Finished reading: The Renaissance by Will Durant 📚
Reading The Story of Civilization
In the spring of last year, I started reading The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant. This is no quick undertaking. Spanning eleven volumes and 10,000 pages, it will take me the rest of this year to finish.
The first volume was published in 1935 when Durant had just turned 50. He published the final volume forty years later. Midway through these decades of writing, Will's wife Ariel became a co-author and active collaborator in this epic undertaking. Together, they read an average of five hundred books as research for each published volume.
The Story of Civilization is regarded as one of the most compelling narratives of world history ever written. The tenth volume, Rousseau and Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1968. Goodreads currently gives these books a 4.4 out of 5. Such a high rating is rare, which indicates how readers truly admire the series. Essayist Jamie Todd Rubin chose these as the sole books to take along to his proverbial desert island, which was all the prompting I needed to start this adventure.
While the books were best-sellers during their time, I do wonder how many people got around to reading them. Who has the time to read this much history? After all, this set collected dust on my bookshelves for twenty-five years before I picked up the first volume.
But the intrepid reader who perseveres is in for a telling of history unlike any other. Durant’s writing is clear, colorful, engaging, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. He's good at digging into the philosophical and religious beliefs of these ancient civilizations to parse out what elements contribute to our present-day ideas and also what, if any, stand up to his skeptical intellect. He pokes fun at the war-mongering gods of Egypt and Persia but shows genuine reverence for the ancient Hindu Upanishads with their belief in impersonal immortality and the oneness we share with the universe. In Ancient Rome, we learn about Julius Caesar and Nero, yes, but also about thinkers like Cicero and Seneca, about the everyday lives of both emperors and peasants, how they cooked, celebrated, and prayed. I feel like I'm on a journey through time with Professor Durant, and he's motioning for me to sit nearer to him while we take all this in together.
I have a personal reason for reading these books. I inherited the first six volumes from my grandmother, which were a Christmas gift to her from my grandfather in 1959. He died a few years later, before the seventh volume was published and before I had a chance to meet him. My grandmother became a widow at 57, two years younger than I am today. She was always a voracious reader, and I know I inherited my love of learning and books from her.
I have the benefit of my grandmother's notes in the margins as she read these books some forty years ago. I recognize her cursive handwriting, her exclamation marks, her underlining. I am adding my notes to hers. It's like we're reading this grand history together. Maybe one day, my daughter will join us in this shared experience across time and generations.
I am nearing the end of the fifth volume, The Renaissance, which covers the history of Italy from the 14th to mid-16th centuries. My progress is slow but steady. I read an average of 30 pages a night in my little library, hot tea by my side, pen in hand. I've come to cherish this time with Professor Durant. There have been more than a few times when my jaw dropped open in sheer disbelief at what I've read. I am shocked both by the crazy shit that has happened during the darker periods of our history and that it took so many years for me to learn all of this.
I've reached a point in life where I have the time to dedicate to personal projects. Early retirement has its thrills and challenges. Without direction or structure, I could see how I could squander these precious years. But this is something I’ve dreamed of doing since college. I always loved literature and philosophy, but I was too practical to consider a career in academia. Instead, I compromised. I majored in accounting with a personal vow to resume a scholar's life as soon as financially possible. In hindsight, that is exactly what I have done.
I read a lot, but my knowledge of history is uneven. I’ve read many biographies and a few accounts of specific eras. I have a good grasp of the history of the British Navy during the Age of Sail, early American history, and World War II. I know a little about Ancient Greece and Rome from my readings of philosophy and Stoicism. But these pockets of knowledge feel like tiny stabs of light in an immense underground cavern. Reading Durant, I am slowly illuminating the darkness. I am renewing my education, my scholarship.
Rounding out my knowledge of history complements my other reading as well. How many books have you read that referenced a historical event or leader that you glossed over? If you’re like me, a lot. Having a broad sense of history has deepened my understanding of practically every book I’ve read since I started this adventure. I feel extra synapses firing when I understand a historical reference that would have flown over my head before this newfound knowledge. And with bi-directional links in Craft, my reading notes have exploded in value with the addition of this history overlay. I feel nearer to wisdom the more I read these books.
In the Dark Ages, owning a copy of the Bible was strongly discouraged by the Roman Catholic Church. It was believed that only the clergy could properly interpret the Scriptures. A driving force behind the Italian Renaissance was a loosening of these religious laws to permit a greater pursuit of knowledge, which in turn led to a rediscovery of the philosophy and wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
Today, we face a different obstacle. Our attention spans have shortened from the constant dopamine drip of social media and TikTok videos, the binge-worthy Netflix dramas, and the pressure to keep up with present events that wash over us like a river. We divide ourselves into polarizing groups, yet read the same books, the same news feeds, and the same websites, and thus end up thinking the same way. Our horizons are laughably short. Modern wisdom can sometimes feel like an oxymoron.
Perhaps, then, a study of history is the antidote we all need to make sense of this distracted and confusing world. Maybe the context of prior ages could help us better understand our current struggles. As they say, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Steinbeck captures my basic attitude towards New Years Resolutions here in the third week of January:
It is very strange that when you set a goal for yourself, it is hard not to hold toward it even if it is inconvenient and not even desirable.
My Two Journals
I surprised myself a little over a year ago by writing in a paper journal every morning. The surprise wasn’t that I was keeping a journal but that I was doing it by hand. I had been using the Day One journaling app to record my private thoughts for over a decade. But this was no ordinary year. After suffering an immeasurable loss, I yearned for the comfort that sometimes only flows from pen and paper.
Yet what’s even more surprising is that this was no momentary whim. I’ve kept up this daily habit of scribbling in a notebook in the morning and typing in Day One at night for over a year now. And I think I’ve pieced together why, for me, the combination of analog and digital writing has developed into the best possible journaling experience.
The Benefits of Journaling
Keeping a journal promotes mindfulness, reduces stress and anxiety, improves memory, and can enhance creativity. Journaling can also help you heal from profound loss, providing solace, catharsis, and a means to explore feelings that might otherwise get suppressed. When my son was killed in a motorcycle accident a little over a year ago, I turned to my journal as a way to process my grief.
I am not new to journaling. I’ve kept a private journal for more than thirty years. I filled a dozen notebooks before switching over to Day One in 2012. My journal holds almost four thousand entries dating back as far as 1982.1 I haven’t missed a night of journaling in almost a thousand days.
The Lure of Paper
Despite my appreciation for digital efficiency, I’ve always carried a Field Notes notebook in the back pocket of my jeans or my bag. I like the feel of a pen in my hand when I’m thinking. When we moved to Arizona last year, I knew we wouldn’t be traveling as much as we did aboard our trawler. I decided to upgrade to a full-size desk journal for a change of pace. As one does, I scoured the internet for a suitable notebook.2
I chose the B5 Journal Pro from Scribbles That Matter, which is roughly the size of an iPad, though much thicker. The notebook paper is numbered, dotted, and thick enough to feel luxurious and sturdy with no bleed-through (the paper is rated at 120 gsm). There are two placeholder ribbons, several index pages, and a tucked-in folder in the back of the book for storing notecards or loose paper. When you open the notebook, you hear that satisfying crack of the binding. The book lays flat on a desk.3 The cover is made from vegan leather and feels terrific. This is undoubtedly the nicest journal I’ve ever owned.
I didn’t know how I would use the notebook at first, but a pattern soon emerged. I reached for it as I sipped my first cup of coffee in the morning while my mind was fresh and any dreams still lingered. I would write a half page of fragments, lists, how I slept, and stray thoughts that were top of mind. Sometimes, my pen would linger over the page for minutes, my mind in a meditative trance. Other times, the words that escaped my pen surprised me, like a possessed Ouija board. Later in the day or evening, I might write a little more about the book I was reading or capture a quote I had heard, but most of the action this notebook saw was during that first cup of morning coffee.
I wrote more honestly and sincerely about the loss I had suffered than I did at the keyboard. Slowly, over days and weeks, the pages filled and overflowed with feelings my stoic heart couldn’t express in front of a blinking cursor.
After several months of morning writing, I marveled over how connected I had become to this notebook. Would-be journal keepers who give up too soon miss out on the magic of a journal filled with 50 or more pages of their musings. Flipping back through prior days and weeks of writing reveals the mosaic of meaning you missed because you were standing too near. These cryptic clues drawn from your subconscious remain invisible until you turn the pages just right and suddenly glimpse the pattern. The invitation to revisit what you wrote yesterday or last month prompts you to probe deeper into the crux of what’s troubling you.
Why Two Journals
And yet, as much as I enjoy this handwritten journal, I still use Day One in the evenings. The two journals flow from different parts of my brain, though they work together in an interesting way.
At a keyboard, I write in complete sentences in my practiced journal voice. I am articulate. I write to understand, yes, but also to communicate with some future version of myself, or potentially others. All my published essays began as one of these nightly journal entries. The handwritten notebook is focused squarely on the present moment; the writing in Day One leans back and tilts forward. One is meditation; the other is memoir.
During the time I’ve kept the handwritten journal, the quality of my writing in Day One feels richer. Fragmentary scribbles in the morning often blossom after a day of rumination, elongating into full sentences and paragraphs. A vague concept at daybreak might give birth to the start of an essay that night or maybe a few days or weeks later. There is a give-and-take between these two journals that I’ve come to appreciate.
And besides, Day One isn’t going anywhere. With thousands of entries spanning three decades of my life, the app holds tremendous value for me. I search it often to track down events, trips, critical milestones in my life. The memories I’ve captured of my son stand out like beacons of light on my darker days. Writing each night in Day One is a ritual that helps settle my mind and bring closure to the day.
A New Year, A New Journal
I completed the final page of my paper journal on the last day of 2023. I realized this potentiality in the middle of December and managed my writing output to coincide with this tidy conclusion. Filling one of these journals each calendar year feels right.
After so many years of digital journaling, I forgot what it felt like to retire one. I had grown quite attached to this old journal with its hundreds of pages of private thoughts. After a year of daily use, the book held up surprisingly well. No loose pages, and the binding is still tight. Before shelving it in its lovely slipcase alongside my other paper journals, I archived a PDF copy with the scanner app on my iPhone for safekeeping.
I am slowly breaking in the new notebook, an identical twin to its predecessor. I miss paging through past entries before I start to write in the morning. But, perhaps it’s a good reminder to celebrate new beginnings and the ever-changing nature of life, to close the book on a year of sorrow. I am not healed. There is no healing from some losses. But, at least I can measure the distance I have traveled through the pages of my two journals.
Do you keep a journal? Do you use an app, or do you write by hand? Or both? I’d love to hear about your experiences with journaling in the comments below.
- I liked Day One so much that I transcribed my old journals to have a complete digital archive. ↩
- If you’re curious about the features and characteristics that make a great notebook, I highly recommend Mark Fig’s Hobbyist Hangout podcast on notebooks. ↩
- I followed Ryder Carroll’s advice on how to break in a new notebook, which I’m sure helped the notebook lay flat and keep the spine from wearing. ↩
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 course of a year. I struggled with the serpentine sentences and French society references at the time, but passages like these stuck with me. 📚
Currently reading: The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 📚
Quicken Classic for Mac - A Long-time User Review
I’ve used some version of Quicken for 35 years. That puts me in a stodgy demographic that manages money in a certain “this is how I’ve always done it” way. For the uninitiated, Quicken is a personal finance software program that helps manage your checkbook and credit cards, pay your bills, keep to a budget, and track investments. It’s available on Windows and Mac, though there are differences in capabilities between the two. There are companion apps for iPhone and iPad, but they feel like afterthoughts, lacking key functionality of the desktop software. Quicken Classic is sold as an annual subscription across three offerings: Deluxe, Premier, and the recently released Business and Personal edition.
Seven years ago, I switched from Quicken Premier for Windows to the less capable Mac version. I’ve written previous blog posts about using Quicken on the Mac: in early 2018 when I switched and follow-on updates in 2019 and 2020. In large part, I was critical of the Mac version of the software, particularly its inability to export investment data.
In the intervening four years since my last post, Quicken has improved in many ways, including the ability to export all its data, including investments, to Quicken for Windows. With this critical functionality in place, I thought it was time to provide an updated and favorable review of the Mac version of Quicken and how I rely on it to manage almost every aspect of my financial life.
Why Quicken
I began my career in public accounting and held a CPA license in Washington state for over thirty years. I spent most of my career as a finance executive with a large publicly traded company, which allowed me direct experience with stock options, restricted stock units, performance shares, deferred compensation plans, and various employee benefit programs that follow that kind of employment. I’ve always tried to be disciplined when it comes to money, and I’m comfortable managing my own finances. With this background and financial situation, I have had many opportunities to evaluate and push the boundaries of Quicken as a personal finance program.
It takes time and expense to maintain a system like Quicken. Many manage their money with simpler apps or just by scanning their accounts online. For me, the effort of a system is worth it. With Quicken, I know what’s going on with my spending and income in relation to expectations every week. Every expense has a monthly budget that fits within a long-range plan. The impact of gyrations in the stock market is personalized with a press of a button. My entire financial history is accessible from Quicken’s search bar. Bills always get paid on time. Checks never bounce. I am rarely surprised at the end of a month, quarter, or year. The peace of mind I get from using Quicken far outweighs the cost.
As a disclaimer, I don’t work for Quicken or have any financial interest in the software or related services. Quicken doesn’t offer a free trial to evaluate, so unbiased reviews from actual users are helpful. I read almost everything I could find before switching to the Mac in 2018. Consider this update an act of paying it forward.
Recent Improvements
Since 2020, there have been dozens of software updates to Quicken. Unlike those early years when I first moved to the Mac, Quicken has now become a pleasure to use, and I consider it a stable, trusted system. Here are a few of the improvements that made the most significant impact on my use:
Error-free Transaction Downloading. The team at Quicken has vastly improved the technology involved in downloading transactions from banks, credit card companies, and brokerage firms. When I first used the Mac version, download errors would pop up continuously. Those days are happily behind me. I'll go weeks and months between download errors, which seem to resolve after a day. My experience is limited to just a few institutions, so your own mileage may vary.
Investment Analysis and Dashboards. The Mac software now provides overall investment allocation between stocks, bonds, and cash, even with mutual funds that own a blend of assets. This update essentially removed the need for me to separately analyze my investments in Excel. In addition, a new dashboard provides a valuable snapshot of investment performance and holdings that rivals and, in some ways, exceeds my brokerage tools. Quicken’s investment section has become quite good.
Bill Manager. Quicken has refined its bill tracking and payment capabilities in a big way. The Premier version of Quicken offers free bill paying, but I prefer to send these occasional checks directly from my bank. I use their bill manager service, though, which does some pretty innovative things. First, it can download PDF statements automatically without having to log in to the payee’s website each month and hunt around for the statement. It also automatically schedules the payment based on the due date and records in the payment register. You can make payments directly from Quicken, but my recurring bills are paid automatically, so recording the transaction is all I need. A couple of companies I pay aren’t included in Quicken’s Bill Manager service, but these can be added manually. Second, I get a nice cash balance forecast as these future bill payments are scheduled in the register, preventing possible overdrafts or shortfalls. Bill Manager solves a problem I didn’t know I had, and I’m glad I have it.
Snappy Performance. The software runs faster thanks to performance improvements, particularly with newer Silicon Macs. I use Quicken on an M1 MacBook Air and an M2 Mac Mini. Both perform exceptionally well.
Investment Data Export. Until late last year, Quicken for Mac’s export capabilities excluded investment data. This meant I could not move back to Quicken for Windows or any other competing personal finance apps without losing all my investment history. I hated having to rely on this one particular version of software for all my precious financial data. Luckily, Quicken has now fixed this shortcoming, and Mac users of the software can breathe a collective sigh of relief.
Mac Version Still Lags Windows
Despite the many improvements to the Mac version of Quicken, it still lags behind the Windows version in a few key areas:
- Reporting in the Windows version is more robust, customizable, and allows comparisons to budget.
- Windows Investment analysis is more in-depth with Morningstar Portfolio X-Ray and performance benchmarking.
- Tax Center in Windows makes income tax planning easier by calculating estimated taxes using actual tax brackets on recorded income.
Other planning tools like Lifetime Planner, Debt Reduction, and Savings Goals haven’t made it to the Mac yet, but these tools always felt a little gimmicky. I didn’t use them on Windows, so I don’t miss them on Mac.
Quicken Risks and Alternatives
This is an interesting time for legacy software companies like Quicken. I suspect their loyal customers look a lot like me: retired or near retirement, comfortable with desktop apps, lugging along a decade or more of historical data within their app, and resistant to change.
Most new entrants into the personal finance technology space are mobile app-centric. Some don’t even offer desktop apps. Quicken has recently entered this space with its Simplify mobile app and likely believes it represents most of its future growth, which explains why it recently rebranded its desktop software to Quicken Classic.
Intuit, the former parent company of Quicken, recently announced the shutdown of its personal finance app, Mint. Mint is one of the most popular and longest-running app-based finance tools, so its demise sent shockwaves through its customer base. Indeed, this announcement caused me to look more carefully at my use of Quicken and think through what steps I would need to take if the service were similarly shuttered.
I think that the risk is relatively low. Aquiline Capital Partners acquired Quicken in 2021. Typically, private equity firms maintain ownership from five to seven years, so Quicken is in the sweet spot of ownership. Aquiline will be focused on investment and growth vs. the cost-cutting and profit harvesting that comes near the end of the investment horizon as they look to sell their asset. This is good news for Quicken’s current customers.
And yet, I can’t help but feel that users of Quicken software are on borrowed time. Highly regarded mobile apps like Monarch Money and Copilot will continue to improve and introduce more and more capabilities. Eventually, Quicken will be forced to mothball its desktop software as everything moves to the cloud and apps. This is one of the reasons I’m happy that Quicken for Mac’s export function now includes investment data. I might not need this now, but someday I will.
As a safeguard, I create and archive two export files from Quicken every quarter. One is simply the Quicken Transfer File (QFX) you can export from the file menu. I also download a CSV file of all my Quicken transactions by selecting All Transactions from the sidebar and choosing Export Register Transactions to CSV from the File menu. This yields a 60,000-row text file I can access with Excel to search and sort every transaction stored in Quicken for the past 30 years. Between these files, I’m confident I could move my history to a new finance app without too much trouble, even if Quicken stopped working altogether.
Recommendations
Quicken Classic for Mac has a lot going for it in 2024. The software is intuitive, stable, and a pleasure to use. I am pleased with Quicken’s decision to allow a complete export of my data, including investments, should I ever need it. As a Mac user, I have no desire to revert to the more capable Windows version through Parallels or some other clunky virtualization process.
Quicken’s subscription cost is fair for the value I receive, and the frequent updates are delivered almost monthly (as I write this, Quicken released Version 7.5.0, which introduced more new enhancements). Almost all personal finance apps use a subscription business model, and many are more expensive than Quicken. Buying an annual license during Black Friday sales in November can save 30-40% off the regular subscription rate.
For someone with 30 years of history with Quicken, I’m in no mood to switch platforms, given the state of the app today.
And yet, if I were just starting out, would I choose Quicken? I doubt it. From a clean slate, I would probably choose one of the more innovative mobile apps that deliver the power of personal financial management to your pocket or tablet. I plan to test drive a few of these over the coming year to better understand these next-generation tools.
Until then, Quicken for Mac will remain my everyday companion and financial advisor. If you’re a long-time Quicken for Windows user considering switching to the Mac, it’s an excellent time to make the leap.
Finished reading: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree 📚
My Year in Reading
I read 75 books in 2023, my high water mark for the most reading in a year. Books have always been like a warm blanket, and I needed that comfort during a most challenging year.
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. — James Baldwin
I took on some ambitious books during the year. I read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which has long been on my to-be-read pile. I read a new translation of The Odyssey after having last followed the plight of heroic Odysseus some thirty years ago. I am tackling a multi-year reading of Will and Ariel Durant’s epic eleven-volume Story of Civilization. I inherited these books from my Grandmother twenty-five years ago, and I have finally found the time to read them. Discovering her careful handwriting in the margins of these books has revealed a new and somewhat startling side to my prim and proper Grandmother. What you mark and highlight says a lot about your thoughts and beliefs. It’s like a second history is being told in these pages. I’ve decided to leave my own trail of marginalia for my daughter, should she find the patience and fortitude to complete this generational journey herself one day.
A Slow Read of The Story of Civilization
Favorites of the Year
My favorite novel in 2023 was Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane. It’s a bleak book, but protagonist Mary Pat Fennessy is one of the most compelling characters I’ve encountered in a long, long while. She made the bleakness of this book and its theme of parental grief worth it. I will reread this one if only to spend more time with Mary Pat.
I love essays and usually read a half dozen essay compilations during any given year. My favorite this year was These Precious Days by Ann Patchett, who also narrated the audiobook. I recall precise moments on my walks through our neighborhood here in Verrado as I stopped to soak in the wisdom and honesty of this brilliant author speaking to me through my AirPods.
My favorite non-fiction book was The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh. Sometimes, the universe sends you exactly the book you most need to read. What a clear-eyed and compelling manifesto of living your best life right now.
Stephen King Challenge
In May, I discovered I had read more Stephen King novels than any other author, living or otherwise. Out of his 74 published works of fiction (excluding collaborations), I had read an astonishing 47 of them. It shouldn’t surprise me that I’ve read so much of this author. I love a good yarn, and Mr. King is almost certainly our generation’s most preeminent storyteller. I count Misery, The Dark Tower series, The Stand, and The Shining as some of my all-time favorite reads.
So, I decided to go back and read the 28 books I had missed along the way. In 2023, I read 14 of those, including his most recent novel, Holly. My favorite from the year was Night Shift, his first collection of short stories published in 1977.
I look forward to tackling the remaining 14 unread gems in 2024 before the prolific Mr. King publishes his next book.
More Physical Books in 2023
For the past few years, I’ve borrowed most of the books I read from the library on my Kindle using the Libby app. This year, two-thirds of the books I read were physical copies I own. There was a reason for this change.
We moved from Washington state to Arizona late last year, which afforded the possibility of a larger home library. In my old library, I had to donate a book to make room for every new one I purchased. After nearly twenty years of scanning the crammed shelves for the next sacrifice, choosing what book to cull became excruciating. Borrowing books on Libby seemed the more humane choice.
The new library was indeed more spacious. Once all sixty boxes of books from the move were properly shelved, I marveled at the many gaps between books. This was all the invitation I needed. With joyful abandon, I bought dozens of books during the year to fill those unsightly gaps. I joined two book clubs. I experienced once again that long-forgotten thrill of leaving a used bookstore with a bagful of books. The gaps slowly narrowed and finally evaporated. I struggled in vain to find an open spot for Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li, the last book I finished this year.
In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long… Ultimately the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted. — Alberto Manguel
The coming year will see another series of book sacrifices and likely a return to library borrowing. I enjoyed this book buying spree while it lasted.
My Reading System
I use the Craft app to house all my reading notes and links to my personal note system. I passed the three-year mark of using Craft and have now written and linked over 250 literature notes in this quasi-Zettelkasten system. The connections between books and ideas inside Craft have produced more than a few epiphanies and have indeed taken on a life of its own as a knowledge system.
I continue to be an avid fan of the ReadWise service to collect and review notes and highlights from my reading. I added 234 new highlights to the system this year, bringing me to 1,600 total passages in ReadWise. My daily review of five random selected highlights always makes me smile … and ponder.
Craft and ReadWise form a system that helps me retain and leverage more of what I read. For as much time and money as I spend with my nose in a book, these tools ensure I get the best return for that investment. If you’re curious about either of these apps, please see my earlier post, Read Better with Craft and ReadWise.
The Year Ahead
At my steady pace of 30 pages per evening, I expect to finish The Story of Civilization sometime late in 2024. Beyond that, I’ve been toying with the idea of reading only books I already own, reading only books written in the last year, books written more than a hundred years ago, or reading books I’ve already read. But I know myself. I won’t do any of these things. Books are a comfort to me, and the right book at the right time is the best comfort of all. I’ll know it when I read it.
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 single year. Many of the stories in this collection touch on the hard to articulate grief of losing a child, which hit home for me. ★★★★☆
Currently reading: An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong 📚
Finished reading: Holly by Stephen King 📚
I found this lovely bookmark in my Christmas stocking. Santa knows me so well! 📚
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, circumvolumed, peribibliated … it implies the traditional library wrapped in shelves of books, and the condition of rapt attention to a particular volume, and the rapture of of being transported to the wood beyond the world.
… and
Entering our library should feel like easing into a hot tub, strolling into a magic store, emerging into the orchestra pit, or entering a chamber of curiosities, the club, the circus, our cabin on an outbound yacht, the house of an old friend. It is a setting forth, and it is a coming back to center. Borges, of course, thought it was entering Paradise.
Sometimes a book feels like it was written just for you. May we all find ourselves Book-wrapt this holiday season. ★★★★★
Currently reading: Holly by Stephen King 📚
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 tips and advice to improve your writing.
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 paying close attention to the marvels that surround us.
How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god?
Currently reading: Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li 📚
Finished reading: The Vagabond’s Way by Rolf Potts 📚
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, I’ve now read thirteen King books this year. The 700-page Christine book flew by on my Kindle. Lots of supernatural fun mixed in with nostalgia for my late 1970s youth. I’m tempted now to watch the movie, which I somehow also missed.
I listened to the audiobook version of Blaze on long walks through the Arizona desert. I enjoyed the story with just a hint of the otherworldly, feeling sorry for the misunderstood and troubled Blaze.
Right now, I have just fifteen more books to go, until this prolific author publishes his next one. It feels a little like walking up the down escalator. But what a great problem to have.