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.

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. 📚

Marcel Proust Quote from Time Regained

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. ★★★★☆

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. ★★★★★

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?

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.

The Age of Faith by Will Durant

Finished reading: The Age of Faith by Will Durant 📚

I finished this fourth installment of Will Durant’s Story of Civilization after three months of slow, careful reading. The Age of Faith begins with the fall of Rome and carries through the end of the Middle Ages. The writing is clear, colorful, engaging, often horrifying, and occasionally laugh-out-loud hilarious. Along the way, I encountered kings and popes, treachery and atrocities, saints and philosophers, economic systems, the building of cathedrals and castles, and primers on the great works of literature and philosophy across a thousand years of recorded time.

Continue reading →

Finished reading: Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross 📚

Your Brain on Art is the latest selection from the Next Big Idea Club. The authors did a nice job of gathering scientific evidence of how art making and appreciation physically changes your brain. I loved the part where a scientist discovered that different sound waves can alter the shape and appearance of our heart cells. Lots of good science-based tips on how to flourish by incorporating art in your everyday life. For me, I’m planning to spend more time really listening (and dancing!) to new music, not just having it on in the background. ★★★★