Shelley was a teenager when wrote Frankenstein. A teenager!
Currently reading: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 📚
Slow to post this, but I’m doing a group read of this classic on BlueSky (#hotfranksummer).
Currently reading: The Regulators by Richard Bachman 📚
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 was about that, but so much more. This novel has warmth and sadness and joy and despair. Characters that will stick with me for a long, long time. I’m reluctant to part with them to be honest. Dickens truly was a one-of-a-kind master storyteller. ★★★★★
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 the world that it is not able to digest the abundance of idle matter that is every day hatched and brought into the world.
Barnaby Rich, known primarily for his Elizabethan short stories, wrote this in the year 1600. I wonder what Barnaby would think of our always-connected and ever-distracted present day?
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 Helene, the zany book-loving American, and Mr. Frank Doel, the reserved British bookseller. The abrupt ending catches you off guard, but it’s also perfect. ★★★★☆
The Booksellers documentary is so, so good. All the bookshelves, rare books, home libraries … and so many kindred spirits talking about their love of books. The whole documentary is beautiful and a little melancholy. Booksellers and librarians are my favorite people. Watch it on Amazon Prime.
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 libraries? Of course I’m going to love it. A good father’s day gift for a dad who loves books. ★★★★★
Currently reading: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 📚
Finished reading: The Death of Grass by John Christopher 📚
A short 1950s SciFi novel about a virus that kills grasses. Starvation and violence breaks out. Governments fall. Civilization crumbles. Except for the very dated portrayal of women, the story felt current. ★★★★☆
Finished reading: The Reformation by Will Durant 📚
Currently reading: The Death of Grass by John Christopher 📚
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 30: Hometown
Vashon Island will always be my hometown.
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 read it. ★★★★★
Finished reading: Sibley’s Birding Basics by David Allen Sibley 📚
Ah, the inevitable slide into birdwatching. Great introductory guide to help me get started. ★★★★☆
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 29: Drift
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 28: Community
Of all the communities I’ve been a part of - industry leader, islander, 55+ retirement living - liveaboard boat life was the most incredible. We all had a little extra salt water in our veins that compelled us to a life afloat. Good times.
📷 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 Patrick O’Brian are wonderful. I am perpetually rereading them. I think I’m on my fourth circumnavigation after my first voyage some 20 years ago.
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 26: Critters
📷 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 stories a dozen times over the past thirty years. Scribbles and underlines and exclamation marks scattered throughout. A life in marginalia.
📷 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 blanket of stars?
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 23: Dreamy
Currently reading: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 📚
Finished reading: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin 📚
Characters who love books and reading, lots of fun literary references, a bookstore set on an island … this one could have been written just for me. ★★★★☆
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 22: Blue
Crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca on a clear, calm day.
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 21: Mountain
Mount Rainier while under sail in Commencement Bay (2006).
