📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 6: Windy
Gale force winds aboard MV Indiscretion.
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 body of its protagonist, Furlong. You feel the pangs of long-ago childhood angst, the chill of an Irish cold spell, the ugliness of small town bigotry, the warmth of a coal stove, the despair over the human cruelty. The Irish dialogue felt more like music or birdsong, making me wish my own language wasn’t so ordinary and flat. I felt sad to leave Furlong’s side after so short a visit, but the tale and ending was told in just the right way, with just the right words. ★★★★★
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 5: Serene
Toba Inlet, British Columbia, aboard MV Indiscretion.
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 4: Foliage
Currently reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 📚
📷 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 a motorcycle accident two years later. I usually toss cards, but I kept this one, and I treasure it. Hug your kids tonight.
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 2: Flowers
📷 Day01 : toy (@pcora)
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 you’d want to hear from anyone holding a stick.
I enjoyed the TV series, but the book is even better.
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.
Currently reading: Sibley’s Birding Basics by David Allen Sibley 📚
Finished reading: Dune by Frank Herbert 📚 ★★★★★
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
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 kind of camping.
Currently reading: Dune by Frank Herbert 📚
Rereading ahead of seeing the movie. I had forgotten how much I loved this book.
Finished reading: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh 📚 ★★★☆☆
The End of Private Libraries
There seem to be two kinds of people on this earth—those who love books and everyone else. The bookish have always been far outnumbered, and the gap must be widening in this age of endless digital entertainment. I count myself among the proud minority, but a book, of all things, has brought into question my lifelong practice of keeping a private library.
A recent acquisition illustrates the issue.
“Didn’t you just read this on your Kindle,” Lisa asks me as she flips through the book I’ve brought home.
I dislike direct questioning about my book-buying habits. It feels like the pointed inquiries on medical questionnaires about alcohol consumption.
“Yeah, but I liked it so much I wanted the hard copy,” I tell her.
The fact is, I will likely never read this book, even though I did enjoy it. I bought the book because I like having a visual, tangible record of the time this book and I spent together. I like scanning my shelves and seeing proof of a rich reading life. I like the way a roomful of books makes me feel about myself. Besides, I tell myself, there are worse ways to spend money.
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 Mac and iOS. No futzing, just my words. Blog post: Bear 2 for Writing and Thinking.
Bear 2 for Writing and Thinking
For the past six weeks, I’ve been evaluating an app to replace Craft for my reading notes. This post shares the reasons I’m moving away from Craft and why Bear 2 might be the best app around for writing and thinking on the Mac and iPad.
Craft and the Value of Connected Notes
I use Craft to capture the notes, quotes, and wisdom I’ve gleaned from reading and studying. Before Craft, these notes languished in the margins of books or notecards stuffed in a file box. In three years with Craft, I have written almost four hundred reading notes linked to several hundred dedicated theme notes, creating what is unfortunately called in personal knowledge management circles a “second brain.”
The lofty promises of automatic insights from smart note-taking tools are mostly overblown. I still resort to notecards or a paper notebook when I’m forced to really concentrate. A digital tool does solve the issue of near-instant retrieval, though, and there is goodness in gathering notes together in a trusted system.
Currently reading: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh 📚